Leaving San Francisco, a sail of twenty-five miles brings us to the grimly island of Alcatraz, the watch dog of the Golden Gate.  
Forty miles inland lies the beautiful Napa Valley. Farm houses and villages dot the landscape. , vineyards and fields of waving grain heighten the natural beauty of this Rasselas Valley, rich in of oak trees from which depend festoons of mistletoe, meadows and running .
 
At the head of this valley stands Mount St. Helena, once a center of action. Wasnossensky, the Russian to its summit in 1841, and named it in honor of his empress, leaving on the summit a plate bearing the name of himself and his companion.
 
The Russians, with a view to commercial and political aggrandisement, did a great deal of exploring in California in the early days of her history.
 
By stage we travel through the Napa Valley to the geyser fields. On either hand are groves of redwood trees, cousins of the Giant Sequoias. In the springtime the odor of the buckeye fills the delicious morning air, just now the handsome eschscholtzias, commonly called the California poppy, brighten the meadows. Here and there stained rocks lend a deeper tone to the landscape.
 
Through this valley of strange wild beauty we arrive at the Devil’s Cañon. The nomenclature of this place is something audacious and one wishes that he might change it. Here the hero of the cañon has his kitchen, his soup bowl, his punch bowl, and his ink pot. In this spring you might dip your pen and write tales of magic that would rival those of India.
 
Here, one night, a lonely discouraged miner who had lost his way, sat in , when presently a strangely clad figure approached him. The dark face wore a expression, black eyes sparkled under villainous brows.
 
“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed the stranger when he discovered the miner.
 
 
“What would’st thou? Riches? Sign here and they are thine, or thou may’st toss me into yon caldron.”
 
Flinging aside the long black cloak that his figure he stood , his robes gleaming a red in the black night.
 
“Sign here,” and dipping his fire tipped pen into the ink pot he thrust it into the hand of the astonished miner, presenting a of parchment for the signature.
 
“Ha, ha, ha,” came in tones , as the fortune hunter seized the pen in his eager grasp. Knowing better how to the pick than the pen he seized the scroll and—made the sign of the cross.
 
His Satanic gave an unearthly yell, seized the pen and scroll, and disappeared leaving his ink-pot behind.
 
The rocks are metamorphic, sandstone, silicious and . The stratification dips sharply to the bed of Pluton .
 
There are no geysers here, only bubbling springs, but springs of beauty and interest. Here lies one, its waters a creamy white, and yonder another whose waters are deeply with sulphur, while those of its neighbor are as black as the contents of that bottle the undaunted Luther flung at the head of his Satanic Majesty on that day.
 
The waters of these springs boil over and as they flow away. Steam jets and continually. Of the many strange springs, pools and , the Witch’s Caldron is perhaps the most . A very pit of Acheron, this huge in the solid rock, seventy feet in diameter, is filled to an unknown depth with a thick inky fluid, t............