Oakland to metropolises, the two former already claiming populations
of half a million or thereabouts.

As far as its topography, its scenic qualities, are concerned, the
world of tourists already has rendered any argument upon that line
unnecessary. It is already beginning to rival Switzerland, though that
Alpine land has crowded populations within a day's journey to draw
from. One has but to name Monterey, the Mt. Shasta region, Los
Angeles, San Diego and Coronado, the Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, the Big
Trees, the King and Kern River Divide, Mono Lake and a score of
other scenic regions in California to start tongues to wagging over
interesting reminiscences, whether it be in London, Paris, Berlin,
Madrid or Petrograd.

Books galore are being published to make California's charms better
known, and it has long seemed strange to me that no book has been
published on Lake Tahoe and its surrounding country of mountains,
forests, glacial valleys, lakes and canyons, for I am confident that
in one or two decades from now its circle of admirers and regular
visitors will include people from all over the civilized world, all of
whom will declare that it is incomparable as a lake resort, and that
its infinite variety of charm, delight and healthful allurement can
never adequately be told.

Discovered by the "Pathfinder" Frémont; described in the early days of
California history and literature by John Le Conte, Mark Twain, Thomas
Starr King, Ben C. Truman, and later by John Vance Cheney and others;
for countless centuries the fishing haunt of the peaceable Nevada
_Washoes_, who first called it Tahoe--High or Clear Water--and
of the California _Monos_; the home of many of their interesting