Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/680

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A Boy Pathfinder Discovers a Bicycle Short Cut in an Irrigation Ditch

SCHOOLBOYS who live near El Mo- lino, California, and attend school at San Marino, travel back and forth on bicycles through a half-mile of concrete- lined irrigation ditch. The ditch "high- way" cuts off about a mile of their dis- tance to and from school and enables them

to avoid several

mean hills over /"^ which no cyclists can pedal.

Robert Hutch- inson, a lad of about thirteen years of age, is credited with having discovered the path. His boy- ish spirit of explora- tion led him to take his bicycle in at the upper end, and ride through the ditch. When he found that the other end emerged at the San Marino Road he realized he had

made a lucky discovery. He told his schoolmates about it and since the ditch is dry about nine months out of the year, it has proved a great convenience to the pupils of the school at San Marino. This same spirit of discovery has made the world what it is to-day.

��Popular Science Monthly

��tered between Maine and Texas, the Pacific coast of the United States, which has a length of about 1,100 nautical miles, has only a few' harbors which are available as a refuge for ships in stormy weather. There are no real harbors between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a distance of 367 miles and only five bar harbors, safe in bad weather, between San Francisco and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

���TOU V i

��This dry ditch forms a short cut for the schoolboys of El Molino and avoids hills too

��Trees Stunted by the Wind

UR IS TS siting the Rocky Moun- tain National Park and not afraid of strenuous exercise in mountaineering, often have the op- portunity of seeing tree forms like that shown in the ac- companying pic- ture. The trees near the timber line seldom grow up straight. They crawl along the ground, seeking the shelter and protection of the rocks against the violent North winds. The tree in the picture found shelter behind a big rock and grew strong and com- paratively big, but the height of the rock limited the height of the tree, for it could not withstand the powerful north winds.

��Lack of Safe Harbors on Our Pacific Coast

IN a recent publication on "The Neglected Waters of the Pacific Coast," issued by the Department of Commerce of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Superintendent, E. Lester •Jones, culls public attention to the radical differences be- tween the conditions and char- acter of the shore line of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific coast of the United States. While the Atlantic coast and the Gulf coast have many excellent harbors scat-

���Only in the shelter of the big rock could the tree grow in the face of strong winds above the timber line

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