Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/284

 240 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA with the University of California. An admirable road rambles serpent-wise to the top of Mt. Ham- ilton, keeping in sight the sea and the Coast Range from the north far off to the south. A motor-stage makes the 28-mile trip every week- day, leaving San Jose early in the morning and re- turning there about dinner-time in the evening. On Saturdays the stage has a later schedule which enables the tourist to visit the Observatory at night when the telescope is at his disposal for a survey of the heavens. The fare to and from the summit is $5.00 for the Saturday trip, and a dol- lar less on other days. San Jose is reached about midnight on Saturdays. The route is enlivened by vistas of spacious groves, vineyards, and garden-estates, and by a view of San Jose's chief pride, the recreation ground of diverse attractions, Alum Rock Park, which is connected with the city by electric car. When the round-about road has proceeded some 20 miles, the Hotel Santa Ysabel appears in Smith Creek Canyon. Days might be spent here, fish- ing highland streams, tramping the Mt. Hamilton Hills, exploring Indian Gulch. But the excur- sionist presses on to the eminence nearly 4300 feet above sea where on a bare plaza loom the lonely edifices which James Lick's bounty gave to science thirty years ago. Born in Fredericksburg, Penn- sylvania in 1796, this pioneer, who in life was a