the miners, it was realized that none of them took mining seriously or made any pretense of real work with pick and shovel." Mr. Neal knew James Gillis intimately and admitted he was a great story-teller. In fact, at the bare mention of his name he broke into a hearty laugh. "Oh, Jim Gillis, he was a great fellow!" he exclaimed. He said unquestionably Mark Twain got a good deal of material from him, and feels certain that Bret Harte must have met him at least on several occasions. Mr. Neal stated that up to the time of the Midwinter Fair, the output of gold from Tuolumne county reached the astonishing figures of $250,000,000! What it has amounted to since that time, I had no means of ascertaining. It is only twelve miles from Sonora to Tuolumne. From the top of the divide which separates the valleys there is a beautiful view of the surrounding country, the dim blue peaks of the Sierra Nevada forming the eastern sky-line. One of the chief charms of an excursion through these foothill counties is the certainty that directly you reach any considerable elevation there will be revealed a magnificent panorama, bounded only by the limit of vision, range after range of mountains running up in varying shades of blue and purple, to the far distant summits that indicate the backbone of California. Tuolumne is situated in a circular basin rather than in a valley, and thus being protected from the wind, in hot weather the heat is intense. If there are any mining operations in the immediate vicinity, they are not in evidence to the casual observer. It is, however, one of the biggest timber camps in the State. In the yards of the West Side Lumber Company, covering several hundred acres, are stacked something like 30,000,000 feet of sugar pine. The logs are brought from the mountains twenty to twenty-five miles by rail, and sawn into lumber at Tuolumne. I was told that the bulk of the lumber manufactured here was shipped abroad, a great deal going to Australia. Tuolumne, in Bret Harte's time, was called Summersville. It was destroyed by fire about fourteen years ago, but the new town has already so assimilated itself to the atmosphere of its surroundings, that its comparative youth might easily escape detection. Altogether, I was disappointed with Tuolumne, having expected to find a second Angel's, owing to its prominence in Bret Harte's stories. A lumber camp, while an excellent thing in its way, is neither picturesque nor inspiring. I spent the night at the "Turnback Inn," a large frame building, handsomely finished interiorly and built since the fire. It is, I believe, quite a summer resort, as Tuolumne is the terminus of the Sierra Railway, and one can go by way of Stockton direct to Oakland and San Francisco. Returning to Angel's the next day, I lingered again at Tuttletown. There is a strange attraction about the place - it would hold you apart from its associations, The old hotel, fast going to decay, surrounded by splendid trees whose shade is so dense as to be impenetrable to the noon-day sun, is a study for an artist. And as I gazed in a sort of day-dream at the ruins of what once was one of the liveliest camps in