Some distance from the Steep Ravine the trail descends an abrupt, wooded hillside, at the foot of which lies the Redwood Canyon. For this forest of giant redwoods, comprising six hundred acres, negotiations were pending toward making it a national reserve, but the efforts proved unsuccessful. Though of smaller dimensions than the Calaveras Big Trees, these redwoods gain by beauty of situation what they lack in size. The Canyon runs diagonally with the sea coast and has its rise in one of Tamalpais' western ribs, from which a railroad similar to the Mount Tamalpais Railway is under course of construction, connecting the Mountain with the Canyon. [Illustration: The Lone Tree.] Its present owners, Messrs. Kent & Cushing, intend to erect a hotel at the terminus of the new road, and the building, on which it is said will be expended some fifty or sixty thousand dollars, will be a fully equipped, sumptuous modern hostelry. [Illustration: Thad Welch at Work.] It is to be hoped that the march of civilization, which so often leaves nature's handiwork crushed, broken and even obliterated, will spare this grand, majestic forest in which beauty now reigns supreme. Bending low over the little stream which winds through this canyon huge sprays of azaleas filled the air with their delicate perfume; on the banks lacy wood warriors and the hardy sword-ferns mingled in graceful profusion, while the flickering sunlight filtering aslant through the tree tops fell on the transparent hazel leaves lending a soft, green glint to a neighboring pool which rippled every now and then by the action of numerous trout catching flies on its surface. [Illustration: Among the Redwoods.] Wandering beneath these perennial columns, these huge monoliths of whose birth there is no record, one feels as if treading the grandest of cathedral aisles, and that in truth "The groves were God's first temples" and "Solitude is the veritable audience chamber of the Creator." No echo follows our footsteps on the soft needles and oxalis and save for the murmuring of the little stream and the occasional calling of a mourning dove in the tree tops above there is no sound. Here, alone in these solitudes, the higher self--the soul--strikes off its shackles, and expands to the very infinitude of things, through nature to the Infinite. Near the southeastern shores of Marin lies the largest and most picturesque of the three islands which adorn San Francisco Bay. Though lawfully a portion of Marin County, Angel Island, separated from the mainland by Raccoon Straits, besides being set aside as a Government reserve, is therefore seldom classed with the County, and usually ranks with her sister islands, Alcatraz and Yerba Buena. [Illustration: Primal Solitudes.]