ALIFORNIA may truthfully boast of many natural wonders and curiosities, but one of the most remarkable and beautiful spectacles may be witnessed at what is known as "Pescadero Beach." This beach is located some forty miles south of San Francisco, directly on the Pacific Ocean, and near the mouth of Pescadero creek. This beach is of considerable extent, covering several

acres.

It is thickly strewn with countlessliterally millions of pebbles. These pebbles are all small, the largest not exceeding an inch in diameter. But what is remarkable about these little rounded pieces of stone, is their wonderful brilliancy. They are rich-dazzling-in all the prismatic tints of the rainbow. Nowhere else along the Pacific coast are these pebbles found. They are, geologically, fragments of primary rocks broken up and rounded and polished by the ceaseless and restless action of the waves

beating and rolling upon them decade after decade, century after century.

When wet, as the tide recedes, they are beautiful beyond description-glittering and scintillating like a vast bed of diamonds. The onyx, emerald, jasper, sardonyx, beryl, cornelian and other precious gems find no unworthy rivals in these Pescadero Beach pebbles. Under a bright moonlight, when the beach is wet, the scene is one of incomparable beauty and brilliancy.

One peculiarity about these "gem"pebbles is, that when removed from their native beach, they seem to lose, to a great extent, their brilliancy, and even under a strong light possess only a subdued, dulled glow. Pescadero Beach is visited by great crowds, and naturally many thousands of these pebbles are gathered up and carried away; but in almost every instance, those who collect them are much disappointed when they reach home. Geologists and lapidarists have offered no. explanation of this peculiarity of the pebbles. It is a curious mystery.

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OR more than thirty years the name of of Frederick Weyerhaeuser has been linked with the lumber industry in this country, and the man has even been classed by good authority as "the leader of American lumbermen.' Of late a new distinction has been put upon Mr. Weyerhaeuser-that of being "the richest man in the world-richer than Rockefeller." Is this distinction founded on fact? Perhaps not-as yet. But in the light of events as they have developed and as they now are developing it looks very much as if it might prove exceedingly difficult for Mr. Weyerhaeuser to avoid earning some such title in the course of a decade or two.

Mr. Weyerhaeuser himself asserts that he is not rich, but "can pay his own expenses;" those who have watched his career from outside the pale of his partnerships declare that if he is not already a billionaire he has good reason to look forward to something very like that distinction.

Mr. Weyerhaeuser has been classed as a conservative lumberman. If conservatism means the buying of every tract of timber land offered for almost half a century, cutting and milling the product judiciously and holding the best of it for higher markets, then Mr. Weyerhaeuser is conservative. That has been his policy from the start-"Buy timber land." He is authoritatively quoted as having said to a doubter when the question of a fresh purchase was being considered, "I know this much: whenever I buy timber I make a profit; whenever I do not buy I lose an opportunity. I have followed this practice for many years, and have not lost anything by it.'

Mr. Weyerhaeuser never has favored the "trust" form of operations, and never has one of his concerns gained

headway by the crushing out of competition or forcing co-operation or union upon smaller and rival concerns. Whenever new timber lands were taken up in Minnesota, while Mr. Weyerhaeuser was always one of the stockholders in the companies taking them up, he was continually organizing new companies rather than expanding the old ones.

It is claimed by those most intimate with his business affairs that he never did and does not now own more than ten per cent of the stock of any of the concerns in which he is interested, to say nothing of having a controlling interest

aires, not to mention the certain increase in value which will come to both timber land and cutover areas in the sections where agricultural development is possible. And yet, Mr. Weyerhaeuser is not a multi-millionaire so far as "money in the bank" is concerned. He has consistently and steadily placed his earnings in new investments, and it is in the wealth of the companies in which he is interested that his own wealth consists.

It has been asserted that Mr. Weyerhaeuser owns or controls timber areas

ous companies which he has formed that his greatest power consists. But if this statement is even half true, it certainly means wealth beyond the ken of most of the business concerns of the country. The tremendous advances in the price of lumber within the last decade are well known. The reports of the forestry department of the United States government places them at twenty-nine per cent. It is also well known and recognized that these advances bid fair to be completely eclipsed by those of the next ten years,

and here is a man who is personally interested in many millions of acres of land bearing timber in varying amounts, some of which timber can be sold today for ten dollars a thousand feet and all of which is increasing in value with every day, and will continue to increase as the country's timber supply becomes less and less plentiful and as the demand for cleared land grows.

What sort of man is this who had the foresight to conceive the organization of such a vast business as now is represented by the Weyerhaeuser interests, the courage to launch it and the ability to carry it through successfully? Frederick Weyerhaeuser was born in the village of Niedersaulheim, near Mainz in the Rhine Valley, in 1834, and until he was twelve years old lived and worked on his father's farm, consisting of fifteen cultivated acres and a three-acre vineyard. Then his father died and the boy joined relatives at Northeast, a small town some fifteen miles from Erie, Pa. His first two years in America were spent in an uncle's brewery, the first at a salary of four dollars and the second at nine dollars a month, but he disliked both his work and his surroundings and went to work on a farm. Four years later he received his share from his father's estate, and went at once to Rock Island, Ill., where he secured work in a sawmill, of which he eventually became part owner. In 1857 he married Sarah Elizabeth Bloedel, who, oddly enough, had been born in the same village as himself, and whose parents had moved to America. The young people met while the girl was visiting a married sister, Mrs. F. C. A. Denkmann, in Rock Island, and after their marriage the brothers-in-law formed a partnership to run the sawmill, and later purchased the Chippewa timber lands from which the great Weyerhaeuser interests have grown.

In the last few years Mr. Weyerhaeuser has gradually dropped the most active part of his work and his sons have taken charge. Indeed their activity has been so pronounced and they have proved themselves such a power in the lumber world that in trade circles it is now more common to speak of "The Weyerhaeusers" than of any one of them. There are four sons-John P., Charles

A., Rudolph M. and Frederick E., the last named of whom is now his father's chief personal assistant.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser has other interests than his timber holdings, though the business in which he made his start and which has occupied the greater part of his attention is still the center of his interest. He is vice-president of the German-American National Bank of St. Paul; a director of the Continental National Bank of Chicago, the Third National Bank of St. Louis, the First National Bank of Duluth, and of the Great Northern and Chicago Great Western railways, besides holding stock in several other great corporations, both carriers and in other lines of business. As to the lumber and subsidiary companies in which he is interested, a complete list of them never has been made, perhaps, though the following is a fairly representative list:

The Pine Tree Lumber Company of Little Falls, Minn.; Mississippi River Lumber Company; Northern Lumber Company, Cloquet Lumber Company and Johnson-Wentworth Lumber Company, all at Cloquet, Minn.; Knife Falls Boom Company; St. Louis River Power & Improvement Corporation; Mesabe Southern railway; Duluth & Northeastern railway; St. Louis River Dam & Improvement Company; Cloquet Electric Company; Cloquet Tie & Post Company; Northwest Paper Company; Nebagamon Lumber Company and Hawthorn, Nebagamon & Superior railway; Weyerhaeuser, Denkmann & Ruttledge of Chippewa Falls, Wis.; Weyerhaeuser & Ruttledge. of Ashland, Wis.; Lindsay Land & Lumber Company of Arkansas; Northland Pine Company; Potlatch Lumber Company; Humbird Lumber Company of Idaho, and last in time of organization and richest and most powerful of all such organizations in the United States, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company of the Pacific coast.

Is Frederick Weverhaeuser richer than John D. Rockefeller? It is too much to claim for the present, but of the future— who can say? It is safe to say that he is rich, very rich, even sufficiently so to be classed as a leader of the multi-millionaires of this country, with whose wealth few fortunes of other lands compare.

T is not likely that, under the ordinary circumstances of life, a deadly weapon will ever be seriously needed by the ordinary man, but occasionally such need does arise, and then it is grave and immediate. That this fact is recognized by the public is indicated by the annual sale of hundreds of thousands of revolvers not to persons who intend to carry or use them as weapons of offense, but to law-abiding citizens who desire them. merely for defensive purposes-to protect themselves and their property.

Despite all that may be said to the contrary, the revolver is a most valuable adjunct to civilization, and, in proper hands, can do more than any other single agent to preserve the law and order of a com

munity. That the general practice of carrying concealed weapons cannot be tolerated is another incontestable assertion, and, as far as possible, revolvers should be kept out of the hands of irresponsible persons. Police regulations, however, generally cover these points, and it is not the object of this article to discuss any ethical questions, but simply to offer some suggestions which may aid a citizen in choosing and properly using a revolver, if he desires to own one. There is a remarkable general lack of knowledge upon the subject.

The purpose, or nature of the use to which the revolver is to be put is the first point for consideration. One which would be ideal for a ranchman would be absurd as a pocket-arm, or for the simple protection of the home from marauders.