244 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



large part of the vapors to form rain and to preserve a moist 

 air. The dryness of the climate along both sides of the 

 Gulf of California would seem to contradict this, but there 

 is a different cause for it of a cosmical kind. The islands of 

 our southern coast are analogous. No human remains have 

 been found in the coast ranges older than the Recent Period, 

 and very near the surface, indicating that the men of the 

 Sierra may not have reached them. It is interesting to know 

 also that the gigantic extinct Bison latifrons and fossil ele- 

 phant, if not other land animals, had reached the coast 

 range in the quaternary epoch. 



Even at the time of the Spanish discoveries we know that 

 trees were much more numerous in Southern California than 

 since, the early voyagers mentioning large and extensive 

 forests on the mainland and the islands, which have mostly 

 vanished. The introduction of immense herds of cattle, 

 which browsed and trampled down the young trees, was 

 added to destruction by fire, with the mistaken object of im- 

 proving the pasture and giving a clear view in herding cattle. 



It is an old proverb, that " a Spaniard hates a tree," de- 

 rived from their destructiveness in Spaiu, where pastoral 

 pursuits have always been fostered, and increased, perhaps, 

 by the Moorish invasion from African deserts. "We have 

 the historical account of the island of Madeira, when dis- 

 covered, being densely wooded with large and valuable 

 trees, which the Spanish sailors burned off completely, to 

 destroy the supposed venomous reptiles and beasts of prey, 

 which had no existence there. The same process was, no 

 doubt, applied to our islands and mainland by the coloniz- 

 ing soldiers and priests, zealous to destroy the supposed 

 *' creatures of the Evil one." 



This may account in part for the changes in form and size 

 of the land shells of the islands, and extermination of a few. 

 It undoubtedly destroyed many of the species of Madeira 

 and other islands; perhaps, also, of Southern Europe. 

 "There can be no doubt that the number of specimens, if not 



