PHYSIOGRAPHIC 

 GEOGRAPHY 



BY RUUFF S. HOLWAY 



Associate Professor of Physical Geography, 

 University of California 



HE physiographic geography of the Pacific 

 Coast region is far from being uniform in 

 character; in fact the type areas of the various 

 subdivisions cover almost the entire range of the 

 physiographic scale outside of the torrid 2one. 

 Differing thus widely among themselves the sub- 

 divisions must also De in strong contrast to the 

 physiogr,aphic provinces of the Atlantic Coast from 

 Maine to Florida. Some few suggestions of these 

 contrasts may make this brief outline of the physi- 

 ography of the Pacific Slope stand out more clearly. 

 On the north the forests of Washington and of 

 Maine are both growing in regions bearing the 

 scorings of ancient glaciers, but in the western 

 state, although the winters are extremely mild in 

 comparison with those of Maine, the forests rise 

 on the higher peaks until they meet the ice fronts 

 of still living glaciers. In tne extreme southern 

 portion of both the Pacific and the Atlantic shores 

 the orange and the lemon flourish under subtropical 

 conditions. On the western coast, however, the 

 thriving citrus groves extend as far northward in 

 the Sacramento Valley as the latitude of the south- 

 ern boundary of Pennsylvania, yet the growers are 

 subject to no more if as much risk of serious loss 

 from frost as are the growers of southern Cali- 

 fornia and of Florida. The contrasts in tempera- 

 ture between north and south on the Pacific Coast 

 are less than those on the Atlantic, but if the gen- 

 eral physiographic conditions are examined on an 

 east and west line in each case, geographic contrasts 

 more vitally controlling man's movements and oc- 

 cupations are found on the western shore. For 

 example, in going directlv inland from Norfolk, Vir- 

 ginia, for a distance or three hundred miles the 

 area at first traversed is a low coastal plain which 

 gently rises to an elevation of only five hundred 

 feet above the sea in a hundred and fifty miles. 

 The remaining half of the line extends up the Pied- 

 mont slope and over the Blue Mountains among 

 peaks from three to four thousand feet in elevation. 

 Throughout the entire three hundred miles the 

 annual rainfall is uniformly from forty to fifty 



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