Point Lobos 



199 



with an earthquake. 1 Eight hundred feet the coast has 

 risen here since these newest gifts of ocean were piled 

 along the shore, only to be again resumed piecemeal as 

 we have seen. Meantime the steady waters of erosion, 

 the rains and the snows snows, too, as we shall see 

 have cut out the valley of the Carmel River; not so long 

 ago, if one may judge by those steep slopes and high- 

 built terraces that here hem the river in. 



But all that has been described is tertiary; there still 

 remains the time of this erosion, the quaternary between 

 these old deposits and the present. The famous ice- 

 sheets of which to-day we hear so much, affected Califor- 

 nia too. The entire Sierra range far south as latitude 

 36 32', the line of Mount Whitney, was one vast mer 

 de glace. Mount Whitney is scarred on every side with 

 the traces of vanished glaciers, glaciers that once filled up 

 the valleys of Kern's and Owen's rivers and rested away 

 out in the basin of what is now Tulare Lake with its sur- 

 rounding quags and swamps. While all this was going 

 on we may be sure that our ranges nearer the sea were 

 not neglected. They too must have been crowned with 

 snow, which while possibly not sufficient to form glaciers 

 did nevertheless furnish constant and voluminous streams 

 that cut out the channels of these sea-side rivers. It 

 seems incredible that the sun-baked fields of California 

 were once the scene of unceasing winter, but all evidence 

 seems to prove just that very thing. No glaciers ever 

 touched Point Lobos, but perennial snow no doubt cov- 



i This was written before the now famous disturbance of April, 

 1906. 



