GEOL. VOL. I.] SMITH SANTA C ATA LIN A ISLAND. II 



ing it having a diameter of about a foot. High winds blow 

 daily through the narrow pass at the isthmus, causing a strong 

 inward current, which is gradually bringing about a shoaling 

 of the harbor. Thus here, as at Pebbly Beach, the accu- 

 mulation of shore-drift, through the action of waves and 

 currents, has more than kept pace with the sinking of the 

 island. 



Terraces. The pronounced contrast which Santa Cata- 

 lina presents in its topography, not only to the adjacent land 

 areas, but to the greater part of the coast of California, has 

 already been shown by Prof. Lawson. 1 The most striking 

 difference is in the marked absence, on this island, of the 

 terraces which are so clear-cut and pronounced on the slopes 

 of San Pedro Hill and San Clemente. With but two excep- 

 tions, Santa Catalina is devoid of any evident terracing from 

 one end to the other. The terrace-like character of the lower 

 levels of the Little Harbor region (already described) forms 

 one of these exceptions. That this is, in part, at least, of 

 the nature of a true terrace, is shown by the nearly level 

 character of the various ridges in their lower parts, their 

 gentle seaward slope, the change in grade at the rear, at an 

 altitude of 600 or 700 feet, the planing off of the upturned 

 beds of the basement series, with rolled pebbles scattered 

 over the lower slopes of the andesite, besides more or less 

 sandstone and conglomerate on these slopes bordering Mid- 

 dle Ranch Canon. All these point to a time when this re- 

 gion contained a bay, into an arm of which a stream, doubt- 

 less an older form of that which now drains Middle Ranch 

 Canon, brought the deposits just mentioned (shown on the 

 map). It is possible that there is, besides this, a series of 

 such terraces within this area. If so they are not strongly 

 marked, and the fact could only be established by a more 

 detailed observation than the writer had time for. Ter- 

 racing similar to that found here must at one time have ex- 



1 " The Post-Pliocene Diastrophism of the Coast of Southern California," by Andrew 

 C. I,awson. Bull. Dept. Geol., Univ. Cal., Vol. I, No. 4, pp. 135-139. 



