DRAINAGE OF THE SANTA CLARA VALLEY 5 
the Bay of Monterey. Madrone station on the Southern Pacific 
Railway is at the southwestern edge of this alluvial fan, and is on the 
watershed at its lowest point. It will be seen from the map that 
upon emerging from the hills Coyote Creek bends sharply to the right 
and flows close to Las Animas Hills for several miles. ‘The configura- 
tion of the materials of the alluvial fan at the mouth of the gorge 
shows that the Coyote has been shifting its channel of late. A ter- 
race south of the stream, and approximately parallel with it, shows 
that it formerly flowed toward the west, while another and still higher 
terrace farther south shows that at an earlier date it flowed toward the 
southwest; and the general form of the alluvial fan shows that the 
whole fan was built by the Coyote. It is a characteristic feature 
of streams, in the building-up of such deposits, that they swing from 
side to side, flowing down over their own deposits in every direction, 
and shifting their channels as they become choked up by the deposit 
of their excess of load. The depth and position of the channel 
through which the Coyote now flows after emerging from the hills 
show. that there has been no recent discharge of its waters toward 
the Pajaro. ‘The general topography of the region about the mouth 
of the gorge suggests that the alluvial fan was built up a long while 
ago, and at a period when the stream was much more active than it 
now is—possibly during or toward the close of the glacial epoch. 
During the glacial epoch the streams of the region were much more 
vigorous than they have been since, for the coast stood at an elevation 
of two thousand feet or more higher than it does at present. There 
was therefore a greater precipitation, and during the winter months 
the Mount Hamilton Range must have been covered with snow which 
accumulated more than it does now and went off rather suddenly 
with the warm rains of early spring, producing much greater floods 
than we now have. 
It follows from the form of this alluvial fan on the plain where 
the stream emerges from the mountains that the Coyote must have 
shifted from side to side in the usual fashion, especially in the early 
history of the alluvial cone and during the constructive period. It 
flowed sometimes toward the northwest, draining into the Bay of 
San Francisco, and at other times toward the southeast, draining 
through the Pajaro into the Bay of Monterey. Such a shifting of 
