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GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



Del Monte Junction lies but a few miles from the mouth of Salinas 



Del Monte Junction. 



Elevation 16 feet. 

 Los Aiigeles 365 miles. 



River and Monterey Bay. A branch line; over 

 which pass through trains to and from San Fran- 

 cisco, runs southwest from this junction to Del 

 Monte, Monterey^ and Pacific Grove.^ 



Some terrace deposits may be seen east of Del Monte Junction, 

 They extend northward to the edge of Pajaro Valley, the surface 

 apparently rismg to the north. The railroad traverses a lower plain 

 terrace descending from 16 feet at Del Monte Junction to 2 feet at 

 Elkhorn station, beyond which it turns up a little valley cut by Elk- 

 horn Creek in the marine terrace deposits. After crossing Elkhorn 

 Slough and bearing to the left between some low hills, the railroad 

 emerges, at about milepost 101, in the Pajaro Valley (pah'ha-ro, 

 Spanish for bird). 



^ The Hotel Del Monte, in grounds 

 world-famous for their beauty, is situated 

 on one of the most charming and inter- 

 esting parts of the ^v'hole California coast. 

 Near by are the combinations of rock?, 

 sea, woodland, and hills such as delight 

 an artist. Old buildings and associations 

 appeal to the student of early California 

 history. There are ample facilities and 

 opportimities for the pursuit of sport of 

 many kinds. Finally, the region is of 

 exceptional geologic interest and is the 

 type locality of the white shale of the 

 Monterey group. The old mission chmch 

 is built of this shale, which, although, 

 soft when quarried, hardens on exposure 

 and has withstood the sea air without 

 crumbling. 



Monterey, although visited and named 

 by the Spaniards in 1602, was not per- 

 manently settled until 1770. In that 

 year Gaspar de Portold, the first governor 

 of Alta California, arrived by land, and 

 Padre Junipero Serra, of the Franciscans, 

 a few days later by sea. Serra founded 

 at Monterey his first mission in Upper 

 California. The church building (PI. 

 XXIX, B, p. 119) is still used. The mis- 

 mon at Carmel, where Serra lived and 

 died, was founded the next year. Commo- 

 dore Sloa,t landed at Monterey July 7, 184G, 

 and took possession for the United States. 

 A monument to him and one to Serra 



stand in the Presidio. Monterey was the 

 first capital of California, and in Colton 

 Hall the first constitutional convention 

 was held September 1, 1849. An associa- 

 tion of more recent date that will endear 

 the place to many is that here for a time 

 lived Robert Louis Stevenson. 



Monterey is the terminus of a pipe line 

 from the Coajinga oil field, in the San 

 Joaquin Valley, and from 12,000 to 15,000 

 barrels of oil is pumped through this line 

 daily. 



Coast 



iwn 



deep depression extends across the bot- 

 tom of the comparatively shallow Monte- 

 rey Bay out to the steep submarine slope 

 that marks' the real boundary between 

 continent and ocean. Some geologists 

 have interpreted tliis depression as a val- 

 ley of erosion cut by Salinas River when 

 the land stood higher than at present and 

 when the bottom of the bay was dry land. 

 Prof. A. C. Lawson, however, has main- 

 tained that a similar submarine valley, in 

 Carmel Bay south of Monterey, which is 

 not quite in lino with the present valley 

 of Carmel River, is probably a structural 

 sag or syncline and not an erosion valley 

 at all. He can find no evidence of recent 

 uplift of this part of the coast sufficient to 

 have enabled the river to cut a vall<^y 



across what is now tho hnftr^Tn r^f f ho hnv- 



