576 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 354. 



of remarkably clear-cut steps, or benches, one 

 above another, to the number of ten in all, 

 according to Professor Lawson. On approach- 

 ing it from the sea one's imagination easily 

 makes it the terraced grounds ages ago deserted 

 and fallen into ruins, of one of Cronus' country 

 seats before that crafty monarch was over- 

 thrown by all-powerful Zeus. 



Professor A. C. Lawson* has brought forward 

 arguments that are, I should think, conclusive, 

 in support of the view that these steps are 

 marine wave-cut terraces ; that they mark the 

 position of the ocean strand at successive peri- 

 ods during the elevation of the hill. 



The island of San Clemente, 1,964 feet high, 

 lying sixty miles to the southwest of San Pedro 

 Hill, is very similar to it in topographical fea- 

 tures, particularly as regards the terraces, the 

 chief difference being that the terraces of the 

 island are more sharply defined and more nu- 

 merous than those of the Hill. The evidence 

 is, then, that both the mainland of the coast, 

 and San Clemente island emerged simultane- 

 ously from the sea. 



Now the island of Santa Catalina, lying mid- 

 way between the two, is wholly different from 

 either of them topographically. It is a moun- 

 tain mass as bold and jagged as one often sees, 

 and terraces are entirely wanting. The same 

 sally of the imagination that makes San Pedro 

 Hill the country seat of King Cronus makes 

 Santa Catalina Island the site of his castle ; for 

 not only have we here the rock upon which the 

 castle stood, but in San Pedro channel, a hun- 

 dred fathoms deep at not much beyond an ar- 

 row's flight from the rocky walls, we have also 

 the moat of the castle. 



The contrast between Catalina and the tw^o 

 land masses between which it is situated can- 

 not be better brought out than by Professor 

 Lawson's own words: "In all the physio- 

 graphic wonderland of Southern California," 

 he writes, " there is probably nothing more 

 surprising than the contrast which the topog- 

 raphy of Santa Catalina presents to that of 

 both San Pedro Hill and San Clemente. Lying 



* ' The Po8t-Plioceue Diastrophism of the coast of 



Southern California,' Bulletin of the Department vf 



Geology, University of California, Vol. I., No. 4, 

 1893.' 



midway between the two latter insular masses, 

 in the same physiographic province, and af- 

 fected by the same climatic conditions, Santa 

 Catalina might, d, priori, be supposed to differ 

 from these but little in the character of its land 

 sculpture. This supposition proves, however, 

 to be fallacious. The difference between the 

 aspect of the island and that of the two other 

 neighboring insular masses is amazing, and the 

 hypothesis which we are forced to entertain to 

 account for it, is correspondingly startling." 



The writer then proceeds to bring forward 

 cogent arguments in support of the proposition 

 that * ' Santa Catalina was a land-mass, subject to 

 the forces of suhaerial degradation, at the time 

 when San Pedro Hill and San Clemente began to 

 emerge from the ivaters of the Pacific, in Post- 

 Pliocene time.'''' 



But not only this. He finds further strong 

 evidence, on physiographic grounds alone, that 

 not only was the island full-born when the 

 neighboring land masses began to emerge from 

 the sea, but that while the latter have been 

 undergoing elevation Catalina' itself has been 

 subject to a process of submergence. 



In this latter view the author is defending a 

 suggestion made by Dr. J. G. Cooper, the pioneer 

 California naturalist who explored the island in 

 1863 as geologist of the California State Geo- 

 logical Survey. 



With the addition of the evidence produced 

 by our dredgings this summer to that brought 

 forward by Professor Lawson, it would seem 

 that the subsidence hypothesis reaches well 

 nigh a demonstration. 



It should be said that some of the fishermen 

 at Avalon have known for a number of years of 

 the existence of this particular bed of cobble 

 stones, and it is asserted by them that the bed 

 extends out to seventy-five fathoms. 



Time would not permit us to trace out the 

 full extent of bed. Similar cobbles were 

 brought up at other points around the island, 

 though not so abundantly as here ; but it should 

 be stated that most of our work here was done 

 with the beam trawl, as this was found better 

 adapted to our biological work. It is, however, 

 much less likely to pick up such stones than is 

 the dredge. 



It is highly probable that careful dredging 



