The Behavior of Rivers 



47 



landscape was let down, as it were, upon the older rocks below. 

 Thus the Salinas River was superimposed from above upon the 

 harder rocks below. The channel once established, the river 

 could not get away. And so it remains to this day. 



Unique Behavior of Santa Ana River 



Santa Ana River is interesting not only for its own behavior 

 but for the behavior of men toward it. The total length of 

 the river is about 100 miles. It rises in the San Bernardino 

 Mountains, its highest head channels cut in the hard granitic 



Photo by H. C. Troxell, U. S. Gcol. Survey 



FIG. 14. Sawpit Canyon, near Monrovia, Los Angeles County. Boulder 

 transported onto bridge by flood water. 



rocks, 1 1,000 feet above sea. The fall toward the sea is terrific, 

 and the main upper stream and tributaries are deeply incised 

 into the hard rocks. The waters tear through a rugged canyon 

 westward a matter of 25 miles when the stream turns south- 

 westward across the San Bernardino Valley. The Santa Ana 

 Mountain range lies across its course. The river crosses the 

 mountain range through a deep and rugged canyon, and then 

 crosses the flat coastal plain to the ocean at Newport Beach. In 



