PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 75 



logic conditions of the region which I am trying to 

 describe in this paper in a manner not hitherto done. 

 Southern Cahfornia owes the uniqueness of its physi- 

 ography to the great fault scarps and lineaments with 

 which the fundamentals of its landscapes have been 

 outlined. It is to the same processes which made 

 these fault lines that we are indebted for the slight 

 earth tremors which occasionally introduce themselves 

 to our attention. 



The term Southern California will be used to in- 

 clude all that portion of the State south of the north 

 line of the Transverse Belt, including the last men- 

 tioned subdivision in it. This embraces practically 

 all that portion of the State south of north latitude 

 34 degrees, 30 minutes, which corresponds with 

 the great Santa Ynez fault line, the south side of 

 Antelope Valley, the north side of the San Bernardino 

 Plateau, the Dale Desert, etc. 



SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IS DIFFERENT 



Southern California differs from Northern Cali- 

 fornia, from which it is separated by a highland 

 wilderness. It has its own type of highlands, valleys, 

 islands, coast lines, rivers, deserts and other physio- 

 graphic features. It is not only different but unique. 



Southern California's natural relationships are not 

 with her own state but with that vast region of sub- 

 tropical America which within itself includes a score of 

 wonderlands, deserts, cordilleras, plateaux, volcanic 

 piles, peninsulas, islands, gulfs, straits — a vast tropical 

 empire which barely peeps into the United States and 

 of which Southern California is but the northwest cor- 

 ner. Capital she is indeed, of this neo-tropical realm 



