PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 101 



Coast Range Group of Northern California, and I 

 cannot but believe that it represents a former con- 

 tinuation of that system which has been depressed 

 beneath the surface of the sea. 



Likewise, the great east-west-extending features of 

 the Santa Barbara channel, the Channel Islands and 

 the great Anacapa Fault, represent vestiges of a for- 

 mer east-westerly-extending mountain system of a 

 later age than the Coast Ranges. 



It is suggested that the Santa Barbara Channel, 

 which lies to the north of the Channel Islands, is a 

 sunken valley plain of the type of the existing ones 

 on the mainland. K this be true, then it is probable 

 that both systems of mountains have participated in a 

 later regional subsidence. The Shelf, as a whole, with 

 its structural ranges, old river valleys and transect- 

 ing stream valleys, has the aspects of a former land 

 area that has been submerged. 



If the events thus suggested should be proved to 

 be true, what mighty vistas of geologic history and 

 events in Pleistocene times do they open to the imag- 

 ination. We dare not speculate upon them now. 



