GEOLOGIC HISTORY 225 



Tejon earthquake of 1857 and cites examples of the 

 displacement of the drainage as it crosses the San 

 Andreas Rift southwest of Cajon Pass. 



These recent movements are trivial in comparison 

 to the greater ones of the several epochs of the Pleis- 

 tocene and, in my opinion, are but the surviving, after- 

 effects thereof. It is a grave mistake to believe that 

 the movements are as active now as they were in 

 the past epochs when the rhythm of the movements 

 were at their apogee. 



THIS EXPLAINS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 



The broad deduction from this story of the faulting 

 is that most of the great physiographic phenomena of 

 Southern California were made by fault block move- 

 ments and that most of it took place during the great 

 glacial epochs of Pleistocene time. The importance 

 of this conclusion lies in the fact that if the great 

 movements took place in that epoch, they are largely 

 events of the past and we need no longer look upon 

 them with fear, even if slight and expiring after-effects 

 are manifest now and then along a very few of the 

 many fault lines. 



Finally, it is to the individuality, modernity and 

 picturesque aspects of these striking master fault 

 lines that Southern California owes its beauties of 

 scenery and salubrity of climate, which are so attrac- 

 tively different from those of other portions of the 

 United States. 



In fact, the review herein given of the great fault 

 movements and events that have taken place in South- 

 ern California during the Pleistocene epochs contain 

 a satisfactory and complete answer to the earlier ques- 

 tion: "Why Southern Cahfornia?" 



