1889.] Across the Santa Barbara Channel. 215 
"Angel Dolly" and transported our cooking utensils on shore 
preparatory to a camp there under the brow of the cliffs of the 
In the afternoon I took a sailor and one of the seal boats 
of the schooner and rowed down the shore to the westward 
under Punta del Diablo to the " Seal Rookery." This boat ride 
was the most wonderful trip which I have ever taken on the 
coast of California. The cliffs to the west of Star Canon rise 
perpendicularly to the height of many hundred feet, so that 
it is impossible to climb them except in the small fiords or 
canons which extend into the mountains. Immediately after 
rounding the high headland to the west of Star Canon we 
come to the first canon, which is well wooded and surrounded 
by mountains which are grandly picturesque. We did not 
land in this fiord but continued to the second, which was even 
more rugged and abrupt than the first. This canon presented 
to us a landing place, and we rowed through the heavy surf, 
landing on a small beach. The caiion is well wooded but 
closed a short distance from the beach by a high boulder, 
which has fallen into it, so that the canon is almost blocked 
up. The boulders, which stop up several of the canons, are 
thought to have been eroded from the cliff in the position 
they at present occupy, and not to have been transported 
from higher up the canon by water or ice.' 
We made our way back of the boulder through a crevice 
between it and the cliff and continued up the canon a few 
hundred yards, but the way gets more difficult, the loose 
'Something analogous to this is to be seen in the boulders of red sandstone which 
Santa Barbara. These rocks are sometimes of great size and, according to Whitney, 
erosion. They become very thickly massed together in some places and often 
reach enormous proportions. I was unable to find glacial striae on the sides of the 
Santa Yaury range although I repeatedly looked for them. 
One of the most famous of these large erratic rocks is that near Montecito which 
bears the Indian inscription done in red paint. Beyond the Mission Church they 
are very numerous in some places blocking up the canons as in the island of Santa 
Cruz. In some places they are so numerous that they almost form boulder rivers. 
Just back of the Spanish part of Santa Barbara between the city and the mesa there 
