Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1921-07-28
Pacific Coast Is Becoming One Of
the Country's Most I'm
portant Boundaries.
HAS INTERESTING HISTORY
W Priceless Features Of Coast, San
Francisco Bay and Puget Sound,
Missed by Spanish Explorers in
Their Early Explorations.

world interest to the Pacific, and the
rapid growth of its commerce, the
western rim of the United States
where 1t touches the vastest of the
worlds oceans is becoming one of the
country's most important boundaries"
says a bulletin issued by the Washing
ton, ID. G., headquarters of the Nat
ionals Geographic society.
This ripping line of Pacific surf
marks the end of the great Aryaa
migration, which began ages ago in
some mysterious, unknown land of
central Asia, surged through the deep
valleys Of the Himalayas, and has
since poured ever westward, making |
the greater part of the worlds history |
as it went. Across this boundary of
white colonization the yellow people
of the East have shown themselves
ready to flow in a counter current,
making complicated racial problems
n giving the western boundary an
ethnic importance which none of the
other three boundaries possesses.
For centuries after the discovery
of the Atlantic coast of America, even
for centuries after Balboa first looked
upon the Pacific at Panama and after
his compatriots sailed ships across it's
vast eNpanse, the Pacific coast of what
is now the United States remained
practically unknown. Cabrillo, a Span
ish navigator, it is true, entered San
Diego bay near the present Mexican
border in 1912 nj his expedition later
sailed north as far as the big bulge
in the coast line. But the two price
less features of the Pacific coast were
missed; San Francisco Bay, one Of
the greatest, safest, and best of the
harbors of the world; and the en-
trance to Puget Sound, where land
locked Seattle and a group of other
fine harbors now handle a large part
of the commerce between America and
the Orient.
i. This failure of early navigators to
find San Francisco Bay, though many
Of them passed up and down the coast
and the Spanish even made a special
effort to discover a satisfactory har-
Dor. constitutes one of the mysteries
Of the Pacific seaboard. The bay was,
first sighted from the land in 1869,
more than two hundred years after
the Spaniards began their search for
a Pacific coast harbor, and it was six
years later when the first ship sailed
through the Golden Gate.
Where Mountains Meet the Sea.
''The Pacific coast Of the United
States is markedly different from the
Atlantic coast, especially that part of
the latter south of massachusetts, with
it's relatively low sandy shores and
its outlying bulwark of sand islands
and sand splits. San Diego bay, only
ten miles north of the Mexican border,
is the only bay of major Importance
on the Pacific coast of the United
States la%nd-locked by a sand spit.
Point Iona, forming the northern
boundary of San Diego bay. however,
Is. a ridge several hundred feet high,
and from there northward to Canada
with only a few miles of narrow low
lands between the sea and the hills
or mountains by way of exception, the
coast is bold and rugged. Parts of
1t are what biologists call a drowned
coast where mountains have sunk so.
that the water meets their steep
slopes. Parts are 'uplifted coasts
where mountains once under the sea
have partly emerged. and their slopes
are still Tapped by the waves.
ut is the mountainous and bold.
character of the Pacific coast which
sets it off most distinctly from the
coast of the Atlantic. From "a point
SO miles north Of San Francisco one.
sails ~nolthward for hundreds of miles
alongside bluffs and promontories,
finding hardly any indentations of in
Dartance.
Numerous Small Bays.
North of the main bulge of the.
Pacific coast. Cape Mendocino, small
bays are more numerous in California,
Oregon and Washington, and about
many of them railroads have been
built and considerable commercial de-
velopment has taken place. Finally,
at the mouth of the Columbia river,
over 500 miles north of the Golden
Gate. ii good deep water harbor is
reached at Astoria. Ocean vessels
may even ascend the river to Port,
land nearly 100 miles inland.
more than $50 miles north Of San
francisco is the ten miles wide strait
of .Iuan de Fica, the entraiice to
Puget sound.
after al interval of nearly 600
miles where British Columbia fronts
on the Pacific. the Pacific coast again
becomes territory ,oI the United States
as the soutlaerninosr point OF Alaska
III reached. Fer more shai a thousand
miles 70 the roots OF the Alaska PEN
Ursula the waters Of the Pacific battle
the shores of this territory. ana for
an even greater distance the long arm
Of The peninsula and tho Aluetian
islai,ds of is point sweep nj into
y the ocean,