Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-09-10
Learn One New Thing Every Day
bulletins BY
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY Is
THE PACIFIC COAST; AMERICAS NEWEST COMMERCIAL BAT
TIE FRONT

with the awakening of the Far
East, the shifting of world interest
to the Pacific, and the rapid growth
of its commerce, the western rim of
the United States where it touches
the vastest of the worlds oceans is
becoming one Of the country's most
important boundaries" says a bulle-
tin issued by the Washington, ID. c.,
headquarters of the National Geo
graphic Society.
This ripping line of Pacific surf
marks the end of the great Aryan
migration, which began ages i'll
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 compli-
Gated racial problems and giving
the western boundary an ethnic i'm
portance 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 eXpanse, the
Pacific coast of what is now the
United States remained practically
unknown. Cabrillo, a Spanish nav
igator, it is true, entered San Diego
bay near the present Mexican border
in 1912 and his expedition later
sailed north as far as the big bulge
in the coast line. But n TWO
priceless features of the pacific coast
were missed: San Francisco bay,
one of the greatest, safest and best
of the harbors OF the world; n the
entrance to Puget sound, where land
lacked Seattle and a group of other
fine harbors now handle large part
of the commerce between America
and the Orient.
This failure of early n~avigators
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 q
satisfactory harbor, constitutes one
of the mysteries of the Pacific sea.
board. Francis Drake is supposed
to have anchored In Bodega pay
about forty miles northwest OF oan
Francisco, and numerous other ex'
OlOrefS visited Tie tLHy 49,
only thirty miles northwest of the
Golden Gate, and the Farralone is
lands, an equal distance u west o,
the entrance to the great bay, pu'
none of these s%ojourners appears te
have obtained the slightest inklins
of the existence so close by or the
matchless harbor. The bay was mrs
sighted from the land in 1853, NOR
than two hundred years after tins
lS%paniards began their search Tor
Pacific coast harbor, and 1t was 81,
years later when the first ship sail
ed through the Golden Gate.
Where Mountains Meet n Sea
THE Pacific coast of the United
States is markedly different from
the Atlantic coast. especially tina
part of the latter south of Massa'
, chusetts, with its relatively low
sandy shores and its outlying bull
wark of sand islands and sand spits
San Diego bay ,onlysten miles NORTH
of the Mexican border, is the only
bay of major Importance on the Pa,
cific coast Of the United States lant
locked by a sand spit. Point Iona
forming the northern boundary o.
San Diego bay, however. is a ridg'