Evening star., 1921-06-08
INTEREST OF WORLD
SHIFTS TO PACIFIC.
western Rim of U. S. One of
Country's Most Impor.
tant Boundaries,

tdnt boundaries, :
with the awakening of the far
east the shifting of world interest to
.he racine and the rapid growth OF
its commerce, the western rim of the
ohited States. where it touches the
@astest OF the worlds oceans. is he
coming one of the country's most i'm
portant boundaries" saws a bu,I.t;r
ISSUED by the Washington, D. C
graphic Society.
Inns ripping line of Pacific surf
aIks the end Of the great Aryan.
migration. which began ages ago in
cents., ee mysterious. unknown land Of
Sehtrai Asia, sureed through the
deep valleys of the Himalayas. and
mas since poured ever westwsrd
ahing the greater part of the
worios history as it went Across
,ha lbs boundary OF white colonization
.he yellow people OF the east have
SHOWN themselves ready to flow in a
counter current. making complicated
tacai problems and giving the west
ern boundary an ethnic Importance
daries possesses.
Pacific seaboard Mystery.
For centuries after the discovery
OF the Atlantic coast of America na
Ior centuries after Balboa first looked
upon the Pacific at Panama and after
MS compatriots sailed ships across its /.
wbst ipanse' "a the Pacific coast of
Mhat is now the United States re-
NAMED practically unknown. CabriI-
TO-, a Spanish navigator. il is true
entered San Diego bay near the pres
enr Mexican border in 1912. and his
eApeai tion later sailed north as far
as the big bulge in the coast line
But the two priceless features of the
racine coast We're uiissed-San Fran
oisso pay. one of the greatest, safest
and the entrance to Puget sound
where land-locked Seattle ana a
group OF other fine harbors now han
ale large part of the commerce be-
tween America and the orient.
rms failure of early navigator. to
nHo San francisco bay. though MANY
VI them passed up and down III.
coast, and the Spanish even made a
,prv peviaI enort TO discover satisfac-
tory harbor. constitutes one of the
mysteries of the Pacific seaboard
FRANCIS Drake is supposed to have
anchored in Bodega bay. about forty
,ni.es northwest of San Francisco, and
numerous other explorers visited The
tiny brakes bay. only thirty miles
northwest of the Golden Gate, and
the Farralone Islands, an equal dis
lance due west of the entrance to the
great bay. but none of these soiourn-
ers appears to have obtained the
siishtest inkling of the existence SO
close by of the matchless harbor.
me bay was first sighted from the
, land in 1863, more than 200 wears
| after the Spaniards began their search
lor racine coast harbor. and it was
| six years later when the first shin
sailed through the Golden Gate.
where Mountains Meet Sea.
The Pacific coast of the United
States is markedly different from the
"A ,ol1.
OF the latter south of Massachusefts
/ with Its relatively low sandy shores
and its outlying bulwark of sand
,siands and sand ,spits. San Diego
| can border, is the only bay of major
; Importance on the Pacific coast of the
United States land-locked by sand
; spit. Point Iona, forming the northern
is ridge several hundred fees high.
, ana from there northward 10 Canada ,
| with only few miles of narrow low
iahds between the sea and the hills
the coast is oold and rugged. Parts
OF II are what biologists call a
drowned coast, where mountains
nave sunk so that the water meets
coasts. where mountains once under
me sea have partly emerged, and
their slopes are still Tapped by the
| waves. -
~ - tuS and bod
character of the Pacific coast which
sets it off most distinctly from the
| coast of the Atlantic. From a point
nifty miles north of San Francisco
one may san northward for hundreds
of miles alongside bluffs and promon-
tories. finding hardly any indentations
| of Importance. 1t was this region
which made the Spaniards despair. be-
fore they discovered San Francisco
bay, of finding that essential to COM
merce in>al ages. safe, commodious
port. Today the problem has been
solved on small scale at least by
the construction of cable tramways
! extending from the heights to out
| lying rocks. But lack of ports and
the roughness of the country imme-
diately inland have held back the de-
velopment of much of coastal north
ern California.
| .''Nortn OF the main buhge of the Pa
cific 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-
ivelopment has taken place. Finally
at the mouth of the Columbia river,
over 500 miles north of the Golden
Gate. good deep water harbor is
may even ascend the river to Port
| land nearly 100 miles inland.
Ten-Mfle-Wide Strait.
More than $50 miles north of San
1 Francisco is the en-mile-wide Strait .
of Juan de Fuca, the entrance to
| Puget sound, the great sunken val
! ley which carries deep water for
more than a hundred miles into the
heart of the state of Washington, and
affords many miles of matchless land
| locked harborS. The center of the en-
trance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca :
| is the northern boundary on the Pa
/, cific of the United States proper.
! After an interval of nearly 500
miles. where British Columbia fronts
on the Pacific, the Pacific coast again
becomes territory of the United States
| as the southernmost point of Alaska Is
reached. For more than a thousand
miles to the roots Of the Alaska
peninsula the waters of the Pacific
bathe the shores of this territory, and
for an even greater distance the long ;
arm of the peninsula and the Aleu-
tian Islands off its point sweep out
into the ocean. Practically all of this !.
seaboard is a drowned coast rugged >
beyond description, with countless
bays, CULTS. islands and channels
When all these convolutions are
counted Alaska has more than $4,000
miles of coast line The shores south 4
of the peninsula are for the most part
heavily wooded. often to the very
waters edge. Snow-clad mountains
tower above ships as they sail
through the inland passages, and
glaciers discharge a never-ending
succession of icebergs into some OF