Page:California a guide to the Golden state-WPA-1939.djvu/48

12 Angeles, San Gabriel, Santa Ana, San Luis Rey, Santa Margarita, and San Diego—are for the most part dry creek beds except during spring floods.

A peculiarity of the State's drainage system is its many river "sinks" where the waters either dry up from evaporation or, like the Amargosa River in Death Valley, disappear beneath the surface. Through Modoc and Lassen Counties, in the far northeast, stretches a chain of alkaline "lakes"—Goose, Upper and Middle, and Honey Lakes. They are all without drainage to the sea, and the spring run-off rapidly evaporates. In the Central Valley, south of the area drained by the San Joaquin, the Kings, Kaweah, and Kern Rivers, fed by the melting snows of the high Sierra, formerly emptied into shallow marsh-girt lakes. But with the impounding of water for irrigation these lakes have dried up, and the old lake beds have become farm lands. The Mojave Desert, in whose sandy wastes the Mojave River is swallowed up, is dotted with glistening alkaline-incrusted dry lake beds. In Riverside, San Diego, and Imperial Counties, many creeks (so-called rivers whose beds are normally dry) run toward the desert sink of the Salton Sea region.

California has two magnificent natural harbors, San Francisco and San Diego Bays, both landlocked; and one great artificially built harbor, the port of Los Angeles. San Francisco Bay, entered through the Golden Gate, is among the world's finest; here, besides the port of San Francisco itself, are those of Oakland, Alameda, and Richmond. San Diego Bay, safe at all seasons, is sheltered from ocean winds by Point Loma, a promontory seven miles in length. The Los Angeles harbor, fronting on open San Pedro Bay, 20 miles from the city, is protected by a breakwater. California's best minor harbors are those of Monterey and Santa Cruz, on Monterey Bay, and Eureka, on Humboldt Bay, some 280 miles north of San Francisco.

There are two groups of islands off the California coast. The Santa Barbara Islands, nine in number, lie between Point Concepcion and San Diego, 20 to 60 miles from the mainland. From San Miguel Island in the north to San Clemente Island in the south they are scattered over a distance of 155 miles. The best known island of the group is rugged Santa Catalina, 25 miles long with an average width of four miles, which stands 20 miles south of San Pedro. The Farallones, a group of six small rocky islands, lie about 28 miles west of the entrance to San Francisco Bay.

The first American writer to describe California's natural features refrained from the rhapsody which has characterized most of the subsequent discussion of the State's far-famed weather. "The climate of