PHYSIOGRAPHICALLY UNFINISHED ENTRANCES TO SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Under the title "Physiographically unfinished entrances to San Francisco Bay, R. S. Holway of the University of California has discussed (Uni. of Calif. Publications in Geog., Vol. 1, pp 81-126) the origin of seven low passes through the Coast Range of California which a comparatively slight subsidence of 350 feet, would convert into entrances of San Francisco Bay. Evidence is presented to show that the Bay occupies a part of a longitudinal valley formed by the folding of the Coast Range. This valley does not all drain into the bay. Both ends have outlets to the sea through narrow gorges. Only one, however, of the low passes to the ocean, termed "unfinished entrances," is of structural origin. This is the Merced valley, just south of San Francisco.

Of the other valleys, Liberty Gap is classed as an area not much uplifted at the time of the formation of the Coast Range and subsequently trenched by streams, reaching to the ocean. The origin of Lagoon Pass and Elk valley, the two depressions between Liberty Gap and Golden Gate is less clear. Holway classes them as remnants of the valleys of streams which once flowed directly to the ocean but were diverted by the formation of the San Francisco Bay valley. An alternative is to suppose them to be due to the meeting of the headwaters of streams developed under present conditions. This hypothesis is not in accord either with the low grade of the passes or the directions from which tributaries enter the main valleys, both of which indicate a reversal in stream direction in the eastern portion of these depressions.

Russian River, which drains the north portion of San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate, and Pajaron Canon are held by Holway to be the valleys of rivers which maintained their courses during the uplift of the range. Both these streams are separated by very low divides from the bay drainage but turn abruptly into the mountains and reach the sea through canons. To check the idea of persistence rather than diversion through capture by streams working back from the ocean, the fish of the different drainage basins were compared. It is stated that no evidence was found to show the recent passage from one basin to another of any species except some small ones which inhabit the headwaters. These might pass the divides through the shifting of tributaries on their alluvial cones so that they have changed from one drainage system to another. Another line of evidence showing that the breaks in the range are due to persistence and not capture or overflow of the range, is that they do not occur at the lowest points or in the structural depressions like Merced valley. The great depth of Golden Gate is explained by the large size of the Sacramento River by which it is believed to have been eroded. Carquinez Strait which joins San Francisco Bay with the great interior valley of California is believed to have also had the same origin.

F. T. THWAITES.

CENTRAL ARABIA

Captain Leachman in a description of a camel trip through Central Arabia, published in the Geographical Journal for May, gives some interesting bits of information in reference to that little known country. As to the climate he says, "Bitter cold was experienced in the plains in the winter and the water skins were frequently frozen hard in the morning-so much so that we had to thaw them by the fire before loading, or otherwise they would rub sores on the camel's hide."

As to the ways and endurance of camels in desert work the following extracts are interesting: "Here-at the desert wells-the camel drinks, in itself a somewhat remarkable sight, as however thirsty he may be, it is done in the most leisurely fashion, and he appears to taste the full joy of a long drink in the manner of a gourmet born. He first wets his lips and again raising his head proceeds to shake it and look about him. After a pause he drinks a little more, and the same process is repeated, and thus each drop of the precious liquid is absorbed with appropriate relish. In the winter a camel will last seven days without water and without great discomfort, while in the spring when the green grass appears, he will drink but rarely, and remains often a couple of months waterless."

The Bedouin is extraordinarily kind to his camel and in return the Arabian camel is a very different animal from the ill mannered and treacherous variety encountered in India. His powers of endurance are extraordinary and some of the stories of great journeys done by camels are almost beyond belief. The camel rider, whose duty it was to carry the post from Damascus to Baghdad, generally covered an average of sixty miles a day for nine days. Burkhardt has a story of a camel who covered 115 miles in eleven hours. R. E. DODGE.

MOVEMENT OF WATER IN THE JAPAN SEA

A recent number of the Tokio geographical magazine contains something that may be of interest and I am going to send you its review.

A hydrographer carried on his experiment in Japan Sea after the war with Russia, floating 750 bottles in all and obtained the following results. He recovered 16 per cent of the total number of bottles he floated. During Japanese Russian war Japanese set 840 mines at the mouth of Vladivostok under the cover of the night, and it is possible that Russians placed three times as many as we did. 306 submarine mines after having gotten loose in some way were washed ashore or were picked up along the provinces on Japan Sea. An interesting thing is that where a great number of mines were washed ashore there were recovered the greater number of bottles. One exceptional case is that one of the bottles reached Tokio Bay after 204 days. It is therefore evident from his experiment that there is a regular circulatory current being set up in Japan Sea which goes round counter clockwise. GEORGE NISHIHARA.

TRADE ON THE YEN ESEI RIVER

The Yenesei is the fifth longest river in the world with a length of about 2900 miles. It is very rarely narrower than half a mile and for a distance of three hundred miles from its mouth it varies in width from ten to thirty miles. On the lower reaches the goods are transported in barges towed by tugs. From the upper parts of the river rafts are sent down simply drifting with the current. There is a kind of barge which is used for drifting purposes and these are usually sent from the more cultivated districts on the upper part of the river loaded with various necessaries of life and broken up at their destination which is north of the tree boundary. The material thus obtained is used for the erection of houses.-[Geog. Journal, May, '14.] R. E. DODGE.

VARIATIONS IN TEMPERATURE OF HOT SPRINGS IN JAPAN Arima Hot Spring near Osaka shows from its historical records of more than 300 years that the temperature of the spring has not been constant. A recent investigation has revealed that at the time of earthquake the temperature rises suddenly and the water becomes too hot to be bathed in. At present it is 49-54 degrees C. I think this has some important bearing upon the question of the subcrustal portion of the earth. The earthquake must be therefore due to some movement of molten rocks underlying there and not to adjustment of sliding blocks. It shows that the molten rock is not very far below the zone of the ground water. It also shows that the rock may remain in molten condition at comparatively shallow depth. There are no active volcanoes near there, and it is strange to see how long this thin crust over nature's crucible can stand without being broken.

GEORGE NISHIHARA.

THE USE AND THE WASTE OF WOOD

Sawdust is now becoming of sufficient value to ship it to points where it can be used for ice packing, stable bedding, stuffing for upholstery, packing glassware, for shipment of metals, crockery, etc. Sawdust is even used for the manufacture of gunpowder and in Europe it is compressed into briquettes and sold for fuel. A few plants have already been organized in this country for utilizing sawdust for briquettes. Slabs, edgings and tops are now being profitably converted into cooperage stock, broom and other handles, wood turnery, wooden dishes and novelties, dowels, furniture rounds, etc.

Lumbermen and others have shown recently that only 40 per cent of the trees cut in the forests of this country are used for lumber. The remaining 60 per cent represents pure waste as high stumps and tops either left to rot in the woods or as slabs consumed in the burner or slash piles at the mill. In Germany about 95 per cent of every tree grown in the forests is used. Practically nothing from the forest is allowed to go to waste, even the stumps are grubbed out and the twigs and branches tied up into faggots for fuel. [American Forestry.]

THE BALKANS AND TURKEY

(Excerpts from article by C. H. Bellamy, Jour. Manchester Geog. Soc.) The Balkan Peninsula has been in modern times what the Low Countries were in the Middle Ages-the cockpit of Europe. It is there that the eternal Eastern question had its origin; it is there, too, that the West and the East, the Cross and the Crescent, meet. But to understand the great problems which still await solution in South-eastern Europe, and are once more pressing themselves upon the attention of all thoughtful men, it is important to have some knowledge of Balkan history. The mutual jealousies of Bulgaria and Servia, the struggle of various races for supremacy in Macedonia, the alternate friendship and enmity of the Russian and the Turk, are all facts which have their root deep down in the past annals of the Balkan States. Few persons in Western Europe seem to remember what has never been forgotten in the Peninsula, and this is forced upon you over and over again as you visit their towns-that there was a time when the Servian and Bulgarian Empires were great Powers, and their respective rulers governed with the proud title of Czar a vast realm, which is still the dream of patriots. The Bulgarian Empire of nine hundred and a thousand years ago, under the Czars Simeon and Samuel, ran from Mesembric, on the shore of the Black Sea, to Mount Rhodope, and then right across the Peninsula from Mount Olympus to the Albanian coast opposite Corfu. With the exception of a few ports, all Albania was Bulgarian, as was also nearly the whole of the present kingdom of Servia. Before the Magyar invasion Czar Simeon seemed to have included part of Roumania in his dominions, and it is possible that portions of Hungary and Transylvania owned his sway. Bulgaria under his auspices, was what she has never been again, but what she still aspires to be the dominant state of the Balkan Peninsula.

Then, like a page of romance, we learn how this mighty empire crumbled away before the assaults of its enemies, and came under the power of the Greek Emperors; and how, one hundred and sixty-eight years later Bulgaria was delivered by John Asen, who founded and consolidated the second Bulgarian Empire, of almost equal territorial importance to the first.

After the lapse of two centuries this empire fell, and the nation came under the domination of the Turks for nearly five hundred years. In the early part of the nineteenth century the revival of the spirit of independence began. One result of the Turco-Russian War was the constitution of the principality of Bulgaria, and the autonomous province of Eastern Roumelia, and the election by the National Assembly at Tirnova in 1879 of Prince Alexander of Battenberg as their first Prince.

The Bulgars are a fine race of men, especially the hearty young counymen in homespun garments and hide sandals, all well clad, clean-limbed, standing young fellows of eleven or twelve stone, with healthy, smiling aces. The peasant people own the land which they till so carefully. Even

amongst the poorest in the villages it is the exception to find a man who is not a landowner.

Bulgaria is one of the greatest rose gardens of the world. Few parts of Europe have been so often laid waste; in few has the ground been so plentifully drenched with blood, century after century. In none, perhaps, have so many different races fought for the mastery. But when the warlike storm has spent its force fresh roses spring up, filling the land with fragrance and bringing a rich material reward to its children. Some of these rose gardens are sixty miles long, and from them the world gets its principal supply of attar of roses.

Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is one of the cleanest cities in Europe. All the principal streets are paved with tiles, the shape and size of a brick, and they. appear to stand the traffic admirably, and all of these streets have electrical trains running through them. Sofia is the only town in the country of over 50,000 inhabitants. In 1887 it was estimated to have a population of about 20,000, whilst to-day (that is, before the war) its inhabitants number about 100,000; and in these twenty-five years it has been completely metamorphosed, the same quarter of a century having entirely changed the country. Then, there were no railways in Bulgaria proper-only some two hundred miles of line, constructed under the auspices of the Turkish Government, were open to traffic in Eastern Roumelia-now Bulgaria possesses some twelve hundred miles of railways, besides nearly two hundred under construction.

Nor does the history of Servia lack its romance. Out of a loose federation of chiefs the Servian monarchy was gradually developed, its golden age beginning with the accession of Stephen Dusan in 1336. Never has the power of Servia been so great or the Servian dominions so vast as under the sway of this mighty ruler, who raised his country to the rank of an empire, equipped it with a complete code of laws, and made it respected all over Eastern Europe. Under the weak rule of his son his empire slowly melted away, and in the struggle with the Turks the Servians were vanquished at the famous battle of Kossovo, on June 15, 1389, a battle which for five centuries decided the fate of the Balkan Peninsula.

In the first quarter of the last century Servia began to feel after her lost independence, and in 1817 Milosh Obrenovic was elected Prince of Servia, which dignity lasted in his family until it was exchanged in 1882 for the title of King.

Nor are the histories of the other Balkan States wanting in romance and interest. Roumania, the name adopted at the union of the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, has been subject to Hungary and Poland, to Austria and Russia, as well as Turkey; and only emerged from the supremacy of this latter Power in 1859, the caping-stone of Roumanian independence being set by the proclamation, on March 26, 1881, of Prince Charles as King of Roumania.