Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
They invoked the American faith that the presence of civilization in Califor-
nia, rather than Alaska, was environmentally preordained. Yet they could
muster less conviction than Shaler had in the 1880s. “it seems evident . . .
that the [San Francisco] shock is the result of a normal process of mountain-
building here as in Alaska.” The great difference, they added fatalistically,
was that in San Francisco “other geographical conditions have determined
that a large city must develop.”
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