Island in Time, The Point Reyes Peninsula (The Scribner library)

by Harold Gilliam

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 068413439X
• ISBN13: 9780684134390
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Sierra Club/Scribner
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A glorious place: Saved just in time

The Point Reyes peninsula, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco, and northwest of it on the other side of the San Andreas Fault, is the windiest, foggiest area on the U.S. Pacific coast. It is also undeveloped, except for ranching, and is an area of surpassing beauty when the weather is good. In the 1960's, urban expansion threatened this paradise with the usual sprawl, but timely intercession by California's Senator Clair Engle and Representative Clem Miller saved this area for future generations, as Point Reyes National Seashore. This book is a well-written, well organized, beautifully-photographed masterpiece about that region and that effort. You will learn of the great local controversy about whether Sir Francis Drake careened and repaired his ship, the Golden Hind, on this peninsula, or on San Francisco Bay, in the 1530's. You will see photographs, and read about the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which was centered on this peninsula, and about immediately adjacent streams that flow in opposite directions to one another on the fault zone. You will learn how Point Reyes is the farthest north piece of land that ripped loose from Mexico eons ago, and and how not only its rocks, but its vegetation are vastly different from that of the mainland, just miles away. You will see its magnificently straight Seven Mile Beach, herds of elk, and forests in the fog. And you will learn how a few far-thinking people saved this great treasure from the careless urbanization so common in southern California. From any of several points of view, the book is an inspiration. I highly recommend it. Don't ever loan it out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!