If you have ever wondered what California looked like before 38 million of us engineered it to meet our needs, allow William Brewer to take you on a guided tour.
In 1860, California’s state legislature named Josiah Dwight Whitney State Geologist and directed him “to make an accurate and complete Geological Survey of the State.” The first man Whitney appointed to the survey was William Henry Brewer, a man he had never met, but who came so highly recommended, he chose him sight unseen.
Over the next four years, the survey traveled the length and breadth of California. Whitney only occasionally joined the field survey team as his leadership responsibilities kept him tied to his San Francisco base. But Brewer was an ideal field leader who chronicled day-to-day events in regular letters sent back east to his brother, Edgar. Those letters have been compiled into a wonderful volume called that creates a vivid picture of a an unsullied state. Imagine Los Angeles, a city of only 3,500 souls. Or Monterey, population 1,500. During his descent of the Salinas Valley and his time on the Monterey peninsula, he is constantly concerned about the threat of Grizzly Bears.
In early California, after a wet winter, one could almost row from the Coast Range to the Sierra foothills
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While the assembled letters make this volume eminently readable, don’t quickly flip the pages. It is a book to linger with, to steep in like a tea bag in warm water. You will be truly transported to time never to be seen again.
To mark the 150th anniversary of the survey, Tom Hilton has created a blog (http://upanddowncalifornia.wordpress.com/) with posts linking dates 150 years apart. He includes maps, photographs, and links to related historical and natural history resources.
While California has changed dramatically, the California Geological Survey just wasn’t that long ago. My 96-year-old mother has lived 2/3 of that time span. Amazing. It just wasn’t that long ago.