File:The continent we live on (1961) (20497942669).jpg

Title: The continent we live on
Identifier: continentweliveo00sandrich (find matches)
Year: 1961 (1960s)
Authors: Sanderson, Ivan Terence, 1911-1973
Subjects: Physical geography; Natural history
Publisher: New York : Random House
Contributing Library: New College of California
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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field, forming the inner of the two coastal ranges. Their fauna is that of the peripheral parklands of the Sacramento valley. THE LAND OF LIVING FOSSILS Parallel to the Klamath complex and these low inland ranges, and stretching from just south of Cape Blanco to Monterey Bay, lie the great Redwood Forests, clothing a narrow, mountainous strip facing the Pacific. The northern part of this strip is com- posed of the Pacific slopes of the Klamath Ranges, which run northwestward to the sea in echelon, but it is quite distinct (and unique) as a vegetational subprovince, or rather a zone. This is the last retreat of the mighty redwood trees (Sequoia semper- virens) and is maintained by the warm mists and fogs that drift in daily from the nearby ocean. Together with the Klamath- Trinity complex, this land appears to be one of the "oldest" parts of this continent. It has been under the sea, either as a whole or in part, from time to time, and it was somewhat gouged by mountain glaciers during the recent ice age but only to a very limited extent. Yet it has apparently never been completely sub- merged at the same time as all other surrounding bits of terri- tory, so that it has acted as a sort of refuge for many things from the past. The most obscure and least impressive of these is a strange kind of smallish rodent known as the Sewellel or "Mountain Beaver" (Aplodonta). It is a very primitive form of rodent with. as its scientific name states, simple teeth. It has no known near relatives and is unique to this area, having its headquarters in this subprovince but spreading north to the Chehalis River divide; up the Cascades, probably to the Fraser; and south down the Sierra Nevada. It is a compact creature with a large head, small ears, very small eyes, and a tiny one-inch stump for a tail. It is about a foot long and is clothed in dense, hard, brown fur that becomes lighter in summer. It lives in lush growth, from the lowlands to the tree line, and never strays far from water. It digs holes and makes long passageways, some of which often enter water and are flooded. Its food appears to be the leaves of succulent plants and other herbage. It is a sort of left-over beast. There are also found in these ranges both moles and shrews of distinctive species. Among these is a curious animal known as the Shrew-mole (Neurotrichus), an extremely ancient form of mammal that has relatives only in the Far East of Asia. It is intermediate between a mole and a shrew, having wide hands with immense claws and a tail half as long as its head and body, but narrow at the base rather than tapering like that of a mole. It appears, indeed, that there has been land hereabouts for an incredibly long time and that upon it have been preserved certain types of plants and animals from what is called the Mesozoic Age. the period when the dinosaurs predominated. What is more, the nearest relatives of many of its inhabitants turn up otherwise only in the western Chinese region. Some years ago a tree related to the sequoias (and now named Meta- sequoia or the "one like the redwood") was discovered in

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