Environment: The Threatened Coastlines

We passed directly under the high cliff and stood into the middle of the bay, from whence we could see small bays, making up into the interior, on every side: large and beautifully wooded islands; and the mouths of several small rivers. If California ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the center of its prosperity.

—Richard Henry Dana Jr.

CALIFORNIA has become a prosperous country, and San Francisco Bay, so lovingly described by Seaman Dana in Two Years Before the Mast, is the focus of West Coast commerce. But the Bay has...

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