San Francisco Bay is the largest and most productive estuary on the Pacific Coast of North America. It is also home to the oldest and densest urban settlements in the American West. Focusing on human inhabitation of the Bay since Ohlone times, Down by the Bay reveals the ongoing role of nature in shaping that history. From birds to oyster pirates, from gold miners to farmers, from salt ponds to ports, this is the first history of the San Francisco Bay and Delta as both a human and natural landscape. It offers invaluable context for current discussions over the best management and use of the Bay in the face of sea level rise.

"You can't really know the place where you live until you know the shapes and origins of the land around you. To feel truly at home in the Bay Area, read Doris Sloan's intriguing stories of this region's spectacular, quirky landscapes."—Hal Gilliam, author of Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region "This is a fascinating look at some of the world's most complex and engaging geology. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in an understanding of the beautiful landscape and dynamic geology of the Bay Area."—Mel Erskine, geological consultant "This accessible summary of San Francisco Bay Area geology is particularly timely. We are living in an age where we must deal with our impact on our environment and the impact of the environment on us. Earthquake hazards, and to a lesser extent landslide hazards, are well known, but the public also needs to be aware of other important engineering and environmental impacts and geologic resources. This book will allow Bay Area residents to make more intelligent decisions about the geological issues affecting their lives."—John Wakabayashi, geological consultant

Excerpt from History of the San Francisco Bay Region, Vol. 1 An important event is one thing, a man's Opinion or interpretation of it is another, and may be quite unimportant. A historical personage, . Having played his part and gracefully withdrawn or lain down and died, . Has left his deeds to speak for themselves. How these deeds may strike the peculiar mentality of the historian who records them is, as a rule, not of paramount interest or value as literature. To be sure, there are exceptions, as in the cases of Plutarch, Macaulay, Gibbon and Carlyle but the annalist himself must be of sufficient mental stature and of such high authority, because of his scholarly attainments, as to make his comm ments or interpretative observations natural and warrantable parts of' the record and, in a sense, inseparable from it. One might well wish to know what Carlyle thought of certain phases of the French Revolution or of its leaders, but one would be likely to yawn over commentaries presented by a less famous or forceful writer. This history which I have written is not, as will be seen by its perusal, an obtrusively opinionated one; and wherever a comment, an expository observation or illustrative explanation happens to be thrown in it is always negligible.' For the most part there is little or no coloring of the matter presented - no heightening, remoulding or suppression of important details to make a case for or against any individual or group of individuals whose names and acts appear or are reported in the text. This rather unusual plan of treatment of the annals of San Fran cisco and its neighboring towns has been adopted by me because I believe that the discerning reader of such a history does not look for nor placidly accept ordinary judgment, much less argument. What he wants. Is facts. And so, though I have not failed altogether in analysis and comparison, I have tried to avoid anything save the most conservative comments. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.