The accompanying map illustrates the lines which should be the boundary lines of the States of California, South California and Nevada. The North and South line between California and Nevada, running from Oregon to Lake Tahoe, should be continued south until it strikes the crest of the Pacific Watershed; thence it should follow the crest of that watershed southeast, south and southwest, until it joins the Pacific Ocean between Santa Barbara and Ventura. The southern boundary line of Utah should be extended until it intersects the line last described at the crest of the Pacific Watershed. The land north of the line so extended to the west and draining into Nevada, formerly in California, and comprising Mono and part of Inyo Counties should go to Nevada and all south of this east and west line should go to South California. Nevada would gain by the exchange and so would South California. A glance at the map will satisfy anyone of the advantages to all the sections affected which would accrue from this correction of present boundaries, and the creation of the new State of South California. CHAPTER X _California is a remote Insular Province of the United States--just as much an island as Hawaii, to all practical intents and purposes. It would be more easily accessible from Japan by sea, in case of war, than from the United States by land. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, now nothing more than a large lake in these days of modern steamships. It is bounded on the east and south by mountain ranges from which a thousand miles of desert and the Rocky Mountains intervene before the populous sections of the United States are reached. On the north inaccessible mountains separate California from the plains and valleys of Oregon. There are hundreds of places on its coast where an army could be landed. To reach it from the north, mountains must be crossed. From the east, mountains must be crossed. From the south, mountains must be crossed. From the west, the gentle waves of the Pacific, in all ordinary weather, lap the sloping sands which for nearly a thousand miles tempt a landing on so fair a shore._ All this is true of Southern California, so far as its inaccessibility from the east is concerned, but it is more essentially true of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley. There you have a great bowl, fashioned by Nature in such a way as to open invitingly to the warm and equable winds that come from the Pacific and the Japan current, while on the north, west, and south are high mountain ranges that protect from the blizzards that come out of the north or the hot desert blasts from the south. This peculiar conformation of the great central valley of California makes its defense in case of war with any maritime nation a most difficult problem.