A factual and fascinating account of the history, life and lore of California's vital inland sea. Here, for the first time, is a unique and much-needed contemporary profile of the great bay inside California's Golden Gate. San Francisco Bay profoundly affects the weather, lives, and economy of the two million people living around its hundreds of miles of shoreline. It is one of the world's seven most beautiful harbors, a body of water almost everyone knows but almost no one knows very much about. In San Francisco Bay the reader can learn about every aspect of this great inland sea: how it serves as livelihood for thousands of fishermen, sailors, and longshoremen; as a home for the swarming colonies of marine life in its depths; as the source of most of the salt used in the West and of raw materials for scores of other products; as a giant thermostat affecting not only the climate of the cities around its shore but that of California's great Central Valley as well. What forces of nature created this sometimes gleaming, sometimes misty inner sea? How is the Bay responsible for the waterfall effect of the fog in Sausalito, the T-fog in Berkeley, the glacial effect on San Francisco's peninsula? What unusual stories does it have to tell about sunken treasure ships, historic old ferries, and the world-renowned bridges?