40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



o'clock on the mornins;: of tlie fourth, and up to Sunday morning, the sixth, at 

 nine o'clock, there had been in all about five hundred shocks felt. 



The party divided on Sunday (September 6th), and a portion moved a few 

 miles to the north branch of the river, where they remained six days. They 

 state that the shocks continued to be felt one or two every hour up to the time 

 they left the neighborhood, on the eleventh of September. 



Another party, composed of citizens of Owens Valley, went to the same 

 locality, arriving there on the seventeenth of September, and remained in the 

 neighborhood, hunting and fishing, until the twenty-eighth of the same month. 

 The first three days after their arrival, which were the seventeenth, eighteenth, 

 and nineteenth, the shocks occurred about one every hour. The next three 

 days the shocks were much more frequent and severe ; then their frequency 

 and violence abated again, but continued at intervals of an hour or so up to 

 the time they left on the twenty-eighth of September. 



The vibrations all appeared to be in southeast and northwest directions, and 

 the tremblings were almost invariably preceded by a rumbling noise. 



The country rock, where the earthquakes occurred on Kern Kiver is granite, 

 with occasional dikes of trap and volcanic fissures from which a dark-brown 

 and black lava has been ejected. Having never been at the locality myself, I 

 cannot give any facts from my own observation, but from my knowledge of the 

 gentleman who gave me the foregoing facts, I have no doubt of their general 

 correctness. [See note on earthquakes, p. 29.] 



A discussion ensued on the various theoretical opinions as to the 

 igneous, chemical, and magnetic causes of earthquakes. 



Regular Meeting, December 21st, 18G8. 

 President in the Chair. 



Eleven members present. 



Donations to the Library : Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- 

 edge, Vol. XIV., 4to. American Naturalist for October; Amer. 

 Jour. Science and Arts, November. 



Mr. Lorquin stated that a male and female of the Chinese Man- 

 darin Duck (^Aix galericulatd), recently shot in the bay, had been 

 brought to him to be stuffed. Dr. Cooper remarked, that as this 

 bird is often imported in cages, they had probably escaped from 

 confinement. 



Dr. Blake exhibited a map, showing the direction of the shocks 

 of the earthquake of October 21st, as determined' east of the bay, 

 and remarked that they all .tended towards a center near Hay- 

 ward. Investigations on the subject are still in progress. 



'-it;-!' 



