390 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



region, in August last, and has published some notes on the sur- 

 face geology in the American Naturalist for November, under 

 the title of " Glacial Marks on the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts 

 Compared." To. this article I shall again refer. 



In descending the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, hard 

 clays, packed with boulders and stones, are seen in some cuttings 

 near Blue Canon Station (elevation, 4,693 feet) and at other 

 places, probably as far down as Dutch Flat Station (3,395 feet). 

 These are doubtless old moraines, due to the former glaciers of 

 the Sierra, which, according to the American geologists who 

 have examined this range, were at one time very extensive. 



Leaving the rolling foot-hills, the train glides out on the wide 

 and generally fertile Sacramento Plain, in the midst of which the 

 city of the same name is situated. Near the base of the foot- 

 hills, large areas are covered with the so-called " Hog Wallows," 

 about which some discussion lately occurred in Nature, it being 

 suggested by some that they were connected with ancient ice 

 action. Mr. Gabb * is no doubt right, however, in attributing 

 them to the accumulation of drifting sand and soil around clumps 

 of vegetation, which in some cases may have afterwards perished 

 from climatic or other causes, leaving only these peculiar hillocks 

 to mark their former positions. The banking up of sand and 

 soil about patches of cactus and sage is seen frequently in the 

 dry plains east of the Rocky Mountains, as well as in Nevada, 

 to which Mr. Gabb refers. 



Leaving the main line of railway at a right angle at Roseville, 

 and turning northward, one continues to travel over the same 

 wide, flat, or gently undulating plain of Central California, 

 bounded to the right by the snowy peaks of the Sierra, to the 

 left by the more rounded summits of the Coast Range. Soon 

 after leaving Maryville — an important town — a rugged and pic- 

 turesque group of hills, called the Butte Mountains, appear on 

 the left, some miles distant. They owe their outline apparently 

 to prolonged atmospheric waste, and are singularly different from 

 the dome-like summits of a glaciated country. At Reading, 

 about 120 miles north of Roseville, the railway comes to an end, 

 and for 275 miles, the stage coach must carry us through a 

 country remarkably broken and tumultuous. Crossing the Sacra- 

 mento by a good ferry, soon after leaving Reading, a broad, 



* Nature, Vol. XVI, p. 183. 



