12 



consideration of tliis subject will appear in some future volume of the 

 Survey Keport, therefore the present notice is merely intended to call 

 the attention of scientific observers to the matter and to solicit aid in 

 its farther prosecution. 



Among the specimens thus examined, are some of the rocks or 

 shales, making up the great mass of the mountains of the Coast Kange, 

 which extend down the Pacific shore, from Washington Territory to 

 the borders of Lower California. These shales are of a light cream 

 color, for the most part, and are mainly made up of the siliceous 

 remains of Diatomaceaj and Polycistina ; the first being minute plants, 

 and the last animals. Many of these are identical with those found 

 living at the present time in the waters of that coast. Exuding 

 through, and invariably present with these shales, is the Petroleum or 

 Bitumen of California, from which fact they had been named by the 

 Survey, "Bitumenous shales." Off this coast, and lying generally 

 parallel to it, are several islands generally bearing upon their summits 

 layers of guano of more or less value commercially. This coast, it 

 must be noted, is in continual motion from the contiguousness of 

 volcanoes of greater or less activity, which are found in the Sierra 

 Nevadas and their spurs; so much so that it is slowly rising. The 

 Survey have identified at least three ancient lines of rise or coast, 

 and another one is seen in the islands which represent the peaks of a 

 future Coast Range. 



If the facts which accompany the occurrence of the marine Infuso- 

 rial deposits of other parts of the globe, be examined, they are found 

 to be the same as occur in California ; that is to say, there is found 

 Bitumen of some kind, and adjacent thereto islands upon which 

 guano exists. Thus at Payta, in Peru, Dr. C. F. Winslow had found 

 an Infusorial deposit almost identical with the Californian one ; near 

 by was Bitumen, and off the coast the well known Guano islands 

 of Galapagos, Chincha, Lobos and others. The rocks of the Chincha 

 Islands, which immediately underlie the guano, had been shown 

 to be volcanic, and in fact, of recent eruption. So again, at Netanai 

 in Japan, Mr. Raphael Pumpelly had found a marine Infusorial deposit 

 of the same character. Bitumen and active volcanoes. In the north- 

 ei'u part of Africa, in Algeria, the same phenomena occur, and in the 

 Carribean sea are found the Infusorial deposits of the islands of 

 Trinidad and Barbadoes, the great Pitch-lake of the first and the 

 Bitumenous springs of the last island, while guano islands are com- 

 mon, and active volcanoes not uncommon. 



From these facts as well as others of no less importance, derived 

 from the chemical and microscopical characters developed, he had 

 come to the conclusion that guano was not the result of the accumula- 

 tion of bird droppings upon the islands, but the deposit of the remains 



