22 ABSENCE OF POLAE DRIFT — QUATERNARY CONDITIONS. 



vation of the northern Sierra is certainly sufficient to produce such an uplift, were its lateral 

 force produced so far eastward. On parallel 32° the influence of the Sierra can he traced 100 

 miles east ; further north, where it is more than twice as high, its lateral influence should 

 augment in a corresponding ratio. Be this as it may, it is certain that, at a remote period 

 (geologically) the basin country was receiving pala30Zoic deposits, both aluminous and calca- 

 reous, which were not made in waters of great depth, or far removed from the main continent. 

 Perhaps the northern plateaus of the basin may have been more elevated than the southern, 

 even before the upheaval of the Sierra. At present there is no good evidence to prove that the 

 southern portions of California were circumstanced so as to receive any of the mud or siliceous 

 deposits of the palaeozoic age. 



There are no phenomena in California referable to the period of the polar drift or ancient 

 alluvium, when the transport of those large blocks or boulders occurred. This phenomenon, 

 so well marked on the Atlantic coast of this continent, from the polar regions down to latitude 

 40°, by the carriage of the large masses of rock from distances more or less apart, without much 

 regard to the intervening level, and across opposing bodies of water, but always from north to 

 south, is totally absent in California from parallel 37° southwards. The prodigious force which 

 was exerted to produce these phenomena, which could transport huge erratic blocks of stone 

 from Newfoundland to Ireland, from the Shetland isles to Norway, from Sweden to Livonia and 

 Prussia, from Canada to New York, and from northern New York to Long Island ; this force, 

 whatever it may have been, whether of ice of glaciers^ or of current water, or of both, was not 

 exerted. Over the extensive plains east of the Sierra Nevada, in Tulare valley, in the pleasant 

 little oak valleys of the Coast Kanges, or on the terrace plains of the shore, not a single boulder 

 is to be met with — not a stone from which the plough might turn aside. 



This period of ancient erratic transport, the most ancient of the Quaternary or Supra-Tertiary 

 epoch, known by the three phenomena of distant transport, northerly direction, and grooving 

 and polishing of rocks, in latitudes north of 39° north, was apparently one of quiet in this 

 State. Yet the mountain chains were elevated throughout the State at this period. The 

 topography almost the same as at present, save that the whole plain country was below the 

 water level ; there were, therefore, elevated ranges from which the counties along the coast 

 might have had scattered over their surface these blocks ; but the Sierra Nevada has contributed 

 no boulders upon these plains, nor is there any stone included in the terraces which may 

 not be classed as belonging to those ranges immediately bounding the deposit. 



Not that the whole Quaternary epoch was passed without producing its efl'ects : denudation 

 on an extensive scale, lacustrine deposits, immense deposits of clay, sands, and gravels, attest 

 the long periods alike of action and of repose which characterize the later Quaternary period, 

 when the effects were more local, and every valley and plain had its beds of gravel and clay 

 formed from its mountain margins. 



We have already adverted to the singular shore conformation, without an estuary or deep 

 river indentation, consequent on the peculiar direction of the mountain chains. In connection 

 with this, we may notice Mr. Dana's valuable reflections on the connection between deep shore 

 indentations and the deposit of erratic blocks. He remarks of the former, that these deep gulfs 

 or fiords are common in the higher latitudes, while they are wholly absent from the coasts of 

 lower, temperate, and torrid zones. "Along the west coast of America they abound to the 

 north above 48°, and to the south, in Lower Patagonia and Terra del Fuego, south of 48°, 

 there are similar passages intersecting the land, and often cutting it into islands ; but between 



