DOUBTFUL EXISTENCE OF PALEOZOIC BEDS. 31 



the times were alike. When the different thicknesses of tertiary heds in different countries are 

 considered, from the trifling and unconsolidated beds of Ireland and Sweden, to the extensive 

 deposits of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, or the thinner beds of the southern States, 

 with the more extensive ones west of the Sierra Nevada, it mixst be admitted that more time 

 was consumed in the formation of the one than in the other. Both bear evidences of quiet 

 deposition, and the rate of deposition might have been the same on both slopes ; yet, as the 

 Californian beds are much thicker^ more time was consumed in their formation, and while their 

 later beds were being formed, either there was a cessation of deposit on the eastern slope, or the 

 Quaternary period had already commenced there. 



Whether pal.-eozoic or silurian be hereafter found in southern California or no, it must, how- 

 ever, be admitted that these beds are of slight thickness ; for it would not be easy for beds of 

 carboniferous limestone, having the thickness found at the slope of the Organ mountains or on 

 the Pinaleiio ranges, in New Mexico, to have escaped observation, especially as they were 

 sought for, nor could the more powerful Devonian sandstones of Calitro and the Mogollon 

 mountains be overlooked ; if such beds are represented in south California, they must have 

 thinned out very much as they passed westward ; if they exist at all beneath the Coloradr, 

 desert and lower steppe of the Basin, (the Mojave Basin,) the upheavals have not been suffici- 

 ently pronounced to disclose them ; but there have been many granitic exposures in south , 

 California, and not one position where the older stratified beds can be said to be in place and 

 unaltered. 



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