INTRODUCTION. XI 



Sunday at 12:45, P. M., just about the time when the morning services 

 were being closed in the churches. Two-thirds of the front of a new 

 four-story brick building on the corner of Third and Mission Streets (the 

 mortar of which had not had time to dry) was tlxrown down. Parts of the fire- 

 walls and chimneys of two dozen brick buildings were thrown down. The 

 walls of the City Hall, of the old Merchants' Exchange on Battery Street, 

 of California Engine House on Market Street, the Pennsylvania Engine 

 House on Jackson Street, the Market building at the corner of Pine and 

 Market Streets, besides a multitude of others, were badly cracked. Several 

 wooden buildings which were being raised, and were supported on tem- 

 porary scaffolding or blocks, were thrown down and demohshed. The 

 falling cornices and fire-walls filled some of the streets with dust, and fell 

 on four or five persons, some of whom were seriously hurt, though the 

 injuries did not prove fatal in any case. In those churches where the 

 services were not closed, the people rushed for the doors in a very dis- 

 orderly, manner. 



§ 5. Geological Survey. — A geological survey of the State was com- 

 menced in November, 1860, and continued until 1868, under charge of Prof. 

 J. D. Whitney. He has been assisted by "Wm. M. Gabb, in paleontology, 

 W. H. Brewer and H. X. Bolander in botany, J. G. Cooper in zoology, 

 A. Eemond and Clarence King in general geology, "Wm. Ashburner in 

 economical geology, C. F. Hoffman, V. "Wackenreuder, and J. T. Gardner 

 in topography. The expense of the work has so far been about $140,000. 

 Only two volumes of the report have been published, but others are ready 

 for the press. The following are some of the results of the survey. 



The coast mountains rose from the sea before the Sierra Nevada, and 

 the latter range was for long after much lower than now ; and a vegeta- 

 tion, different from that which now flourishes here, covered the land. 

 Afterward came a series of great volcanic convulsions ; the Sierra Nevada 

 was lifted up on three successive occasions, separated by long intervals 

 A hundred volcanoes poured- out vast floods of liquid fire and of water 

 mixed with ashes. Mounts Shasta and Lassen, Pilot Peak, Spanish Peak, 

 Old Man Mountain, and Castle Peak, and a multitude of others for which 

 we have no names, were all ablaze at once. There were intervals of rest 

 between their periods of activity, and alternate beds of lava and of alluvial 

 gravel or soil exist on the hills as deposited in what were then valleys or 

 the beds of rivers. An area of not less than 20,000 square miles is now 

 covered with lava. The three periods of upheaval were first at the close 

 of the cretaceous era ; second after the deposition of the raiocene tertiary ; 



