California Art & Nature 



lO 



Dr. J. G. Cooper reports (in bulletin 

 4, California state mining bureau, pages 

 58 and 59) the discovery by H. W. 

 Fairbanks, near Carrizo creek of "fos- 

 sile coral-islands, the coral forming ex- 

 tensive beds about the summits of 

 short isolated ridges detached from the 

 mountains of the western rim, and con- 

 sisting at their bases of granitic or 

 metamorphic rocks. The ridges appear 

 to have been islands when the desert 

 formed part of the Gulf of California, 

 or of the Pacific ocean, and were at tbe 

 right depth beneath the surface for 

 coral growth on their summits for a 

 long period. With the coral occurred 

 several fossil shells of forms quite un- 

 like those of the late tertiary of Car- 

 rizo creek beds, and apparently unlike 

 those now Inhabiting the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia." 



Fragments of fossiliferous rock of 

 the Carboniferous age have been found 

 in the Carrizo creek region by various 

 collectors, but none in place have yet 

 been reported. 



The Indians, according to Dr. Stephen 

 Bowers, still preserve the memory of 

 catching fish along the eastern base of 

 the San Jacinto mountains, where the 

 Cahuilla Indians pointed out to him 

 the artificial pools, or "stone fish 

 traps," where their ancestors easily se- 

 cured the fish on the receding of the 

 tides of the ancient sea. This would 

 seem to indicate that the change from 

 an arm of the gulf is comparatively 

 recent, and a study of the fossils seems 

 to confirm this view. An old Indian 

 in the Cuyamaca mountains pointed 

 out to miners a few years ago points 

 in the hills to the eastward where his 

 great grandfather used to catch fish 

 from the sea. 



The cause of the separation of this 

 region from the gulf can be readily un- 

 derstood in the present encroachment 

 of the land that is forming from the 

 sediment and debris of the Colorado 

 river, where it empties into the gulf. 

 With the formation of a barrier separ- 

 ating thebasin from the gulf, th^ im- 

 prisoned waters were at once subject- 

 ed to rapid evaporation. 



The presence of fresh water shells 

 in a semi-fossil condition, of a brack- 

 ish water mollusk, and of marine shells 

 of species now found living at San 



Diego, on the Pacific side, would seem 

 to indicate that thegreat changes which 

 have unquestionably taken place in 

 this remarkable region were the re- 

 sult of natural phenomena of gradual, 

 yet rapid, occurrence. After its iso- 

 lation from the sea, with rapid evapor- 

 ation, few years were requisite to 

 transform this basin from an arm of 

 the sea to a barren waste, the salt of 

 the sea water forming the salt mines 

 at Salton. 



The Colorado river doubtless hurried 

 past as it does today to the gulf, until 

 breaking down the barrier it had itself 

 erected. With alternate periods of 

 evaporation and influx of fresh wa- 

 ter, the great basin changed first to 

 a brackish lagoon, and finally to a vast 

 fresh water lake. 



The water of the Colorado river at 

 Yuma is known to carry at high wa- 

 ter not less than ten per centuni of 

 solid matter. The deposit of this sedi- 

 ment in the great basin doubtless rap- 

 idly formed the deep and fertile lands 

 which are now being harnessed into 

 service at Indio and Imperial, and 

 being converted at the latter place, by 

 the utilizing under control of the wa- 

 ter from the Colorado river, ititO fields 

 of agricultural promise. ' ' ' 



Dr. Robert Edward Carter Stearns,- in 

 a paper read before the California 

 academy of sciences, entitled "Remarks 

 on fossil shells from the Colorado 

 Desert" (published in the American 

 Naturalist, 13:141-154, March, 1879), dis- 

 cussed the occurrence of fresh water 

 shells found in a well at -Walter's sta- 

 tion at a depth of fifty feet. The sur- 

 face of the desert where this well was 

 sunk is 195.54 feet below sea level. Dr. 

 Stearns remarks: 



"Shall we indulge in a guess as to 

 the depth of the water when these 

 shells were alive? Shall we add the 

 depth of the well to the elevation of 

 bench marks, the ancient levels which 

 form terrace lines in some places along 

 the distant hills, once a part of the 

 shores of an ancient lake, the walls of 

 the Tjasin which once Inclosed and held 

 a fresh-water sea? It may have bf,en,' 

 however, that the lake was never so 

 deep as the figures thus added would 

 indicate, and that instead of a lake or 

 a series of lakes, there existed only a 



