I. 



FOSSIL FISHES FROM THE SOLEDAD DEPOSITS OF 

 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 



DAVID STARR JORDAN 



In the Sierra Santa Monica of Southern California is a body of 

 sandstones and shales, which are considerably older than the diato- 

 maceous deposits referred to the Monterey age of the Miocene period. 

 The latter are sometimes segregated under the name of Puente. The 

 fish-fauna of these earlier rocks is evidently much older than that of the 

 Monterey deposits and of the lowest Miocene or possibly of the Oligocene 

 age. As this peculiar fish- fauna is well developed in the fine sandstones 

 about Soledad 1 Pass, in the extreme northern part of Los Angeles County, 

 we may provisionally call this group the Soledad deposits, using a new but 

 temporary name, leaving the stratigraphical determination to geologists. 



From Soledad deposits as thus indicated the geological collection 

 of Stanford University has received fossil fishes from four localities 



1. Brown's Canon in the Sierra Santa Monica, four miles north of 

 Soldiers' Home and about ten miles northeast of the city of Santa Monica. 

 The specimens from this locality are in a pale yellowish sandstone, and 

 mostly fairly preserved. ETRINGUS SCINTILLANS is well represented, with 

 two incomplete specimens and many detached scales of GANOLYTES CAMEO. 

 There is also a single fine example and some fragments of AUXIDES 

 SANCT.E-MONIC.E. The two small examples of BULBICEPS RANINUS come 

 from Brown's Canon as also the type of ROGENITES BOWERSI. 



2. Moore's Canon in the same neighborhood, in soft, fine, white 

 sandstone. The specimens found here are mainly ROGENIO SOLITUDINIS. 



3. Soledad Pass, near Lancaster, about forty miles north of Los 

 Angeles. The numerous specimens are in rather fine, white shaly sand- 

 stone, much like that of Moore's Canon. Here were found many examples 

 of ROGENIO SOLITUDINIS, a fragment of AUXIDES SANCT.E-MONICLE, several 



lU The snowy hills where Silence, 

 All unmoved by human uproar, 

 Holds his court, on Soledad." 



Rhyme of the Palos Verdes, 1880. 



The name "Soledad" does not occur on recent maps, but the term was form- 

 erly used for mountains in the region south of Lancaster, where the Southern 

 Pacific Railway crosses the main chain of the Sierra Madre. 



