CHAPTER III. 

 THE TWO ISLANDS. 



The geological history of the Pacific coast 

 consists chiefly in the description of the slow 

 elevation of successive belts of the bed of the 

 ocean into dry land, and the progressive addi- 

 tions of these to the western border of North 

 America. 



These belts of ocean bed have not only 

 been elevated into dry land, but in varying 

 degrees hardened into rock, though retain- 

 ing through all these changes the clearest 

 evidence of their former sea-bed condition. 

 The floor of the sea from which these beds 

 were lifted, was in favored places strewn then, 

 as such places are strewn to-day, with shells, 

 fragments of corals or of bones, all bearing 

 record of the life of the period in which they 

 were covered by the ocean sediment. 



