GEAVEL AND VOLCANIC FORMATIONS : ABOVE SMARTS VILLE. 



195 



u r 



curring at intervals of from one to two miles along the divide between Deer 

 Creek and the South Yuba, Those between Owl and Rush creeks, about a 

 mile south of the Yuba, are about equally distant from the western terminus 

 of the Nevada City channel, that at Montezuma Hill, and the great line of 

 deposits which occupies so much of the area between the South and Middle 

 Yuba and seems to terminate at French Corral. Before describing these last- 

 mentioned gravels, which are the most interesting and important of any in 

 the State, the isolated patches mentioned as occurring just north of Deer 

 Creek will be noticed. The question of their probable connection with the 

 other deposits mentioned as occurring higher up may be perhaps discussed 

 farther on in this volume. 



Tracing up the gravel from Smartsville towards the summit of the Sierra, 

 the valley of Deer Creek is crossed. This stream has in the lower part of 

 its course a very rapid fall ; in the last mile before it joins the Yuba its 

 descent is as much as 300 feet. On the north side of Deer Creek, a little 

 northeast of Fiene's, which is about a mile north of Mooney's Flat, there is an 

 isolated patch of gravel, at an altitude of about 1,200 feet. This deposit is 

 thin, and of its productiveness nothing is known. Of this Mr. Fettee says : 

 There were no other high points to the west to interfere with the course 

 of this channel, and it is impossible to say in just what direction it went. It 

 may very likely have been a part of the original Mooney Flat and Smarts- 

 ville channel, or one of its tributaries." 



On the summit of Pearl's Hill, about a mile northwest of the Anthony 



House, nearly on the line connecting the last-mentioned deposit with those of 



Smartsville, there is a bed of gravel, at an altitude of 1,549 feet, capped with 



& mass of lava about a hundred feet in thickness. The bed-rock in this region 



is slate. At Stark's Tunnel, on Stark's Hill, a little northeast of Pearl's, there 



ls a tunnel, run in a white clayey material, not seeming to be connected 



with any old gravel channel, but rather the result of the decomposition of 

 the bed-rock. 



Beckman Hill, about a mile north of Deer Creek, has an elevation of 1,950 



e ^t. This is capped with volcanic material, which lies chiefly or entirely on 



the western slope of the elevation ; but which has, in many places, rolled or slid 



< own into the ravines and gulches, so that the line of demarcation between 



1 



Ja va and bed-rock could only with difficulty be made out, The body of 



a va extends in a northeasterly direction for a distance of somewhat less than 

 < l mile. The material capping the hill is made up of rolled fragments of lava, 



