CORDILLERA N MESOZOIC RE VOL UTION. 583 



conditioned the uplift and wide-spread disturbance which is 

 freely recognized in geological literature as having occurred at 

 the close of the Jurassic. Again we haVe, as in British Colum- 

 bia, a wonderful dissolving of the ancient status quo, a revolution 

 of no mean import, whether regarded merely as an historical 

 event or in its bearing upon the general principles of epeirogeny. 

 The important feature which distinguishes the group of facts 

 observed in the Sierra Nevada from those in British Columbia is 

 that in the former we have the Jurassic a part of the great 

 assemblage^ of rocks invaded by the granite while in British 

 Columbia these rocks are not known to exist. This difference, 

 taken together with the probable fact that the pre-Cretaceous 

 denudation of the Sierra was less profound than that of British 

 Columbia, suggests a progressive development of the batholitic 

 condition from north to south, so that the disturbance was felt 

 somewhat later in California, although it was part, doubtless, of 

 the same great subcrustal process. 



In the Coast Ranges of California we have much less precise 

 information than in the case of the Sierra Nevada. Analogous 

 conditions seem to be indicated by the information at hand. 

 There are areas of granite and metamorphic rocks which have 

 been subject to great denudation prior to the deposition of the 

 Cretaceous. No rocks of older age than Cretaceous are 

 known to rest upon the worn surface of this complex. 

 Carboniferous fossils have recently been found by Mr. Fair- 

 banks in the Santa Ana Range 1 in a series of rocks into which 

 the granite of the region has been injected. The same geologist 

 informs us of the intrusion of the granite of the Gavilan 

 Range 2 into the Coast Range metamorphics, and of similar 

 relations in the Trinity Mountains in the Northern part of the 

 state. 3 The writer, also, has observed that the granite of the 

 Santa Cruz Range is intrusive in the limestone of the metamorphic 

 complex. Mr. Fairbanks is of the opinion that generally the 



1 Am. Geologist, vol. xi., Feb., 1893. 



z Loc. cit. 



3 Am. Geologist, March, 1892. 



