THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS 
OF THE SIERRA NEVADA OF CALIFORNIA. 
CEA: Pel Havok. 
GENERAL DISCUSSION OF THE TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES AND GEOLOGICAL 
STRUCTURE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. 
SECTION I. — Topographical Sketch. 
It seems a necessary preliminary to a detailed account of the Auriferous 
Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, that the general features of the geography 
and geology of the State of California should be sketched. Without such an 
introduction the reader of this volume will hardly be able to have a clear 
idea of the nature of the frame into which the special results here set forth 
are to be fitted. The sketch must necessarily be brief, and may the more 
properly be made so, because it is the expectation of the writer that, in a 
future volume, the topics rapidly passed over in this chapter will be much 
more fully discussed. Reference may be made by the student of Californian 
geology to the already published volume of the Survey, as also to the maps 
which have been issued during the progress of that work.* 
The principal topographical features of California are so striking in their 
general aspect, that they could not fail of early recognition; they were first 
clearly indicated on Fremont’s map, accompanying his Geographical Memoir, 
published in 1848. Well known as these features are in their outline to most 
* “ Geology of California, Vol. I. A Report of Progress and Synopsis of the Field-work, from 1860 to 
1864.” This volume will be quoted in the present work as “Geol. I.” The principal maps issued are : 
A General Map of California and Nevada, on a scale of eighteen miles to one inch ; A Map of the Region 
adjacent to the Bay of San Francisco, scale two miles to an inch ; Map of Central California, on a scale of 
six miles to an inch, in four sheets, the whole covering an area of about 60,000 square miles of the most 
important and thickly settled region of the State, and about 18,000 square miles of Nevada. Of this latter 
map only two sheets have been finished and published ; these embrace a strip of about 150 miles in width, 
extending across the State from east to west, having Visalia on its southern border, and Santa Rosa on 
its northern. The other two sheets of this map were nearly completed when the Survey was stopped. 
