64 Adventures in Scenery 



by the sea, and sediments from other lands were carried in and 

 deposited, so that a new formation was laid down on the rough 

 and worn surfaces of the old landscape. 



The Franciscan group of formations rests unconformably 

 upon the very ancient rocks of the so-called "basement com- 

 plex" or "plutonic basement." How old the plutonic basement 

 is we do not know. Just when in the geologic past the vast 

 granitic batholith which underlies the great mountain ranges 

 of the State was welled up from the depths of the earth we do 

 not know. It is generally thought, from such evidence as has 

 been found in the study of the rocks, that the time was prob- 

 ably Jurassic, that is, that it occurred after the close of the 

 Palaeozoic era. 



The age of the ancient sedimentary formations into which 

 the molten rock of the upheaved batholith was forced is not 

 known. If fossil remains of plants or animals were once en- 

 tombed in them and they probably were if there were any 

 plants or animals existing on the earth when these sediments 

 were deposited they were so far destroyed by the meta- 

 morphism of the rocks that thus far no evidence has been dug 

 from the earth that tells the story. The opinion of geologists 

 generally is that they are very old. That they were once sedi- 

 ments deposited on sea bottoms, and came from the weathering 

 and erosion of rocks that formed a landscape somewhere there 

 is not serious question. That these rocks are older than the 

 granitic rocks that were forced in molten form under and into 

 them there is not a question, for the ancient sedimentary rocks 

 were intruded by the granitic rocks, and this could not have 

 occurred unless the sedimentary rocks had been first formed. 

 These ancient sedimentary rocks, uplifted, bent, folded, and 

 broken, had existed as a land mass, subject to weathering and 

 erosion, for a long time. This is evident from the rough and 

 irregular character of the land surfaces which were buried 

 beneath the sediments of the seas in which the Franciscan for- 

 mations were laid down. 



