258 Adventures in Scenery 



droves of small light-limbed horses (Pliohippus) , several species 

 of camels, large and small antelopes, herds of deer, pigs, and 

 four-tusked elephants. Also in the forests lived sabre-toothed 

 cats, ground-sloths, wolves, and bears of greater size than any 

 known today, exceeding in size the Alaskan Kodiak bear, the 

 largest bear of modern times. These animals are all gone. 

 They are known only from fossil remains preserved in the sedi- 

 mentary rocks. Very interesting fossil remains of animals now 

 extinct have been obtained by the University of California 

 from the Pliocene (late Tertiary) formations, called the Mt. 

 Eden beds, that flank the San Jacinto Mountains at their north- 

 west end. These deposits extend from the head of San Gor- 

 gonio Pass to the eastern end of the San Bernardino Valley. 

 These beds are made up of sandstones and shales, with coarse 

 conglomerate deposits. San Timoteo Canyon, heading near 

 Beaumont at the west end of San Gorgonio Pass, cuts through 

 this series of loosely consolidated beds, and due to the high 

 gradient of the stream caused by the San Jacinto Mountain 

 uplift, the canyon has been deeply eroded, and side streams 

 entering the main gorge have dissected the surface to a typical 

 badlands topography. 



About six miles south and east of the Mt. Eden beds, where 

 fossil remains of extinct vertebrate animals were found, and 

 east and southeast of San Jacinto and Hemet, occur what are 

 known as the Bautista beds (early Quaternary Pleistocene) . 

 The materials of the Bautista deposit are markedly different 

 from those of the San Timoteo beds. Finely stratified sands 

 and clays, with entire absence of the cobbles and conglomerates 

 of the San Timoteo badlands, make up a conspicuous part of 

 the beds. It is in these clays and fine sands that the best of the 

 Bautista fossil material has been secured. The Bautista depos- 

 its, it is considered, offer a rich field for the collection of fossils. 



When the disturbances occurred by which the San Bernar- 

 dino Mountains were raised north of the San Andreas fault, and 

 the San Bernardino Basin had been depressed below sea level, 



