GEOLOGY. 69 
’ 
dry before these wells were bored. The artesian wells cannot 
draw the water from the soil immediately around them, for 
they throw their waters above the earth; it may be, however, 
that their supplies are derived from the soil in the upper part 
of the valley—supplies which, if the wells were not there, 
would not be drained away into subterranean channels, but 
would go to moister the whole valley. It is to be observed 
that, at the very time when the soil of the Santa Clara valley 
was becoming so dry, a similar disappearance of the surface- 
water was noticed far beyond the influence of the artesian wells 
—Honey Lake, on the plateau of the Sierra Nevada, and Lake 
Elizabeth, in the Great Basin, both disappearing about the 
same time, in 1859; and several other little lakes and ponds 
in other parts of the country following their example, soon 
after. 
. There are artesian wells at various places in the state besides 
Santa Clara valley, but they offer nothing new in a geological 
point of view. 
§ 48. Paleontology.—It is a general rule, that the animals 
of former geological eras, in any given district, appear to have 
been the gigantic ancestors of those of the present time. Thus 
the kangaroo and emu of Australia, found in no other part of 
the world, were preceded by gigantic kangaroos and emus, 
whose fossil remains are found in New Holland only. So, too, 
South America, in antediluvian times, had gigantic sloths and 
tapirs, akin to the animals now found within her limits. Each 
continent has a fauna of its own, to which its antediluvian ani- 
mals were nearly akin. Every continent has several zodlogical 
districts; and the ancient and modern fauna of these districts 
are sometimes as clearly related to each other, and as distinctly 
separate from those of other parts of the continent, as are the 
fauna of different continents from each other. But the ante- 
diluvian animals of California possessed no peculiar relation- 
ship to the animals now indigenous in the state: the former 
fauna was totally distinct from that of the present age; the 
fossil bones found are not numerous, and no large and valuable 
