King's "Mountaineering" 



between the uplifting of the Sierra at 

 the ocean's edge and the glacial pe- 

 riod, including the appearance of the 

 Coast Ranges : 



" In the late tertiary period a chap- 

 ter of very remarkable events oc- 

 curred. For a second time the evenly 

 laid beds of the sea-bottom were 

 crumpled by the sinking of the earth. 

 The ocean flowed back into deeper 

 and narrower limits, and, fronting 

 the Sierra Nevada, appeared the pres- 

 ent system of Coast Ranges. The 

 intermediate depression, or sea-trough 

 as I like to call it, is the valley of 

 California, and therefore a more re- 

 cent continental feature than the 

 Sierra Nevada. At once, then, from 

 the folded rocks of the Coast Ranges, 

 from the Sierra summits and the in- 

 land plateaus, and from numberless 

 vents caused by the fierce dynamical 

 action, there poured out a general 

 244 



