1916] Dickerson: Tejon Eocene of California 401 



g. Conglomerate of gravel, white and black quartz, and nodules 



of carbonate of lime 10 feet 



f. Sandstone, showing diagonal stratification and one or two layers 



of gravel 12 " 



e. Sandstone, with a layer of pebbles 3 " 



d. Hard sandstone, thinly bedded; layers of pebbles towards the base-20 " 



c. Compact sandstone, with some small pebbles 2 " 



b. Sandstone, with coarse grains and pebbles 1 " 



a. Sandstone 



The upper stratum is perfectly level on the top and free from soil; 

 a dwarfed bush or tree, here and there, is the only vegetation. The whole 

 surface appears fissured, or as if cracked by drying in the sun — precisely 

 as the soil is cracked during the dry season. This must have taken 

 place at the time of the deposition of the rock or soon after. On closely 

 inspecting the slight accumulations of fine gravel in some of the hollows 

 of the rocks, numerous very small but beautiful crystals of andalusite were 

 found. These did not exceed three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, and 

 were seldom over one-eighth. They are translucent, but appear to be 

 worn and rounded by attrition. 



Turner 54 described these as a continuation of the same formations 

 found one mile south of Merced Falls. He described the igneous 

 rocks of this neighborhood as follows : 



Along the east side of the valley to the south of the Merced River 

 is a plateau, the upper layers of which, where examined, are composed 

 of andesitic detritus mixed with ordinary sand. Some of the white under- 

 lying' material may be of rhyolitic origin. At any rate the white material 

 at the edge of the plains just west of Daultons in Madera County is 

 rhyolite. 



The region in the vicinity of Bear Creek was recently visited 

 by Mr. Chester Stock and the writer for the Department of Palae- 

 ontology of the University of California to search for remains of 

 Auchenia calif ornica 55 Leidy and other Tertiary mammals which 



■>i Turner, H. W., Geology of Sierra Nevada, Seventeenth Annual Report, 

 U. S. Geological Survey, part I, p. 683, 1896. 



•55 The various beds described above were searched thoroughly for marine 

 and land remains, but none were found. A point six miles southwest of 

 Indian Gulch on the Mariposa line would be at Burns Creek. How Whitney 

 eould describe Burns Creek as a nameless tributary of Bear Creek is hard 

 to understand, because this creek is distinctly mentioned in the Pacific Railway 

 Report and was early known by that name. Leidy's statement concerning 

 the label which accompanied A. calif ornica is that the specimen was found 

 beneath the basalts at Table Mountain near Shaw's Plat, Tuolumne County, 

 California. C. D. Voy who collected the specimen of A. calif ornica may have 

 collected Venericardia planicosta merriami Dickerson at the locality six 

 miles southwest of Indian Gulch. 



In the Geology of the Sierra Nevada (17th Annual Report, p. 683 ) Turner 

 states: 



"In a paper on the auriferous gravels attention was called to an inter- 

 esting locality of vertebrate remains described by Professor Whitney as 

 being on a dry creek tributary to Bear Creek near the line of Mariposa 

 and Merced Counties. A search was made for this locality but no evidence 

 of such remains was found. Professor Whitney later informed the writer 

 that he himself had investigated the locality and had been unable to find it." 



