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University of California Publications in Geology [Vol.8 



localities in this vicinity, and it was thought well to include notes on 

 these collections in the present paper. The work has been carried out 

 under the direction of Dr. J. C. Merriam. The writer's field work 

 was done during parts of the months of January and June, 1912. 



HISTORICAL REVIEW 



As early as 1869 Gabb 1 listed and described a number of shells 

 which were sent to him from the San Fernando and Santa Clara 

 River valleys, and which he recognized as coming from a formation 

 of Pliocene age. 



George II. Ashley, 2 who visited the locality of the San Fernando 

 Pass in 1894, says of this region: "At the San Fernando tunnel in 

 Los Angeles County the beds that have been considered as Miocene 

 of the Monterey Series are overlaid conformably by a series of cal- 

 careous sandstones and conglomerates which are quite f ossilif erous. " 

 He made a collection of twenty-three determined species, of which 

 fourteen, or sixty per cent, are living. He considered the beds to be 

 of the same age as beds which are now known as the Purisima for- 

 mation. 



In 1900 AV. L. Watts visited Elsmere Canon during the course of 

 a study of the California oil fields. In his report 3 he correlates the 

 oil sands of Elsmere Canon with other oil-yielding sandstones in the 

 eastern part of the Santa Clara River Valley, all of which he considers 

 to be of middle Neocene age. He made collections of fossils from the 

 vicinity of Santa Paula, Camulos, and Holser Canon, which were 

 identified by Dr. J. C. Merriam as coming from a middle Neocene 

 horizon. Watts also mentions a locality in Elsmere Cation where 

 "sandstones of the middle Neocene" rest unconformably on "hard 

 sandstones resembling the Eocene sandstones of the Sespe district." 

 This locality was not recognized by the writer. 



During the years 1901-1902 the region of the Santa Clara River 

 Valley was investigated and mapped by G. H. Eldridge. 4 He makes 

 the first published use of the name Fernando formation, using it as 

 a group name for a great thickness of sandstones and conglomerates 

 in the region of the Santa Clara River Valley, and including all beds 



1 Gabb, W. M., Palae. Cal., V. 2, p. 49, 1869. 



2 Ashley, G. H., Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci., Ser. 2, vol. 5, p. 337, 1895. 



3 Watts, W. L., Bull. Cal. Min. Bureau, No. 19, p. 56, 1900. 



* Eldridge, G. H., U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 309, pp. 22, 96-98, 1907. 



