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University of California. 



[Vol. 3. 



into it by transitional slopes which, however, are thickly 

 veneered with alluvium, in the shape of arkose granite sand, 

 derived from the disintegration of the rocks of the higher 

 ground. The altitude of the rear of the plateau along this 

 extent may be placed at from 10,500 to 11,000 feet. From this 

 level it has a uniform slope to the brink of Kern Canon. The 

 canon in its upper stretches is, however, not so deep as to the 

 south of Mt. Guyot, and the break from the plateau slope to the 

 canon walls not so abrupt. The relief of the plateau here is 

 quite like that to the south of the Kaweah Peaks. If we disre- 

 gard the streams which trench it on the way to the Kern, the 

 sloping plain is nearly featureless except for a slight modelling 

 of the surface. 



On the west side of the Kern to the north of the Kaweah 

 liidge the plateau extends for three or four miles westerly into 

 the basin of the Kern-Kaweah River with a width of about two 

 miles. In this direction it has again transitional slopes connect- 

 ing it with the northern flank of the Kaweahs; and at its upper 

 end it appears to be nearly coincident in level with the floors of 

 the glacial cirques, which converge upon it from the high moun- 

 tains at its rear. To the north and northeast of the high spur, 

 which divides the Kern-Kaweah River from Milestone Creek, the 

 plateau extends to the very head of the Kern and seems to pass 

 into a broadly glaciated shelf on the west side of the river which 

 may, very probably, have been the seat of a piedmont glacier fed 

 by several ice streams descending from the group of high moun- 

 tains, of which Table Mountain is the most conspicuous. The 

 area of the high valley land thus outlined as lying north of the 

 strait between Mt. Guyot and Red Spur may be placed roughly 

 at about 40 square miles. Adding this to the similar area south 

 of the Kaweahs, and estimating 20 square miles as a liberal 

 allowance for other remnants of the plateau such as that extend- 

 ing up to the Siberian Outpost and the discontinuous strip on 

 the east side of the Kern between Rock Creek and Volcano 

 Creek, we get a total area of the High Valley land as 100 square 

 miles,* or about 25 per cent of the entire area of the Upper 

 Kern Basin as defined earlier in the paper. 



*Tbis is exclusive of the area of the plateau replaced by Kern Canon. 



