Law son.] 



The Upper Kern Basin. 



33] 



KERN CANON AND CRUSTAL RIFTING. 



Kernbuts and Kerncols. — A remarkable feature of the Upper 

 Kern, below Volcano Creek, is the departure of the stream from 

 the west wall of the canon and its crowding upon Hie east wall. 

 This displacement of the stream is due to obstructions in the 

 shape of a series of rocky buttresses, which adhere to the foot of 

 the west wall, and, projecting out beyond the middle line of the 

 eahon, locally constrict it, causing the stream to occupy narrow 

 gorges between these buttresses and the east wall. In the 

 interval between these buttresses the bottom of the canon has its 

 normal width of about half a mile from wall to wall. There are 

 several of these buttresses in the vicinity of the Kern Lakes, and 

 the two lakes lie in two of the intervals. In cross profile these 

 buttresses have the character of rather sharp-crested ridges 

 which run parallel to the general trend of Kern Canon; and 

 a buttress may be a single ridge or a series of two or three 

 ridges, in which case the latter are successively lower toward the 

 east. The buttresses may, therefore, be distinguished as single 

 or multiple according as they present one or more of these ridges 

 in cross profile. The single buttress is exemplified in the one 

 which lies at the south end of Lower Lake and is shown in Plate 

 38a. It is a simple ridge of rock, over half a mile in length, 

 and having an altitude of about 350 feet above the level of the 

 lake. Its eastern face is steep and is encumbered in its lower 

 part with huge spauls of rock, more or less detached from the 

 face of the cliff, and by aggregations of blocks which have fallen 

 as small rock slides. To the west of the ridge, and intervening 

 between it and the main wall of the canon, is a depression par- 

 allel to the ridge which is followed by the Kern River trail. In 

 crossing this pass the trail climbs probably 250 feet above Lower 

 Lake. The photograph (Plate 38a) of this feature speaks so 

 well for itself that the description needs but little amplification. 

 It may be said, however, that the ridge is a solid mass of rock of 

 the same granitic character as prevails in this part of the canon ; 

 and that on the trail over the pass, at its south end, there is a 

 small stream depositing travertine, which doubtless issues as a 

 spring at the foot of the high canon wall to the west of the pass. 

 There is no evidence of the pass ever having been a stream 



