174 
GEOLOGY. 
These plains are the commencement of a country of diluvial formation, that extends 
from Cape Beaufort to Icy Cape, Reindeer station, and Wainwright’s Inlet. Beyond 
that, Mr Elson has described the coast and country to be a continuation of the same 
formations, and at Cape Smyth, near his extreme point, in lat. 71° 13' N., long. 
156° 45' W., he observed icy cliffs presenting their fronts under the like circumstances 
as at Cape Blossom and in Eschscholtz Bay. 
The following specimens were brought up from the bottom by the dredge, on the 
evening of August 13, in lat. 71° N., long. 162° 48' W ’. 
No. 1. Greyish sand-stone, in considerable quantity ; 
No. 2. Indurated clay, in greatest abundance ; 
No. 3. Coal, in considerable quantity ; 
No. 4. Indurated clay, with vegetable impressions; 
and, on the 14th of August, at Lagoon beach, or Reindeer station, there were found 
among the pebbles fragments of granite, syenite, aventurine, coal, and indurated clay, 
the latter predominating. — C. 
BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. 
See Plate III • Geology. 
The specimens collected in and near the Bay of San Francisco consist of many 
varieties of common serpentine, noble serpentine, bronzite, and asbestos ; clay-slate, 
and mica slate, chlorite slate, horn-stone, brown, green, and red jasper, and rolled 
blocks of glassy actynolite ; grey sand-stone, and imperfect wood-coal. The country 
near the Port of San Francisco is composed chiefly of sand-stone, jasper, and serpen- 
tine. W ood-coal is found in slight seams on the north side of the entrance of the bay, 
and native salt near Santa Clara. Many of the summits of the hills are composed of 
jasper, forming elongated ridges, of which the general direction is north and south. 
This jasper is succeeded by sand-stone, of a loose texture, not effervescing with acids, 
and disposed in every angle of stratification, occasionally it is hard and of a blue cast ; 
it is frequently interrupted by abrupt masses of laminated jasper in wavy stratification. 
The appearance of the jasper, at its contact with the sand-stone, is often very remark- 
able. The jasper appears not to have acted on or displaced the sand-stone ; its exterior, 
for eighteen inches or two feet, is usually rugged, and mixed with carbonate of lime, 
quartz, and indurated clay ; its interior, however, presents a very beautiful wavy dis- 
position of the component laminae, a remarkable example of which occurs at the Needle 
Rock, nearly opposite the fort. A view of it is engraved at pi. III. Geology. It 
resembles an immense mass of sheets of paper, or bands of list, crumpled and contorted 
by lateral pressure. This contortion only occurs in the red jasper, the yellow being 
seldom (if at all) stratified, but generally separated by cracks into rliomboidal pieces. 
A. mass of at least 100 feet in thickness is beautifully stratified in short wavy lines, 
opposite the fort near Punta Diavolo, and rests on sand-stone. 
Between Punta Boneta and Punta Diavolo the sand-stone is of a bluish grey 
colour, containing particles of coal. 
