Geology of Eastern California.—Fairbanks. 67 
an essential aspect from that of the Appalachian mountains, 
for in the case of the latter the cause was no fused upwel- 
ling magma but lateral compression. Gilbert* says: “In the 
Appalachians corrugation has been produced generally by 
flexture, exceptionally by faulting; in the Basin ranges com¬ 
monly by faulting, exceptionally by flexture. The regular 
alternation of curved synclinals and anticlinals is contrasted 
with rigid bodies of inclined strata, bounded by parallel 
faults.” Many facts indicate a great elevation of the desert 
ranges in comparatively recent geological times, perhaps co¬ 
eval with the post-Miocene elevation of the Sierra Nevadas. 
In portions of the Panamint range the strata have been 
subjected to enormous strain, resulting in their fracture and 
crushing. At the mouth of Surprise canon the rock has been 
so shattered that it crumbles into minute fragments on weath¬ 
ering. The topographic forms resulting resemble those pro¬ 
duced in the erosion of unconsolidated deposits. The accom¬ 
panying illustration (Plate III) is reproduced from a photo¬ 
graph of this interesting occurrence. The fine grained mica 
schists which are very extensively developed in the region 
crossed by Wild Rose canon appear everywhere to be made up 
of incoherent fragments, a resulting condition of the stress to 
which they have been subjected. If the rainfall were greater 
the erosion would be very rapid. 
(2). The Tertiary and Quaternary Beds. Little is yet 
known of the younger formations of the great desert stretches 
of southeastern California. The Cretaceous has not yet been 
found within the Great Basin area of the state, and if .the 
youngest strata included in the me tam orphic series are Trias- 
sic, there was a long interval during which this whole region 
was probably above the sea. The topography must have been 
vastly different from that of to-day, for there are no indica¬ 
tions that the depressed basins were then in existence. 
The Miocene occurs skirting the ranges inclosing the Mo¬ 
jave desert on the west, but towards the east it passes beneath 
the Quaternary gravels. On the northern slope of the El Paso 
range, between Mojave and Owen’s lake, there is a series of 
beds of clays, sandstone, volcanic tuffs and interbedded lava 
* Wheeler’s Geographical Sur. West of the 100th Meridian, vol. in, p. 
61. 
