The Pr'^'('r(4(ice(nis of Calif ortria. — Fairhdvls. 79 
taceous. They tire widel}' separated in space, and it is prol)- 
able that there was between their periods of deposition a con- 
siderable lapse of time, in which the rocks of the Sierras were 
greatly deformed by compression and raised above the sea; con- 
sequently the shore line of the Cretaceous sea scarcely reached 
the western base of the Sierra Nevada and laid down its deposits 
unconformabh' upon the older rocks.""* 
I believe this upheaval was the most far reaching and import- 
ant one which can be recognized in the geology of the state. 
Consequenth' we have to accept one of two things, either the 
supposed Aucella in the metarnorphic rocks and that in the un- 
altered Cretaceous are not identical, or the species is not char- 
acteristic of the Cretaceous and has survived the most intense 
convulsion known. In either case the evidence is uncertain 
and cannot set aside results founded on careful lithological and 
atratigraphical investigations. 
V^Q can say with certainty, that whatever the range of time 
represented by the older rocks of the Coast system, their earliest 
upheaval was pre-Cretaecous, their final great uplift dating from 
post-Miocene times. That the southei-n Coast ranges were cov- 
ered b}' the sea daring a part of Cretaceous and Tertiary time 
is no proof at all that the axes of these ranges did not exist 
ready formed and intruded by granite. 
Accepting the view that the granitic axes of the Coast moun- 
tains are of the same age as the main body of the granite of the 
Sierra Nevada, the Sierra Madre, San Jacinto and Peninsula 
ranges, the intrusion occurred at the close of the Jurassic, pro- 
ducing the first foldings in the region now occupied by the ex- 
tensive Coast system. The time of the appearance of this initial 
fold is that from which we must date the age of the Coast 
ranges. Blake says, in speaking of the age of the Coast Range 
system: "The age of an axial rock combines the idea of the first 
upheaval through the hardened crust, and to some extent the 
period of its appearance al>ove water, though not necessarily 
the latter idea, "t It does not seem to have occurred to Prof. 
Whitney or to the geologists of the Pacific Railroad survey, that 
the granitic axes of the ranges on which the Miocene, as a rule 
the lowest sedimentary deposit present, has Ijeen deposited, 
*BuIl. Geological Soc. of America. \'ol. 8. \y 383. 
tPacific Railroad Survey, \ol. 7. \). iM. 
