SANTA CLARA VALLEY : SESPE FORMATION. 9 
thin bodies of shale. The material of this sandstone is in many places 
coarse and gritty. Still higher are from 400 to 800 feet of sandstone 
and shale, the latter being somewhat more prominent than lower down 
in the formation. While the conglomerate is principally developed 
as indicated, layers of comparatively coarse pebbles are not infre¬ 
quently encountered from the base to the summit of the red beds. 
There are, however, great masses of sandstone of uniform texture and 
color, capable, it may be remarked incidentally, of yielding a building 
stone of high grade. These beds as here described maintain their 
principal characteristics of color, texture, and composition wherever 
encountered in the Topatopa Range and its subordinate ridges. 
They occur in the type locality of the formation and form a conspicu¬ 
ous feature along the northern edge of the Ojai Valley and farther 
west, in the vicinity of Summerland and Santa Barbara. 
Fig. 3.—North-south section on north side of Lower Ojai Valley, showing lithologic variation in strata. 
RED BEDS IN THE OJAI VALLEY. 
The Sespe formation or what is believed to be its stratigraphic 
equivalent in the Ojai Valley consists of conglomerates, sandstones, 
and shales, bright red and white, the former color largely predominat¬ 
ing. The red beds are not so unbroken, however, as in Sespe Canyon. 
On the contrary they are interrupted not only by certain white sand¬ 
stones, but also by very considerable bodies of rusty sediments, which 
in some instances suggest a transition to the formation that is possibly 
the equivalent of the Topatopa. This lithologic variation is illus¬ 
trated in the accompanying profile (fig. 3), which is taken from the 
lower slopes of the range bordering the Lower Ojai Valley on the north. 
The shales of the formation are not conspicuous, except in the region 
