22 
ABSENCE OF POLAR DRIFT—QUATERNARY CONDITIONS. 
vation of the northern Sierra is certainly sufficient to produce such an uplift, were its lateral 
force produced so far eastward. On parallel 32° the influence of the Sierra can he traced 100 
miles east; further north, where it is more than twice as high, its lateral influence should 
augment in a corresponding ratio. Be this as it may, it is certain that, at a remote period 
(geologically) the basin country was receiving palaeozoic deposits, both aluminous and calca¬ 
reous, which were not made in waters of great depth, or far removed from the main continent. 
Perhaps the northern plateaus of the basin may have been more elevated than the southern, 
even before the upheaval of the Sierra. At present there is no good evidence to prove that the 
southern portions of California were circumstanced so as to receive any of the mud or siliceous 
deposits of the palaeozoic age. 
There are no phenomena in California referable to the period of the polar drift or ancient 
alluvium, when the transport of those large blocks or boulders occurred. This phenomenon, 
so well marked on the Atlantic coast of this continent, from the polar regions down to latitude 
40°, by the carriage of the large masses of rock from distances more or less apart, without much 
regard to the intervening level, and across opposing bodies of water, but always from north to 
south, is totally absent in California from parallel 37° southwards. The prodigious force which 
was exerted to produce these phenomena, which could transport huge erratic blocks of stone 
from Newfoundland to Ireland, from the Shetland isles to Norway, from Sweden to Livonia and 
Prussia, from Canada to New York, and from northern New York to Long Island ; this force, 
whatever it may have been, whether of ice of glaciers, or of current water, or of both, was not 
exerted. Over the extensive plains east of the Sierra Nevada, in Tulare valley, in the pleasant 
little oak valleys of the Coast Ranges, or on the terrace plains of the shore, not a single boulder 
is to be met with—not a stone from which the plough might turn aside. 
This period of ancient erratic transport, the most ancient of the Quaternary or Supra-Tertiary 
epoch, known by the three phenomena of distant transport, northerly direction, and grooving 
and polishing of rocks, in latitudes north of 39° north, was apparently one of quiet in this 
State. Yet the mountain chains were elevated throughout the State at this period. The 
topography almost the same as at present, save that the whole plain country was below the 
water level; there were, therefore, elevated ranges from which the counties along the coast 
might have had scattered over their surface these blocks ; but the Sierra Nevada has contributed 
no boulders upon these plains, nor is there any stone included in the terraces which may 
not be classed as belonging to those ranges immediately bounding the deposit. 
Not that the whole Quaternary epoch was passed without producing its effects : denudation 
on an extensive scale, lacustrine deposits, immense deposits of clay, sands, and gravels, attest 
the long periods alike of action and of repose which characterize the later Quaternary period, 
when the effects were more local, and every valley and plain had its beds of gravel and clay 
formed from its mountain margins. 
We have already adverted to the singular shore conformation, without an estuary or deep 
river indentation, consequent on the peculiar direction of the mountain chains. In connection 
with this, we may notice Mr. Dana’s valuable reflections on the connection between deep shore 
indentations and the deposit of erratic blocks. He remarks of the former, that these deep gulfs 
or fiords are common in the higher latitudes, while they are wholly absent from the coasts of 
lower, temperate, and torrid zones. “Along the west coast of America they abound to the 
north above 48°, and to the south, in Lower Patagonia and Terra del Fuego, south of 48°, 
there are similar passages intersecting the land, and often cutting it into islands ; but between 
