42 REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE COMMISSION. 
A gentle divide separates the southern end of the Carissa Plain from a long narrow 
sink extending along the Rift line toward the southeast. (Plate 21p, ©, F.) This sink 
includes an area 6 miles long and in places its drainage is fully 3 miles wide. Several 
deprest alkali flats, covered with water during the wet season, receive the scanty run-off 
of this dry region. ‘These depressions are several hundred feet wide and are bordered 
upon opposite sides by quite sharp bluffs, in some places 100 feet high. The phenomena 
suggest the sinking of long narrow blocks between two walls. This reach of 6 miles 
between the ranches of Job and Emerson is one of the most interesting areas examined. 
The larger scarps belong to some ancient disturbance, while the last one, probably dating 
from 1857, is marked by features comparatively insignificant. 
As we ascend the long grade from the sinks just described, to Emerson’s place, near 
Pattiway P.O., the Rift features become smaller and less regular, altho easily followed. 
(See plate 23a.) At Emerson’s the Rift passes thru a sag in the hills and across the 
head of Bitter Creek. It then rises and crosses a flat-topt hill between this creek and the 
west fork of Santiago Canyon; and descending to the east fork keeps along the steep 
mountain slope upon the south until it finally crosses the divide between San Emedio 
Mountain and Sawmill Mountain. Thru this section the Rift gradually bends toward 
the east, and in Cuddy Canyon, farther east, it has an east and west direction for a 
few miles. 
The Rift itself is scarcely distinguishable in Bitter Creek and Santiago Canyons, owing 
to steep slopes and rapid erosion, as well as numerous landslides. Santiago is one of the 
deepest and narrowest canyons in this portion of the mountains. Its whole southern 
slope, that traversed by the Rift, has been more or less affected by slides producing many 
little basins along the edge of the flat-topt divide between the drainage into the San 
Joaquin Valley and Cuyama River. Huge masses of earth and rock are still moving, 
as shown by fresh cracks and leaning trees. In one place the edge of the divide has 
split away in such a manner as to produce long narrow ridges with depressions behind 
them, closely imitating the real Rift features. Santiago Canyon marks a great fault of 
earlier times. Soft Tertiary formations are faulted down thousands of feet upon the 
south side of the canyon, while upon the north appear the steep granitic slopes of the 
western spur of San Emedio Mountain. 
The Rift appears upon the north side of the pass which leads from Santiago Canyon 
to San Emedio Canyon. Two lines of disturbance are here plainly visible. Going down 
the west branch of San Emedio Canyon, the Rift zone is plainly traceable, but nowhere 
does it form important features. Passing to the east fork of the canyon, we continue 
on the line of the Rift to the divide leading over to Cuddy Valley. (See plate 22a.) 
Beginning upon the divide, a broad rounded ridge, fully 50 feet high upon its southern 
side, extends down the slope in a direction a little south of east. Cutting thru the center 
of this ridge longitudinally is a deep V-shaped depression, as tho a movement later than 
that which formed the ridge had opened a fissure thru its center. On the sides of the 
ridge, as well as the slopes of the fissure in it, large pine trees are growing in an undis- 
turbed condition. Continuing down the ridge, we find that in the course of a mile it 
gives place to an escarpment facing northerly. A valley 4 miles long and 0.5 mile wide 
lies below the escarpment and contains meadows and a small lake without any outlet. 
Springs mark the Rift line. The escarpment has been much eroded, but toward its 
eastern end it has a height of nearly 300 feet and is covered with a growth of pine trees 
among which are stumps of large dead trees in an undisturbed condition. The valley 
and the bluff are doubtless the product of the earliest movement in the epoch of which 
we are treating. The last movement left a comparatively small ridge traceable here 
and there along the base of the greater. 
Continuing on the line of the Rift, we enter and pass for 10 miles down Cuddy Canyon, 
