USA > California > Contra Costa County > History of Contra Costa County, California, including its geography, geology, topography, climatography and description; together with a record of the Mexican grants also, incidents of pioneer life; and biographical sketches of early and prominent settlers and representative men > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80
21
Geography, Name, Topography, Etc.
see the mighty steamer which plows the ocean's crested main from- port to port, from land to land, bearing the wonderful burdens of commerce in its capacious maw ? Yes, you see them all. You hear the pulse and throb of the mighty engine which drives all these wonders on to success, and which is so conducive to man's happiness and best good. But, did you ever pause to think that, ere time was, almost, the agent which was destined to perform all these marvels was garnered away in God's great store-houses-the coal fields, and that to-day we are reaping the full fruition of all these centuries. How grand the theme ! How the heart should echo in His praise for His wonderful goodness to the generations of men !
The next page upwards reveals to us the fact that reptiles, frogs and birds came into existence, or rather, that the two former developed into the full vigor of their generation, while the latter was introduced for the first time upon the scene of action. It is not our purpose here to make any close inquiries into the origin of animal life, and shall use the word de- veloped in relation to the introduction of a new series of animal life, as being eminently proper, but not as having any reference to the Darwinian idea of development, although the day has already dawned when the human race will accept the truths of that theory, let them be ever so contradictory to what is now taught. For our purpose one theory is as good as another. The fact is that in the carboniferous or coal period, there are no traces of birds at all; and in the next age we find their foot-prints on the sandstone formations. Whence they came we know not nor do we care. They were of gigantic stature evidently, for their tracks often measured eighteen inches long, and their stride ranged from three to five feet ! Another phase of animal life was developed in this age, and that was the mammal, which was an insect eating marsupial.
Another page is laid open for our perusal, and on it we read that the race of reptiles reached their culmination in this age, holding undisputed sway over land and sea, and in the air. They were very numerous, and their forms exceedingly varied and strange, and their size in many cases gigantic. Some kinds, like the pliosaurus, plesiosaurus, and ichthyosaurus, were sea saurians, from ten to forty feet in length ; others were more like lizards and crocodiles ; others, like the megalosaurus and igiranodon, were dinosaurs from thirty to sixty feet in length ; others, like the pterodactylus, were flying saurians, and others turtles. The megalosaurus was a land saurian, and was carnivorous. This is the first land animal of which there is any record, which subsisted on the flesh of other animals. The ptero- dactyl was one of the most wonderful animals which ever existed on the face of the earth. It had a body like a mammal, wings like a bat, and the jaws and teeth of a crocodile. It was only about one foot long.
The next page does not reveal any very marked changes from the last. The same gigantic reptiles are in existence, but on the wane, and finally
22
History of Contra Costa County.
become extinct during this era. The vertebrates make a great stride for- ward towards their present condition, while all the leading order of fishes are developed just as they exist to-day. Up to this time the fish had not been of the bony kind, but now that peculiarity is developed.
We have now perused the great book of Nature until we have come up to those pages, which are everywhere present on the surface of the earth. Figuratively, we may consider this page divided into three sections; the first or lower of which contains nothing in common with the present age, all life of that day having long since become extinct. The second section contains fossils more nearly related to the present time, from ten to forty per cent. being identical with the living species. In the third section the percentage of similar species runs from fifty to ninety. The continents of the world had assumed very nearly the same shape and outline which they maintain at the present time. Sharks reached the height of their glory in this age, while the reptiles assumed their true form of snakes, crocodiles and turtles. For the first time in the history of the world is there any record of snakes, and how far they preceded man will remain for the reader to determine from what follows further on. Birds were the same as at the present time, so far as they went. The mammals of this age are the chief objects of interest, not only on account of their great number and the extended variety of forms under which they appear, but especially because this period marks the time of the introduction of the true mammals on the earth. The sea and estuaries, though rich in animal life, no longer furnish the most prominent representatives of the animal kingdom ; but in this period the mammals assume the first rank. But it must be here stated that some of these species lived beyond the close of this age. These animals inhabited the upper Missouri section in great quan- tities, and comprised the moose, rhinoceros, a species similar to the horse, tapir, peccary, camel, deer, hyena, dog, panther, beaver, porcupine, musk deer, deer, mastodon, wolf and fox. How like a dream it seems that these precursors of the present races of mammals should all be swept out of ex- istence ; still, when we come to know what climatic changes occurred at the close of this period we will not wonder any longer. Not only were the " fountains of the great deep broken up and the rains descended," but the continent sank deep below its present surface, and a great sea of ice from the north swept over its face, bearing death and destruction to all living creatures in its path. This was the glacial period, and its results are writ- ten on the next page.
This page reveals a wonderful mystery ! The throes of death were the travails of birth, and that condition of things which swept from the face of the earth an entire animal kingdom, paved the way for the existence of a . higher and fuller life, even man himself. Hitherto the earth had been in a process of incubation, as it were-" the spirit of the Lord had brooded over
23
Geography, Name, Topography, Etc.
the earth," and this was the finality to it all. This was the long winter of death which preceded the spring of life. This is known as the drift or boulder period, and its phenomena are spread out before us over North America. The drift consists of materials derived from all the previous formations, and comprise all stages from the finest sand to boulders and fragments of rock of gigantic size. When the vast sea of ice came crushing down from the far away home of old Boreas an inestimable quantity of rock was caught in its giant clutch and ground to powder. Others were rolled and polished till they were as smooth as glass, while others were fastened into the body of ice, and carried along miles and leagues from their native ledges. Throughout the Mississippi valley are numerous granite boulders, but no known ledge of it exists nearer than the northern lakes. As soon as the continents had risen from their depressed condition and the icy era had subsided, wonderful to relate, life sprang into existence in a fuller and stronger condition than ever before. The vegetable and animal life of this age was the same as to-day, except the mammals, which, strange to say, passed away almost entirely at the end of that era. The elephant during that period was about one-third larger than the present species, and near the close of the last century one of these monster animals was found imbedded in the ice on the coast of Siberia in such a state of preservation that the dogs ate its flesh. Among the many pictures which this fertile subject calls up none is more curious than that presented by the cavern deposits of this era. We may close our survey of this period with the ex- ploration of one of these strange repositories ; and may select Kent's Hole at Torquay, Devonshire, England, so carefully excavated and illuminated with the magnesium light of scientific inquiry by Mr. Pengelly and a com- mittee of the British Association. In this cave there are a series of deposits in which there are bones and other evidences of its habitation both by animals and men. The lowest stratum is comprised of a mass of broken and rounded stones, with hard red clay in the interstices. In this mass are numerous bones, all of the cave bear. The next stratum is composed of stalagmites, and is three feet in thickness, and also contains the bones of this bear. The existence of man is inferred at this time from the presence of a single flint-flake and a single flint chip. Water seems to have now flooded the cave, and the next stratum is composed of stones, clay and débris, such as would naturally be deposited by water. But the strangest part of it is, that this flood stratum is rich in relics of its former inhabitants, yielding large quantities of teeth and bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, horse, hyena, cave bear, reindeer and Irish elk. With these were found weapons of chipped flint, and harpoons, needles and bodkins of bone, pre- cisely similar to those of the North American Indians. This stratum is four feet in thickness, and in one spot near the top there is a layer of char- coal and burnt wood, with remains which go to show that human beings had
24
History of Contra Costa County.
been there, and prepared their food by cooking it, and it also proves that the knowledge and use of fire was known far down into the early dawn of man's existence on earth. It is to be borne in mind that this is all anterior to the present state of affairs, and that all the animals mentioned as con- temporaneous with these primitive men have long since passed out of exist- ence, and may not the race of men to which those people belonged have passed away also, and another race sprung up in their stead, the same as other races of animals have developed to supply the place of those passed away ! These are questions worthy more then a hasty glance. Another layer of stalagmite now appears to have been formed, in which are bones, having the same characteristics as those mentioned above, only the jaw-bone of a man with the teeth in it was found. Now a wonderful change occurs. The next stratum is black mould, and is from three to ten inches thick, but in it are found only evidences of modern times, both in the relics of man and beast. The bones of the animals are of the orders which exist at the present time, and the relics of men extend from the old Briton tribes before the Roman invasion up to the porter bottles, and dropped half-pence of yesterday's visitors. How long a time transpired between the last visit of the first race of men who knew this cavern, and the first visit of the old Britons is hard to even guess. That it was many ages none will dare to question.
We now come to the last page of the great geological book which records the present era of the world's history, which is pre-eminently the age of man. That man existed previous to the present order of things, there can be no question, but it remained for this period to fully develop him in all his glories and powers. The dark night of winter with its snows and ice, before whose destructive and frigid breath all things which had lived on the earth had perished, including primitive man, had passed away, and the whole face of the earth was smiling and rejoicing in the spring-time of its new existence. The seasons were fully established, and summer's suns and winter's ice assumed their appropriate offices in the grand economy of the earth. The seed time of spring and the harvest time of autumn followed each other through the cycles of centuries with never a change. The earth was all virgin soil and very rich and productive. The air was fresh, bracing, and free from all poisonous exhalations. All nature was complete. Animal life had again covered the world, and all was ready for the crown- ing effort of Nature-man. Far away in Western Asia there was a land favored far above all the countries of the earth ; so much so, that it could truly be called a paradise. It was a table-land, at the head waters of the rivers that flow into the Euxine and Caspian seas, and the Persian gulf. Its climate was healthful and bracing, with enough of variety to secure vigor, and not so inclement as to exact any artificial provision for clothing or shelter. Its flora afforded an abundance of edible fruits to sustain life
25
Geography, Name, Topography, Etc.
and was rich in all the more beautiful forms of plant life, while its clear streams, alluvial soil, and undulating surface, afforded a variety of beautiful scenery, and all that would go to make up the sine qua non of human existence. It was not infested with the more powerful and predaceous quadrupeds, and the animals which did inhabit the region had nothing to fear, for man was originally purely vegetarian in his diet, and in this para- dise he found ample supplies of wholesome food. His requirements for shelter were met by weaving bowers of the overhanging trees. The streams furnished gold for ornament, shells for vessels, and agate for his few and simple cutting instruments. Such was man's estate in the first days of his existence ; but the eternal laws of progression soon forced him out of his primitive bowers into huts, and thence into houses and palaces, and the end of that progression is not yet. And the human race has a future before which, if it could be seen and comprehended at one glance, would cause the heart of man to stand still in wonder and amazement.
We will now pass to a consideration of the geological formation of Contra Costa County, as is to be found in Professor Whitney's Geological Survey of California.
Contra Costa Hills .- The subordinate group of elevations lying west of Martinez and the San Ramon and Livermore valleys, is known as the Contra Costa Hills; they extend through the county of that name into Alameda and Santa Clara Counties, and finally become merged in the Mount Hamilton Division of the Monte Diablo Range. These hills are separated from the principal mountain mass of Monte Diablo by a system of valleys extending for about forty-five miles, and preserve a somewhat distinctive character for some fifteen miles farther, losing their identity entirely about the head of Calaveras valley. They are made up of tertiary and cretaceous strata, usually but little metamorphosed, although a belt extending along their western side is considerably altered from its original character.
Beginning at the northwest extremity of the group, at Martinez, we have in the immediate vicinity of that place cretaceous strata, well exposed in the bluffs along the Straits of Carquinez. Here the rocks observed are sandstones, shales, and argillaceous limestones, the latter forming bands and lenticular masses in the shales, generally but a few inches thick, although sometimes as much as three feet. Their strike is usually about N. 42° W., varying, however, from N. 39° W. to N. 44° W., and they dip southwest at an angle of from 35° to 60°.
The rocks near Martinez have furnished a large number of species of cretaccous fossils of both divisions.
In passing along the shore of the Straits of Carquinez, west of Martinez, the cretaceous strata occur for about seven miles, and are made up of shales
.
26
History of Contra Costa County.
and sandstones, the former containing frequent thin layers of hydraulic limestone. These rocks, however, exhibit but few fossils. The dip and strike are variable, but generally about east and west magnetic, and the dip is also irregular, but almost always to the southwest, and at almost every angle from nearly horizontal to vertical ; the strike is nearly parallel with the line of the Straits. Near the upper limit of the cretaceous, are sand- stones very like those of Monte Diablo which accompany the coal, and they contain a considerable quantity of carbonaceous matter, but no regular coal- bed, so far as yet discovered. Near these carbonaceous strata, and above them, is a narrow belt, partly altered and folded, and from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in width. The Rodeo valley marks the limit of the cretaceous, going west from Martinez, the tertiary succeeding in that direction, and resting conformably on the strata beneath, and having the same general southwestern dip. South of Martinez the cretaceous strata have a higher dip, but in the same direction.
Southwest of the Rodeo valley lies a broad belt of tertiary rocks, which extends from San Pablo bay to Amador valley, forming the mass of the Contra Costa hills, for a distance of about thirty-five miles northwest and southeast, and having a breadth of from six to eight miles. The rocks are chiefly sandstones, and in places highly fossiliferous. San Pablo creek heads in this belt, and flows between two parallel ridges, in the line of the strike of the rocks. On the west side of the creek, about four miles a little south of east from San Pablo, the rocks contain considerable bituminous matter, and a well had been bored here in 1862 to the depth of eighty-seven feet, at which point oil was struck, which it was proposed to purify by distillation, and works were erected for this purpose, as also to obtain oil from the highly saturated sandstone .* At these springs the rock has a high dip northeast; but farther northwest it dips to the southwest, while the hills in the vicinity are too deeply covered by soil and decomposed rock to admit of the general position of the strata being determined satisfactorily.
To the north of San Pablo are low hills of very recent strata, which are nearly horizontal and which rest uncomformably on the edges of the Terti- ary. Whether these beds contain any extinct species of shells has not yet been determined; at all events, they are no older than the Post Pliocene.
In the valleys between San Pablo and Walnut creeks, many sections made by the rains of 1861-62 in the superficial detritus are observed. The beds are horizontally stratified, and made up of light and darker-colored materials, the lighter ones being darker near their upper surfaces, and growing lighter downwards to the depth of from six to twelve inches, as beds usually do when acquiring a color from decaying vegetable substances.
"The quantity of oil obtained seems to have been too small to pay, as the work was not profitable, and bad been discontinued previous to the oil excitement of 1865; whether resumed between that time and the present, 1882, we have been unable to discover.
Jer nume Pacheco
27
Geography, Name, Topography, Etc.
This would indicate that the rate of deposition of this detritus has been exceedingly irregular, long periods having sometimes elapsed without much addition to the detrital deposits, and then, again, a heavy mass of materials being suddenly spread over the surface, just as takes place at present dur- ing a Winter of extraordinary storms, like those of 1861-62. The appear- ances indicate sometimes a heavy deposit during one year only ; at others, a succession of them for several years. The same or similar facts are ob- served at many points in the Coast Ranges.
The whole range under consideration is denuded into a great number of hills and valleys, the latter running parallel with the strike of the strata. The valleys are excavated in the softer materials, and are frequently drain- ed by streams running in two opposite directions, which connect at their sources by very low divides, so that one hardly recognizes the fact that he is passing over them. When streams cut across the strike of the strata, as they occasionally do, the valleys become mere canons, or narrow rocky defiles.
To the southeast of Martinez there is a good exhibition of the folding of the strata exhibiting in synclinal axis, which runs from a point one mile north of Pacheco, southwest to the Cañada del Hambre, a distance of about four miles.
Walnut creek (Arroyo de las Nueces) heads in the divide between the valley of this name and that of the San Ramon ; it separates the Contra Costa hills from the Monte Diablo group proper. High hills of Tertiary sandstone rise to the west of it, attaining an altitude of from eighteen hundred to two thousand feet. The high group of hills north of the head of the San Ramon is also of sandstone, and has about the same elevation. The strike of the strata here is about N. 50° W. to N. 55° W., and the dip 65°, to the southwest. The San Ramon, heading in this group of hills, runs southeast, then turns and runs parallel with its former course in the oppo- site direction, having a high and steep range of fossiliferous sandstones between the two parallel portions.
The foot-hills along the eastern base of these higher ridges are of strata ' very much broken, with every possible dip and strike, the latter frequently at right angles to that of the strata in the main ridge, and standing verti- cal. There are indications of a line of quite recent disturbances of the rocks through the San Ramon and El Hambre creeks, which line crosses the general direction of the stratification at an angle of 35°. There are fissures in the soil along the west side of the San Ramon valley, which were formed during the earthquake of June, 1861, and which may be con- sidered as strengthening the probability of the recent formation of this valley. That extensive disturbances have taken place in the Monte Diablo chain within the most recent geological epoch will be seen farther on.
Near the head-waters of the San Ramon, the hills of Tertiary sand- stone rise to the height of about two thousand feet; the strata having a
28
History of Contra Costa County.
strike of about N. 39° to 41° W. and they have a high dip to the south- west. The same strata, as followed along a few miles farther to the north- west, near Moraga valley, become more nearly vertical, and the strike curves around more to the west. The same belt of rocks extends southeast from the head of the San Ramon, through the range of hills west of Ama- dor valley, and they have a lower and more uniform northwesterly dip. These hills sink into the plain near the eastern end of the pass leading from Haywards to Amador valley.
Near the "Walnut Creek House," a small patch of cretaceous occurs, extending over a few acres, from which the overlying Tertiary, forming the crown of a low anticlinal, has been denuded.
A belt of metamorphic rock may be traced along the western side of the Contra Costa hills, beginning near San Pablo, thence following the west side of Wild Cat creek, and appearing in a southeast direction along the foot- hills of the range, for a distance of about thirty-five miles. It generally forms a narrow belt, not over two miles wide, and often not half that ; but in some places there is more or less metamorphic action observable over a width of four miles. The northwestern portion of this band of altered rock curves to the northwest, and seems to form the isolated metamorphic hills lying near the Bay, and west of San Pablo and islands of similar rock in the Bay, apparently connecting with the range of high hills which run out at Point San Pedro and extend back of San Rafael.
Near San Pablo a great variety of the results of metamorphic action may be observed ; as, for instance, in following a line extending from the house of V. Castro back to the top of the ridge. The original rock seems to have been a more or less bituminous slate or shale, and patches of it have almost entirely escaped metamorphism, while others in the immediate vicinity are very much altered and converted even into mica slate. The dip of the strata, when it could be made out, was to the northeast, 30° at the base of the hill, and gradually getting higher towards the crest of the 'ridge, where the metamorphism is most complete. Here the rock is tra- versed by small quartz veins, and has evidently been acted on by water containing silica in solution, as it is, to a large extent, converted into that mixture of ferruginous, jaspery and chalcedonic material, which is so well known as frequently containing cinnabar, that we have become accustomed to call it the "quicksilver rock." Considerable masses of actinolite have been found lying on the surface in this vicinity, evidently derived from the rocks of this ridge. The specimens resemble exactly those obtained from the very much older metamorphic rocks of New England.
The widest and highest portion of this metamorphic belt lies near the pass leading from Oakland to Lafayette, the summit of which is thirteen hundred and eleven feet above high tide. About a hundred rods west of the summit metamorphic slates stand vertical, having a close lithological
29
Geography, Name, Topography, Etc.
resemblance to rocks elsewhere known to belong to the cretaceous system ; a short distance northwest they have a high dip to the northeast. A sharp ridge, half a mile in a direction N. 32° W. from the Summit House, is of hard metamorphic sandstone, of which the strike is N. 64° W., but curving more to the south as we go southward ; the dip is to the northeast, about 70° in amount. Hand specimens of this rock have a very Trappean look, but they appear to be of metamorphic origin.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.