USA > California > Merced County > History of Merced County, California with biographical sketches of prominent citizens > Part 44
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PERIOD OF GLACIAL ACTION.
High up in the Sierra, granite or syenite mountains rise to an altitude of a little more than 8,000 feet above the sca level, leaving gorges between of fearful depth, the walls of which are often of ragged and bare rock. Sometimes the declivities of the mountains, and the valleys present extensive beds of detritus that may have been deposited when the mighty glaciers of the Sierra were melted-abundant evidence of glacial action being frequent at that altitude. The detrital deposits are of sedimentary lava, pebbles and boulders of the material of the primitive rocks and sand. In some cases large beds of sand appear, and sometimes deposits of angular gravel, which have the look of ancient moraines.
To describe these glorious Alps, with their thousand peaks and spires dipping far into the thin sky, the ice and snow and avalanches, glad torrents and lakes, woods and gardens, the bears in the groves, wild sheep on the dizzy heights-these would require tbe love-work of a whole life. The lessons and enjoyments of even a single day would probably weary most readers, however consumingly interested they might be if brought into actual contact with them.
Many of the lava beds of the Sierra Nevada are prominent features of the landscape. They filled up the channels and
cañons of the streams of the pliocene or post-pliocene age, and being harder than the slates, the latter were washed away, leav- ing those places which had been hollows standing like steep mountains, rising 500 or 1,000 feet above the adjacent country. The Tuolumne Table Mountain, thirty miles long and half a mile wide, is the most remarkable example of such geological changes; but many others might be found. Ridges covered with beds of lava are common.
PERIOD OF ICE AND SNOW.
This county, in its geological bistory, cannot be separated from the other parts of this coast. The western slope had passed through the period of fire and heat; it was now in com- pany with all other parts of the carth to pass through a period of snow and ice. The mountains that had been wrapped in fire, were now to be clothed in ice. When New England was covered by 5,000 feet of ice, when the highlauds north of the Mississippi Valley were being planed down and distributed over all the lower valley, then too the ice was planing down the old lava slopes of the Sierras. The deep gorges and cañons through which the rivers and creeks now flow were mostly cut out by tbe glaciers.
To their action we owe tbe uncovering of the gold fields and the gold that they ground out of the quartz.
After the glacial period, came what may be called the finish- ing up period of the continent, since which very little change has taken place. California has been raised from three to five hundred feet. Very little, if any, volcanic action has taken place siuce then.
PRE-HISTORIC REMAINS OF ANIMALS.
No pre-historic remains have been reported as found within the present limits of the county, but stone mortars, pestles and arrow-heads bave been found, according to reports, in pliocene gravel, at Murphy's Camp, Shaw's Flat. Columbia, Springfield, Tuolumne, Table Mountain, Sonora, and Knight's Landing. The fossil bones found are not numerous, and no large and valuable skeletons have been brought to light, but many fragments. None of the large saurians-those wonderful lizards as large as whales, of an early geological era-have yet been found here; but hills and mountains contain the bones of the mastodon, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, camel, whale, and a quadruped resembling a tapir. Oyster-shells fif- teen inches long are found near Corral Hollow, and Oyster Peak, ncar Mount Diablo, is named after its fossils.
Part of the skull of a man was found at the depth of 131 fect, in sinking a shaft in the mines, under four successive strata of lava, which upsets the theory of geologists, that man did not exist at that age of the world.
There was on exhibition at Snelling, in 1869, the fossil
RES.OF P. RYAN 8 MILES SOUTH OF INDIAN GULCH RIPOS CO.CEL.
RES. OF SILAS BOWMAN 12 MILESSOUTHWESTOFMERCED MERCEDCO.CAL.
RESIDENCE OF ANDREW CATHEY "CATHEYS VALLEY MARIPOSACO.CAL
RESIDENCE OF I.C.GRIMES SNELLING, MERCED CO. CAL.
*
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VARIOUS GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
remains of an animal of huge proportions, which was a great curiosity, and created considerable sensation among scientific wonder-seckers. The head and horns weighed about 320 pounds, and were in a remarkable state of preservation. The species of animal to which these horns belong is extinct. The body of the animal, judging from the decomposed remains, could not have been less than thirty feet long.
Professor Whitney found, 2,000 feet above the ocean level, the alinost perfect jaw of a rhinoceros, and also huge petrified oyster shells.
But as an illustration of the uncertainty attending the iden- tity of fossil remains reported to be discovered, we give the following lines from Joaquin Miller :*--
"SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLOW."
I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James; I am not up to small deceit, or any sinful games; And I'll tell in simple language what I know about the row That broke up our society upon the Stanislow.
I
But first I would remark, that it is not a proper plan For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man; And, if a memher don't agree with this peculiar whim, To lay for that same memher for to "put a head" on him.
Now nothing could he finer or more beautiful to see, Than the first six months' proceedings of that same society, Till Brown of Calaveras hrought a lot of fossil hones That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.
Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there, From those same hones, an animal that was extremely rare; And Jones then ask'd the Chair for a suspension of the rules Till he could prove that those same bones were one of his lost mules.
Then Brown he smiled a hitter smile, and said he was at fault, It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones' family vault ; He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown, And on several occasions he had clean'd out the town.
Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent To say another is an ass-at least, to all intent ; Nor should the individual who happens to be meant Reply hy heaving rocks at him to any great extent.
Then Abner Dean of Angel's, raised a point of order-when A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the ahdomen, And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor ; And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage On a warfare with the remnants of a palaeozic age ; And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin, Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.
Petrifactions are found in this county, and, in fact, every- where on the coast, under circumstances which upset the accepted theory that petrifaction can only occur by saturating the wood in thermal waters. Petrifaction takes place on the surface of the earth-necessarily beyond the reach or influence of thermal waters. The large amount of silex in the soil may account for this in some instances, as there are many cases in which an excess of that element causes wood to petrify instead of carbonize, even in the carboniferous formation.
*We do not find this credited to any one, but feel assured we once saw it credited to Miller. It may have been by Bret Harte.
GEOLOGICAL ERAS.
Amos Bowman, of the State Geological Survey, thus defines certain eras in the geological history of California :-
1. The pliocene, or ancient eroding period, during which these deep "dead " river channels were cut into the "bed-rock."
2. These pliocene channels filling up with gravel-or the choking or dammiug period.
3. The active volcanic period of the Sierra, when the gravels were capped with lava and volcanic ashes.
4. The cold, or glacial period, when the mountain slopes were covered with living, moving glaciers.
5. The modern erosive, or recent period, during which the present river channels were formed, crossing the old channels at various angles.
In the plioceue period, probably hefore man made his appear- ance on the globe, the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin formned a vast inland sea, which extended south through the Santa Clara Valley into the Salinas Valley, connectiug by the depression between the mouths of the Salinas River and Watsonville with the hay of Monterey. The counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz formed an islaud not very far ahove the level of the ocean.
One thing is quite certain; the San Joaquin Valley was formerly submerged with the waters of the ocean, which left upon their subsidence a soil of adobe, which has since received a coat of sedimentary alluvium. The soil of the valley, largely formed through glacial iufluence. belongs to the secondary period. The mountains are volcanic. Trap, or hasalt, is the leading rock, although porphyry, syenite, slate, and especially carbonate, or magnesian limestone, are found.
THE FORMATIONS DEFINED.
We speak now of the mountains and valley as if there were no breaks in the formation, and as it would appear if all the groups of formations were present at one place in their natural order. But this seldom occurs. These formations are very much broken and disturbed, presenting a great variety of structures.
Suppose all the formations were undisturhed and we were to examine a section of the earth extending from the San Joaquin to the top of the Sierras, the rocks or strata would he some- what as follows. Beginning at the San Joaquin, there would he :-
1. SOIL AND ALLUVIUM.
As might he predicted by most any person, from the soil and vegetation of which this is the debris, tbis formation is exceed- ingly rich for agricultural uses. It is present, and covers almost the entire surface of the region. The higher hills and valleys are not deficient, as a general rule, in depth of soil, and
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HISTORY OF MERCED COUNTY.
in some of the many little basins it reaches a depth of fifteen to thirty feet, deep enough to hold and support groves of iminense trees. This deposit covers the whole San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys.
Mr. Hallett makes the following remarks ahout the geologi- cal formations found in the wells east of the San Joaquin, on a line extending twenty-eight miles from north to south :-
" In the six wells we notice that a stratum of coarse gravel, from three to twenty feet in thickness, is encountered at a com- mon depth ranging from 175 to 213 feet. In the Modesto well a stratum of gravel twenty feet thiek is found at a depth of 170 feet; in the Rogers well at from 189 to 192 feet, three feet thick; in the Temple well, at 208 to 211 feet, tbree feet thick; in S. Broadhurst's well, at 186 to 200 feet, fourteen feet thick; in the Evans well, at 213 to 244 feet, twenty feet in thickness; in C. Broadhurst's well, at 175 to 180 feet, five feet thick, mixed with sand. In each instauce the gravel is water- worn and evidently marks the depths at which it is found as the hottom of a large inland stream or lake of some former period. In five of these wells the stratum immediately above the gravel was sand. In the Rogers well, the Temple well, and the Evans well, the strata above the gravel occur in precisely the same order, though varying in thickness, and in each the stratum just above the gravel is sand, ranging in thickness from 175 to 200 feet. In each of the six wells, blue elay lies just below the gravel, and in four wells, where it has been pen- etrated, it ranges from fifty to seventy-four feet in thickness."
2. CONGLOMERATE FORMATION.
This conglomerate formation is a deposit of houlders, shale, clay, sand, and fragments of all the lower strata worn and loosely cemented with calcareous matter. It was deposited when most of these mountains were under water. We find in it evidence of floods and washings of the sea. The fossils are fragments of wood, hones (mostly of marine animals), shells of mussels and other mollusks, turtles-such as we uow find in our ereeks-with occasional impressions of sea-weeds. It has no regular thickness. Sometimes found piled up against the shale in deposits thirty to forty feet thick. In the foot-hills this formation has the appearance of heing stratified or formed hy the action of the water. This formation extends all over the western slope of the Pacific Coast, showing a wide-spread and active epoch.
3. BITUMINOUS SHALE,
Tbis shale is the so-called " chalk-rock." It varies from a white to a dark color, from a very fine to a coarse texture, and from a softness that crumbles between the fingers to a flinty hardness that withstands the hardest steel. In it are tree-like coneretions of very hard sandstone, fifty to one hun- dred feet in length. In this we find bones of marine monsters,
such as whales and seals. Occasionally there are beds of lig- nite, an impure kind of coal, three or four feet thick. Some of this coal is of good quality, and may prove valuable some day. We find small, smooth pebbles, beds of shells and other remains of animals and plants, all marine as far as our discov- eries extend. In the white and gray chalky beds we find microscopic remains of diatoms, sponges, and other organic structures. In fact, most of this formation is the debris of these microscopie beings. This formation took place under the water at a time when the Coast Range was near the level of the sea. Some places it is metamorphosed.
Practical experience has upset many scientifie theories. Science taught that the native deposit of gold was exclusively in quartz. The miner reveals some of the richest leads in slate rock. Science formerly taught that the coal deposit was exclusively in the carboniferous formation. The same authority now teaches that it may be found in any geological strata. It is true that all the coal thus far found belongs to the tertiary, or secondary formation.
. SANDSTONE FORMATION.
This saudstone formation differs hut little from the sbale. except in the quantity of sand contained therein. It is not very firmly cemented, and mixes more or less with the shale in alternating layers. The fossils are pretty much the same as those in the shale. Beneath the sandstone we find the upturned edges of the clay slates. These are interstratified with limestone, serpentine (containing chrome iron), copper ore and quicksilver.
The old red sandstone and the "true carboniferous" roeks as they are called, are wanting in California, and it was long supposed that no valuable coal would ever be discovered in the State; hut some veins of very good quality have heen found near Mount Diablo. The mineral contains far more solid com- bustihle matter, and less incombustible material, than most tertiary coal. In the strict geological meaning of the terms, it is not " coal," but " lignite," belonging to a later date than the true coal, and lying in a different formation. The rocks are sandstone and shale, of the cretaceous or upper secondary age, and were formed hy alternating depositions in salt and fresh water.
5. LIMESTONE FORMATION.
This limestone rock formation is more or less metamorphic, and the rock is crystalline. For economical purposes, the lime is of very good quality, and when properly selected, serves as an excellent building material, and is easily worked. In quantity it is amply sufficient for all demands. In places there are caves of considerable and unexplored extent. No fossils, as far as we know, have heen found in it, yet it is possible that some exist in other places, and may be discovererl. It is not in
211
VARIOUS GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
distinct horizontal strata, but generally in masses, as though it had been thrown into heaps when in a semi-plastic state, by the upheaval of the underlying formations. It gradually runs into the metamorphic, on which it is superimposed.
A remarkable belt of limestone runs along the side of the Sierra Nevada, from the Bower Cave in Mariposa County, to Oroville, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles. Though only a few hundred feet in thickness, it happens to include a number of the richest placer miniug camps in the State. Among these are Columbia, Springfield, Olsen Mine, Murphy's, Volcano, and Indian Diggings. The limestone is a coarse inar- ble in general character, and, where crossed by streams, has been gullied out by numerons channels, leaving pinnacles of rock with open spaces between them. These were filled with auriferous gravel, and were singularly rich in gold. At a few points the marble is hard and susceptible of a good polish.
In this ledge are a number of remarkable natural bridges, especially those on the Stanislaus River, near McLane's Ferry. These natural bridges give to the locality an interest exceeded by few in the State. They form the most remarkable natural tunnels known in the world, serving as they do for the passage of a considerable stream through them.
The entire rock formation of the vicinity is limestone, and various are the conjectures relative to the first formation of these natural bridges or tunnels. Some believe them to have been formed by the rocky deposit contained in, and precipitated by, the water of countless springs, issuing from the banks of the creek, tbat gradually accumulating and projecting, at length united the two sides, forming these great arched passages. Otbers believe that, as thesc, bridges are covered many feet in depth with rock aud earth, these natural tunnels were but so inany subterranean passages or caverns, formed, we will not attempt to say how, but as other caverns are, or have been, in nearly all limestone formations; for were these subterranean passages to exist in the adjoining hills or mountains, with either one or two arches of entrance, they would be called caverns. But by whatever freak of nature formed, they are objects of peculiar interest, and will well repay the summer rambler among the mines and mountains the trouble of visiting them. Our wonder is that so few, comparatively, have visited these singular specimens of natures architecture.
6. METAMORPHIC ROCKS.
This formation is of varied composition. Originally strati- fied, it is now broken and thrown into endless confusion. There are alternations of granite, quartz, slates, limestone, gneiss, etc. It is the most prevalent rock of these mountains, cropping out and occupying a large portion of the area. It contains iron, gold, copper, quicksilver, and probably in places serves as basins for holding petroleum, We apprehend that the real economic value of this formation in these mountains is but little appre-
ciated or known as yet, not having received that study and investigation it seems to require.
In the pliocene age, a river ran nearly in the course of the present Merced, but it was destroyed by a lava flow, which left no place for the water, rose to the level of the banks, and after they were washed away by the water, rose up like a mountain, with a serpentine course, steep sides, and a bare and level top.
In sinking down through the middle of Table Mountain, tbe miner passes through one hundred and fifty fect of basalt, one hundred of volcanic sand, fifty of clay and sand, thirty of gravel (the lowest ten feet being rich in gold), and then strikes the bed-rock of slate. When that channel was filled up, and became a dead river, the waters had to find a new course in the present rivers.
The following diagram will show the character of Table Mountain, and that the gold is found in the bed of tbe " dead river."
DIAGRAM OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
DEPTH. 330 feet.
KIND OF SOIL.
150 feet.
Basalt-A rock of igneous origin, consisting of augite and feldspar with grains of magnetic iron. It is usually of a greenish-black color, or some dark brown shads. It is one of the best materials for macadamizing roads.
100 feet.
This layer is composed of volcanic sand which was deposited from some active volcano of a past age. Sometimes this sand is carried one hundred miles and deposited.
50 feet.
This layer is clay soil, which was the result of the wearing down and decomposition of granite and other rocka.
20 feet.
A bed of coarse gravel containing some particles of gold.
10 feet.
[ Rich in gold. Bed of "dead river."
CHANNELS OF "DEAD RIVERS."
Underlaying the lava we find the channels of mighty rivers, some as many as 800 to 1,000 feet from shore to shore, with sides and beds cut in solid rock, and worn as smooth as those of to-day, having also that unmistakable evidence of antiquity, " the deep and sinooth worn pot-hole."
The pebbles and small boulders which form the bottom in many places, and deep bars along their course, are all smoothly worn and polished, notwithstanding they may be of the hard- est material.
These ancient river beds may be traced for many miles ; rarely, however are their beds exposed for any considerable distauce. The covering of lava is cut through by the present streams, and the material composing their beds scattered along in the new channels.
Gold is found in ALL these old channels; some are very rich. others are less so. In some the gold is found in spots, so to speak, probably a bar of the ancient stream; then again a
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HISTORY OF MERCED COUNTY.
long distance may be tunneled and nothing found to repay the toiling miner.
California has numerous dead rivers or channels, once used by large streams of water, but now filled up with gravel; and on account of their auriferous wealth they have been discov- ered, traced out, and examined with an industry and care not bestowed upon similar extinct streams in any other part of the world. Indeed, it is doubtful whether dead rivers so wonder- ful in character could be found elsewhere. Some of these channels are covered with mountains of basalt, among which the Tuolumne Table Mountain, thirty miles long and half a mile wide, is the most celebrated.
Tbis pliocene, or " dead river," was a quarter of a mile widle on an average, was parallel with the Sacramento and San Joa- quin, but fifty miles farther east, and carried ten or twenty times as much water. The current ran southwards, as that of the Sacramento does. We know this fact from the present clevations, from tbe manner in which the flat boulders lie point- ing down stream from the direction in which the branches- which, like the main stream, are filled with gravcl-enter it, from water-worn pieces of driftwood, and from drift trees with the tops pointing down stream. We find such marks in live streams, and they cannot be attributed in the Dead Blue, as it is sometimes called, to any influence save that of a strong current flowing southward.
It was a stream of wonderful force, far exceeding in power any of its size now known. The miners find strata of boulders many of which weigh a ton, deposited over a width of a quar- ter of a mile, and a length of sixty miles; above that is another stratum of boulders, in wbich half a ton is a common weight, and so on, until ten feet above the bed-rock we find boulders a foot through.
The entire depth of the gravel is from 200 to 400 feet, averaging 300 feet.
PRINCIPAL DEPOSITS OF GOLD.
Gold is found in many parts of the State, but the principal mines are on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Miners look for it wherever they find granite, slate and quartz together. It is mixed mechanically, not chemically, with the rock and base metals that accompany it; but is not pure, for it is alloyed naturally with silver, and sometimes with small pro- portions of copper, lead, and iron.
Placer gold is classified according to the size and form of the placer in which it is found. Some pieces are small, others large, smooth, or rough, in flat scales, round lumps, and shaped like wires, cucumber seed, beans, pumpkin seeds, or moccasins.
Large nuggets of gold are seldom found in California of late years, but from 1849 to 1853 it was a common event to find pieces of five or ten pounds. And in 1854 a piece of gold containing some quartz, and weighing one bundred and ninety- five pounds, Troy, was found in Calaveras County.
The largest nugget on record was found at Ballarat, Aus- tralia, in 1855, and weighed 224 pounds, Troy.
7. GRANITE FORMATION.
This formation makes up the bulk of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Even the granite that we find in these mountains has probably at some period been stratified, although nearly all traces of stratification have been lost. Where it is exposed it crumbles readily, being disintegrated by exposure to water and winds for many centuries.
The lowest rock is granite, but varying very greatly in its composition in different localities, and as overlying this we find the shales and sandstones of the cretaceous period, a very recent geological age, we are forced to conclude that the granites are only the metamorphosed sedimentary rocks of the older ages, During the deposition of the cretaceous rocks, the county formed a part of the bottom of the Pacific Occan. But as time swept on, the hour which closed a period of the world's history came, and with it the elevation of the Sierras.
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