Year: 1864

The PHILOSOPHY OF GRAVEL RANGES


Since 1851 | have heard but two opinions
which are generally entertained among the
miners, and have been informed that they
are endorsed by our State Geologist, that the
immense gravel ranges, covering at least two
thirds of some counties, are the beds Of an
cient rivers or lakes, and that by some great
convulsion or volcanic eruption, these beds
were filed up, displacing the water that had
formed them, leaving the gravel and its COW
ering as we now find them, and that it has
been many thousand years since the change
took place Others believe that they were
formed as bars are formed along the rivers
and the covering they call cement.


Not concurring in either of the above ex-
pressed opinions, and standing alone, as far
as | am informed, on the subject under con-
sideration would invite the attention of our
State Geologist and others who may have
given the subject some investigation, to the
following statements.


First. That the most extensive gravel
ranges are the highest, and covered with a
second formation which is not volcanic rock;
and that they are formed in a cool state is
clear from the fact that quartz gravel and
quantities Of wood are often found imbedded
in the undersde of the covering, neither of
which show any signs of ever being heated
being as hard as in the original condition to
which they belonged, and the color of the
quartz unchanged, which, if it had been a
molten mass, spreading over as we now find
this second formation, many hundred miles
of gravel beds, and in places six hundred
feet thick, it would ever show the effect


Second That this formation was contin-
uous and never interrupted by sudden ac-
cession, as no layers Of vegetable earth ex-
cept by slides Of the same are found between
the top and bottom of the covering, and
which is always seen where different erup-
tions have been found in volcanic countries


Third That the covering over the gravel
was not caused by food of water, as it is
not interwoven with shells or fossil remains
of fish, or those animals that are common to
rivers or lakes Il at it is a solid stone of
one substance, covering concave surface Of
bed rock, and never a convex, or having an
incline like river


Fourth. That pumce stone and other
light substances common to volcanic coun-
tries, l have not seen, though have been
in the mountains for ten years, and much
inclined to observation and thought on this
subject. Where are the craters to be found /?
That one deposit, for there is no sign of
more in the various shafts that have been
sunk, they find continuous substance from
the top to the bottom Now it will be re-
membered that where shafts have been sunk,
through different eruptions they pass through
different layers Of vegetable earth, which en-
ablcs them to tell near the time that has
elapsed between different deposits


Fifth. All ranges of this second forma-
tion contain between it and the bed rock
quartz gravel sometimes eighty feet in
thickness, not one part in five hundred that
belongs to the bedrock, while not one part
in five hundred of the gravel and boulders
of the rivers and lakes are other than por-
tious of the bed rock along the banks or
shores. Now the reason of this difference
is plain; the quartz survives the decompo-
siton Of the bed rock, its original element,
and which once was higher than the top Of
the present highest range, as it will always
be seen that when the covering is very thick
it is a high range and a corresponding
low bed rock with soft surface, always in
state of decomposition, with convex sur
face, which is always the case where still
water or earth stands upon it. Now it fol-
lows, as a fair conclusion from the above
statements, that the gravel ranges are form
ing now as fast as ever.-CaL. Pdper.


] I 1 -