Regular Meeting, November 18th, 1867.
President in the chair.
Twenty-six members present.
Messrs. R. H. Stretch and Gustav Holland, M.D., were elected Resident Members, and Mr. L. C. Schmidt of Eureka, Humboldt County, a Corresponding Member.
Donations to the Cabinet: A specimen of Coral from Mr. Eckley.
Donation to the Library: Mining Claims and Water Rights, 8vo, San Francisco, 1867, by Gregory Yale.
Professor Whitney read the following communication, supplementary to the one presented at the previous meeting.
The subject of the relation of the accidental minerals occurring on the Pacific coast was brought forward by me at the last meeting, and I wish now to add a few words in regard to the elementary substances occurring in California, an inquiry which will also afford us some interesting data for comparing the geological and chemical conditions prevailing through the great chain of the Cordilleras of North and South America.
I find on carefully tabulating the facts observed by the Geological Survey, in regard to the mineral combinations existing on the coast, that of the sixty-four elementary substances existing in nature, so far as yet known to chemists, there are only thirty-six which have been proven to occur in California, in mineral combinations.
Those which are wanting here are the following: bromine, glucinum, cadmium, cæsium, cerium, didymium, erbium, fluorine, iodine, indium, lanthanum, lithium, niobium, norium, palladium, ruthenium, rubidium, strontium, tantalum, terbium, thallium, thorium, uranium, vanadium, bismuth, tungsten, yttrium, zirconium (28.)
Of elementary substances occurring in the adjacent States, and not yet detected in California, there are, so far as I know, only three, namely: bismuth, fluorine and tungsten. This would make twenty-three elements wanting on the Pacific Coast of North America. Of these a few are extremely rare, in general, and would hardly be expected to occur here. Among these are didymium, erbium, indium, lanthanum, norium, thorium. But there are others, the absence of which is indeed quite surprising. Fluorine, for instance, is an element of extremely wide distribution, and one which occurs in great quantity in most mineral countries. Here it will probably hereafter be detected in our micas, and perhaps in other combinations, and also in mineral and sea water; but its most abundant source, fluor-spar, seems entirely wanting in this State.
Bismuth is another element of common occurrence in various combinations, but it has not yet been detected in California. A few minute scales of a mineral that I determined to be bismuth-silver, from the Twin Ophir mine, Nevada, is the only authentic instance I know of thus far, of the occurrence of this element on the Pacific coast. Tungsten, uranium and vanadium, are tolerably widely disseminated; the latter, however, less so than the former. No trace of either has yet been found on this coast north of Mexico; of strontium, zirconium, and glucinum, the same may be said. If we now compare the distribution of the elements in the South American Andes with that on this coast, we shall find some striking points of resemblance; and to a large extent, either the absence, or else the great rarity of several of the elementary substances not seen in other mineral regions, is a fact which holds good along the whole extent of the American Continent on the Pacific side. Fluorine, in combination with calcium, is almost as rare in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, as on this coast. Indeed, it was formerly supposed by Domeyko not to occur at all in Chile, but recently one or two localities, where it is found in small quantity, have been made known. Tungsten occurs in Peru at one locality in the form of wolfram, and in Chile in one or two localities, also in Lower California, but its combinations are extremely rare along the whole coast. The same may be said of uranium. Strontium and zirconium have not yet been discovered in Chile or Peru, although the former occurs in one locality in New Grenada, and glucinum has only recently been found in Chile in very minute quantity in one locality. No combination of lithium is yet known on the Pacific coast.
Among the leading facts connected with the occurrence of mineral substances and the elementary bodies on the Pacific coast, and especially in the Cordilleras of North and South America, the following may be mentioned as generally applicable to the whole of the vast region extending from British Columbia to Chile:
1st. The paucity of species considering the extent of the region as compared with other parts of the world, and especially with other mineral regions.
2d. The remarkable absence of the prominent silicates, and especially of the zeolites.
3d. The absence of a large number of the elementary substances, and the paucity of several others of very common occurrence in other mineral regions.
4th. The very wide spread and abundant occurrence of the precious metals, gold and silver, and the not uncommon occurrence of platina.
5th. The great abundance of ores of copper, and the comparative absence of tin, lead, and zinc.
6th. The similarity in the mineralized condition of the silver—antimony and chlorine being prominent mineralizers of this metal—while in Chile the rarer combinations of iodine, bromine, and selenium occur, these latter being as yet unknown north of Mexico.
7th. The absence or paucity as veinstone, or gangue, of one of the most prominent minerals occurring as such in other mineral regions, namely, fluor; to which it may be added, that both calcite and barytes are extremely rare as veinstones in California, and to judge from all the Mexican and Chilean collections that I have seen, well crystallized specimens are very rare in those countries.
8th. There is no elementary substance, and but few mineral species peculiar to the Pacific coast, so far as yet ascertained.
Professor Whitney remarked on the depression of Death Valley, the sink of the Amargosa River, below the level of the sea. Recently it has been repeatedly stated in the newspapers that no such depression really existed, and that, in point of fact, the valley in question was several thousand feet above the sea level, Mr. Gabb being cited as authority.
The valley visited by Mr. Gabb, however, was not, it appears, the real Death Valley, but one to which that name was given by an explorer by mistake. The true Death Valley is the sink of the Amargosa, while the one visited by Mr. Gabb is near the head of that river. The barometrical observations on which the statement of the depression of the real Death Valley is based were taken, in 1861, by a party of the California Boundary Survey. The observations were made with a barometer, which was compared before and after being used, with a standard, by Colonel R. S. Williamson, by whom also the computations and reductions of the observations were made; there was also a station barometer at the time on the Colorado, at no great distance, and this instrument was in good order. Thus it will be seen that the conditions were, in most respects, exceptionably favorable for a correct measure of the altitude of the valley, and it may be safely assumed that its depression below the sea level is not far from one hundred and seventy-five feet, as stated on Colonel Williamson’s authority, in the Geology of California, Vol. I. To secure a more reliable result, it would be necessary to have a long series of observations taken there with a well-adjusted instrument, and it would be desirable also to have a station barometer on the Colorado, or at some other not too distant point. It will probably be a long time before these favorable conditions are secured; and, in the meantime, Col. Williamson’s result must be received as a close approximation to the actual amount of the depression of this very remarkable locality.
Mr. Bolander, referring to a previous enumeration of pine species in California, submitted by him, stated that he must now reduce the number of true species by one, leaving the total at only fifteen. He also remarked upon the species of fir in this State, enumerating four only as being strongly marked. He showed the leaves and seeds of two species, and commented upon the mistake of Murray in asserting that there is a fifth species, which he calls Picea magnifica, but which is really Picea amabilis. Mr. Bolander thought the tendency to multiply species erroneously was attributable to a desire to make a market for seeds, those of new species being always in demand at good prices.