Near the foot of the grade, 2 miles east of Jamul Post Office, this rock is very coarse, with large hornblende crystals. It extends out in the form of arms or dikes into the adjoining granitic rocks. This rock is very tough and heavy. Gneiss outcrops for 2 miles westward. It varies between thin-bedded micaceous strata and thick-bedded, almost granitic forms. It strikes north 15° east, dips 70° to 80° east. Farther down, toward the Oakdale House, this is replaced by coarse eruptive granites. Just below the Oakdale House there is a very interesting contact between granite, quartz porphyry, and diabase. The first rock exposed below the house is a rather dark micaceous syenite. Beyond this the rock becomes coarser, containing large grains of quartz and glassy feldspar, with inclusions of a very dark diabasic rock. In a little cañon which comes down to the road from the east, this rock comes into contact with one which varies from a feldspathic mica schist, through a gneiss, to a quartz porphyry. The junction is very irregular and the two rocks are slightly mixed; sometimes branches of the syenite are partly inclosed in the porphyry. Some portions of the syenite show gas pores, or spaces left at the time of consolidation, one fourth to one half an inch in diameter. They are partly filled with secondary quartz. The next rock exposed up the cañon is a mica schist; strike 15° west, dip vertical. Quartz porphyry follows this, then an irregular dike of granite, in which are imbedded nodules of quartz porphyry, some nearly a foot in diameter. Above the granite there appears a granitoid gneiss, with many cavities, arranged with their longer axes parallel to the schistose structure. This changes into a coarse, knotty granite, containing large nodules of dark petrosilex. A slight blending is noticeable. Farther up this is succeeded by a micaceous quartz feldspar porphyry, showing a somewhat gneissoid structure. It is out at right angles to this structure by jointing planes lying thickly together. It has a milky, vitreous luster, and contains inclusions of very coarse granite. The next rock exposed is a diabase 200 feet across. It is coarse in the middle and aphanitic on the edges. Adjoining it are bunches of granite and a fine, dark, compact mica schist, showing traces of little pebbles in places. The schist changes to a petrosilex, which comes in contact with a dike of very coarse granite. At the upper edge of this granite outcrop, and inclosed in it, is a stratum of fine, dark mica schist and a dike of quartz porphyry. At one end these inclusions are hidden, but at the other they have been bent, fractured, and the pieces separated some distance in the granite. ([Fig. 9]). This is a most interesting example of the intrusive nature of the granite.
Fig. 9.
Fig. 10.
The granite dike is bounded on its upper side by one of aphanitic diabase 2 feet wide, followed by granite again. Nodules of the diabase appear in the edge of the granite. A stratum of wavy quartzose gneiss 10 feet wide follows the last dike of granite. It changes across the strike into a coarser gneiss, and that into irregular and partially blended masses of coarse granite, filled with long fragments of porphyry similar to a dike on the east. ([Fig. 10].) The quartz porphyry is very compact and brittle, and has a conchoidal fracture. The porphyry dike has a width of 8 feet. About it is still another dike of granite 12 feet across, and containing many long fragments of a diabasic rock, which appears next in the succession.
The diabase is cut by small, interlacing granite seams for 6 or 8 feet, and also contains some large, irregular, lenticular masses of the same rock. Still farther is another dark dike cut squarely across by granite. Fine granite and quartz porphyry dikes occur still farther east. The porphyry dikes all run about north 35° west, average dip 70° southwest. They extend along the summit of a ridge for more than half a mile, when the coarse granite becomes the country rock. On the summit of the hill at the head of the cañon are strata of metamorphic rock, and also some veins of pegmatite, cutting across the porphyry. This wonderfully varied succession of rocks does not cover a width of more than a quarter of a mile. The relations exhibited here prove that the porphyry and diabase, as well as the schists, are older than the granite. The strip of country between the ancient porphyries of San Miguel and the coarse granite of Lyon’s Peak and the ranges north is remarkably rich in its variety of intrusive rocks.
On the north bank of the Sweetwater, just above where the Spring Valley road crosses, is a large exposure of coarse granite, containing so many inclosures of a dark dioritic rock as to present the appearance of a conglomerate. It is cut by bunches and ramifying dikes of fine granite and diorite.
At Dehesa the granite is replaced by norite, which forms a high mountain on the north side of the river, and extends southeasterly 3 or 4 miles, forming two high peaks. In this are veins of hornblende aggregates, and in general appearance the rock bears the closest resemblance to that on the Cuyamaca.
The crystalline rocks exposed between the Sweetwater and El Cajon Valley generally show more of a dioritic composition than granitic. They have a glassy feldspar, much hornblende, and little quartz. There are two varieties: one is light colored, and forms most of the country; the other is darker, occurring in bunches and dikes. Southwest of the valley the rocks are more granitic. On the road to Spring Valley they give place to a hard, light—colored felsitic rock, containing specks of chloritic matter. Masses of granite appear in places, intruded into the rock. As it decays it becomes jointed, and seems to be reduced mostly to kaolin. Near the railroad, northwest of Spring Valley, rocks outcrop which belong to the series of dark intrusives, tuffs, and porphyries so extensively developed west of the granite. The rock here has a fragmental appearance in weathered specimens. It has a dark green color, and is of uncertain composition. The most western exposure of this rock, before it becomes covered by the mesa, has much the same character. It is without doubt an ancient intrusive, very greatly altered. It contains bunchy dikes of white feldspathic composition, which easily reduce to kaolin. The whole exposed width of these rocks west of the granite at this point is over a mile, about half of which is tufaceous. By tufaceous is not necessarily meant a fragmental intrusive deposited in water, but for lack of any other term it is used to designate those fragmental intrusives of plutonic origin which are so abundant in California.