The most interesting geological feature about this northwestern part of San Diego County is the long plateau, confined chiefly to the Santa Rosa grant. This plateau lies near the western corner of the grant, and extends east nearly to Murrieta. The lava is broken up into detached tables by erosion, which become very strongly pronounced toward the western end of the flow. The western body of lava is the highest. It has a length of nearly 2 miles and is broken into three peaks or ridges, sloping generally a few degrees to the east; height 2,850 feet. There are two terrace-like tables lower down its southern slope. The lava is, perhaps, a hundred feet thick at its eastern end, and has been so much eroded toward the western portion that the underlying sandstone is exposed along the crest of the ridge, with lava lying in broken masses along its sides. The sandstones form quite an extensive bed under the lava flow, being 200 or 300 feet thick, and horizontally bedded, wherever bedding is present. The upper part is very soft and granular, the lower portion is hard and stained reddish. It carries many bowlders 6 to 8 inches in diameter, different from any other rock seen in the adjacent mountains: quartzite mica schist, aphanitic rocks, and some granitic ones. These are washed smooth. The sandstones contain much kaolinitic matter, and at one spot show an incipient crystallization. A number of contiguous grains, over a space half an inch in diameter, show the same orientation. Near the bottom the sandstones are impregnated with iron. The western ridge in particular shows a great amount of erosion. The lava is nearly gone in places, but occurs southward in scattered outcrops for half a mile. At the northern end the sandstone rises fully 300 feet above the lava. Lava is present on its sides. Much of the sandstone closely resembles a granite decomposed _in situ_. Fragments of the mica schist resemble that in the hills west of Temecula. Northward half a mile is the deep cañon of the San Mateo. The country descends very rapidly from the lava ridge, especially so on the north, where the cañon is fully 1,500 feet deep. It is a number of miles in any direction to mountains which are as high as this lava-capped sandstone ridge, and the amount of erosion must have been enormous since it was deposited. Mesa Redonda has an elevation of 2,750 feet, and is separated from the lava just described by a valley fully 800 feet deep, and nearly a mile broad. Mesa Redonda is formed by a lava table, probably basalt, 150 to 200 feet thick. It is quite precipitous on three sides. The lava is bedded, dipping 5° to 8° northeast. Underneath is a body of coarse, friable sandstone, similar to that just described. Some pebbles and bowlders of lava lie in the upper portion of the sandstone. The sandstone consists of angular quartz grains and kaolinic matter, and often presents the appearance as if it had been partly fused by the lava.