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FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD ANNUAL REPORTS
OF THE
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
OF THE TERRITORIES
THE YEARS 1867, 1868, AND 1869,
UNDER THE
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. ©
WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFIOKR.
1873.
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PREFATORY NOTE.
The popular demand for a complete series of the Annual Reports of
the United States Geological Survey of the Territories under my
charge has been so great that the Secretary of the Interior has ordered
the printing of a second edition of the first, second, and third annual
reports in one volume. The survey in its present form commenced
in the spring of 1867, with a small appropriation of $5,000 made by
Congress for the examination of Nebraska; in 1868 it was continued in
the Territory of Wyoming with a similar sum of $5,000; in 1869 it was
extended to Colorado and New Mexico, with an increased appropriation
of $10,000. During the years 1867 and 1868 the survey was conducted
under the General Land-Office, and the first and second annual reports
were included in the reports of the Commissioner. Early in 1869 the
survey was placed by Congress under the Secretary of the Interior, and
the third annual‘ report was published as an independent volume.
These reports are now entirely out of print.
Although they were written in the field and forwarded to Washington
in detached portions, and, in the case of the first and second reports,
printed without the supervision of the writer, I have thought it best to
make no alterations or additions in the present reprint, but to let the
reports continue to mark the steps of progress of the survey from year
to year.
In the spring of 1870 I presented before the Committee on Appro-
priations of the House of Representatives a plan for the geological and
geographical exploration of the Territories of the United States. This
plan looked forward to the gradual preparation of a series of geo-
graphical and geological maps on a uniform scale, embracing each of
the Territories in accordance with the boundary-lines. In this way
these maps would become of great practical as well as scientific value
to each of the Territories examined. Jn accordance with this plan,
maps of Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming,
Colorado, and New Mexico are in an advanced state of preparation. As »
soon as the details of the geology are more fully. worked out, these
maps will be issued.
F. V. HAYDEN,
United States Geologist.
WASHINGTON, May, 1873.
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
: OF THE TERRITORIES,
BHMBRACING NEBRASKA.
BY
F. V. HAYDEN, U. S. Geologist.
~ CONDUCTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE COMMISSIONER OF
THE GENERAL LAND-OFFICE.
1867.
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REPORT OF F. V. pee STATES GEOL-
NEBRASKA City, July 1, 1867.
Str: I take the first opportunity which has Be enred itself Ae me to
report to you the progress of my explorations. During the month of
June I have examined, with considerable care, the counties of Douglas,
Sarpy, Cass, Otoe, and Laneaster, and will leave to-morrow to examine
the counties of Nemaha and Richardson, returning northward through
Pawnee, Johnson, and Lancaster Counties to the northern part of the
State, returning again southward, as far as time will permit, through
the third tier of counties. These three tiers of counties will comprise —
most of the settled portions of the State.
I have already accumulated much interesting information, although
no striking discoveries have been made. There are few, if any, important
minerals in the State, but our collections of Carboniferous fossils are
very extensive. We shall secure, in the course of the year, most
abundant material to illustrate the geology of the State. We have made
most earnest search for coal. This question seems to be one which now
excites the attention of the people more than any other, and they are
earnestly asking for a solution of the problem.
By my direction Mr. Meek passed across the State of Iowa to Ne-
braska City, with Dr. C. A. White, State geologist, and they succeeded
in tracing the Coal-Measure rocks from Des Moines to Nebraska City,
and the conclusion they arrived at was, that the workable beds of coal
in Iowa occur in the Lower Coal-Measures, and that those beds would be
found by boring from 300 to 500 feet below the water-level of the Mis-
souri at Nebraska City. All the facts that we have so far secured
in our subsequent examinations seem to confirm that conclusion. It
may so happen that the limestones and clays increase in thickness in
their westward extension, and in Nebraska it may be necessary to bore
600 or 800 feet before reaching a workable bed of coal. Even at that
depth a good bed of coal would be profitable. In England coal has
been mined 1,800 feet beneath the surface, and there are numerous pits
from 800 to 1,200 feet in depth.
We shall give this question of coal our earnest attention as we pro-
ceed southward. I inclose a section of an artesian boring made at
Omaha by the Union Pacifie Railroad Company, near 400 feet; also a
second section made by Mr. Croxton at Nebraska City. The observations
made by the parties engaged in the boring were not made with that
positive accuracy that I could have desired, still I have put their notes
into such a form by means of colors, in accordance with your instruc-
tions, that you will readily understand the character of the beds for a
great depth beneath the surface of the two localities.
I shall forward to you all the sections of this kind which I can secure.
My. J. Sterling Morton has sunk a shaft on his farm 100 feet in depth,
without success. Ihave advised boring hereafter; and to save expense,
8 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
to continue Mr. Croxton’s boring, which is already 400 feet deep, to a
depth of 800 feet, if necessary, so as to settle a vexed question one way
or the other. Several thin beds, fifteen to eighteen inches thick, of coal
have been found in various parts of the State, and these beds have been
wrought with some profit.
The results of our examinations north of the Platte were that the
‘limestones of the Upper Coal-Measures pass from sight beneath the
water-level of the Missouri at De Soto, and are then succeeded by sand- —
stones of a Cretaceous age; that these Coal-Measure limestones occupy
about two-thirds of Douglas County; that no coal-beds of workable
character can be found in this country at a less depth than from 800 to
1,000 feet beneath the water-level of the Missouri. Limestone of good
quality for economical purposes generally is found at Omaha, and all
over Sarpy County. On both sides of the Platte River as high up as the
BHlkhorn are excellent quarries of limestone. There is one ledge of lime-
stone on the Platte about four feet in thickness, very compact and du-
rable, which fully satisfied the wishes of Mr. J. L. Williams, one of the
commissioners for accepting the Union Pacific Railroad, and he in-
formed me that its discovery would settle the location of the great rail-
road-bridge across the Missouri. One singular geological phenomenon
occurs which I have not before observed in any part of the West. The
surface of this rock, where the superincumbent drift is removed, has
been planed so smoothly by glacial action that it will make most ex-
cellent material for caps and sills without further working. Sometimes
there are deep grooves and scratchings, all of which have a direction
nearly northwest and southeast. This glacial action is also seen at
Plattsmouth, and the evidence is that if the superficial deposits were
stripped off, a large area of the upper surface of the limestones would
appear to be planed in this way. This is an exceedingly important
geological discovery. At various points I found potters’ clay in abun-
dance. A factory for making potters’ ware is about to be established at
Nebraska City. At Plattsmouth, Rock Bluff, and Nebraska City there
is a bed of this clay about fifteen feet in thickness, of various. colors,
mostly red, colored with the sesquioxide of iron. This clay is not only
most excellent for potters’ use, but it is employed in Iowa as a paint. and
by a judicious mixture of the different colored clays any shade desira-
ble may be produced. This is a matter of some interest to the people.
Numerous beds of sand occur also, which are of much value for building
purposes.
With the sand and the yellow marl, the materials for making brick
are without limit in this State.
THE SALT-BASINS OF LANCASTER COUNTY.
I returned last evening from a tour of five days to the salt-basins in
Laneaster County, about fifty miles west of Nebraska City. It has
been determined by the State to locate the capital near these basins,
and therefore the examination of them and the country in the vicinity
became a matter of some importance. The basins and scattering springs
occupy a large area several miles in extent, but the main basin is located
near the town of Lancaster. These basins are depressions in the sur-
face nearly destitute of vegetation, and the white incrustations of salt
give the surface the appearance in the distance of a sheet of water.
The Great Basin, as it is called, is situated about one mile from Lancas-
ter, township 10, range 6, section 22, and covers an area of about four
hundred acres. The brine issues from a large number of places all over
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. g
the surface, but in small quantities. All the salt water that comes to
surface from this basin unites in one stream, and we estimated the en-
tire amount of water that flowed from this basin at from six to eight gal-
lons per minute. The second salt-basin lies between Oak and Salt Creek
and covers an area of two hundred acres. The third basin is on Little
Salt Creek, called Kenosha Basin, and covers two hundred acres. Nu-
merous small basins occur on Middle Creek, which occupy in all about six
hundred acres. Between Middle and Salt Creeksare several small basins,
covering forty or fifty acres. From the surface of all these basins more
er less springs ooze out. In former years great quantities of salt have
been taken from the surface and carried away. During the war as
many as sixty families at a time have been located about these basins
employed in securing the salt.
Besides the numerous basins above mentioned, Salt Creek, Hayes’s
Branch, Middie Oreek, Oak and Little Salt Creeks have each a dozen
springs coming out near the water’s edge. One spring on Salt Creek
issues from a sand-rock, and gushes forth with a stream as large as a
man’s arm, at the rate of four gallons a minute.
This is the largest spring known in the State. The geological forma-
tions in the vicinity are of the Upper Carboniferous and Lower Creta-
ceous age. The salt-springs undoubtedly come up from a great depth,
probably from the Upper Carboniferous rocks, and are the same in their
history and character as those in Kansas. The Cretaceous sandstones
oceupy the hills and high ground, but do not go deep beneath the water-
level of the little streams. We settled an important point for the citi-
zens in this county, that no coal-beds of workable,value can possibly
be found at a less depth than 1,000 to 1,500 feet beneath the surface,
which renders further search for this mineral useless.
Much time and money has already been spent prospecting and dig-
ging for coal in this region, and the almost entire absence of timber
would render the presence of coal here a matter of vital importance. I
would be glad to find a workable bed of coal for the good people, but it
cannot be. The farmers must plant trees, and in a few years the de-
mand for fuel will be supplied. Two methods have been used to some
extent in this region in preparing the salt—boiling and evaporation.
The only method which can be employed profitably in this country,
where fuel is so scarce, is solar evaporation, and this can be carried on
more effectually than in any State east of Nebraska. The unusual dry-
ness of the atmosphere, the comparatively few moist or cloudy days,
the fine wind which is ever blowing, will render evaporation easy. The
surface indications do not lead me to believe that Nebraska will ever be
a noted salt region. It seems to me that if all the brine that issues from
all the basins and isolated springs were united in one they would not
furnish more than brine enough to keep one good company employed.
What will be the result of boring can be determined only by actual
experiment. Some large springs may yet be found in that way, but I
saw no brine that was much stronger than ocean-water. I will forward
specimens of the salt and two bottles of the brine, which ought to be
carefully analyzed. I shall collect more of the brine at a later and
more favorable season. The rains have been so frequent this spring that
it is much diluted with rain-water. The Nebraska Salt Company made,
from July to November, 1866, 60,000 pounds of sait. Another company,
at work at the same time, made about the same amount. Good working
days 6,000 pounds have been made in a day. The kettles used for boil-
ing are very rude steam:boilers split into two parts. In a vat 12 by 24
feet average evaporation was 125 to 130 pounds per day. An extra day
10 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
was 250 pounds. I think it not improbable that a company with a large
capital, and employing all the improved methods of manufacturing the
salt, would succeed. The salt is said to be good, though not as strong
as the common salt of commerce.
The best building-stone, yet observed in the State occurs in the south-
ern portion of Lancaster County. The quarries have been opened, and
several fine houses built of the stone. The rocks are of the Permo-Car-
boniferous, or Upper Carboniferous age, and are usually called magnesian
limestones 3 are very durable, easily wrought, and make most beautiful
building material. There is ‘also plenty of potters’ clay, sand, and all
the materials for the manufacture of brick without limit.
THE CULTIVATION OF FRUIT AND FOREST TREES.
T think a sufficient number of experiments have already been made in
this western country to show clearly that the forests may be restored
to these almost treeless prairies in a comparatively short period of time.
There are certain trees which are indigenous to the country, and which
grow with great rapidity under the influence of cultivation. I have
given special attention to this matter, in accordance with your instruc-
tion, and shall continue to do so throughout the period of the survey.
About four miles west of Ohama City Mr. Griffin, an intelligent farmer,
has planted about forty acres of forest-trees, which are now in a fine
condition of growth. I have obtained as many measurements as possi-
ble, in order that my statements might have their proper weight. The
common cotton-wood of the country grows everywhere finely, on upland
or lowland. I would remark here that Mr. Gritfin’s experiment is ren-
dered more emphatic from the fact that he chose one of the highest points
in the vicinity of Omaha, 600 feet above the water-line of the Missouri
River.
The soil is the usual yellow siliceous marl of this region, which is re-
garded by Lyell and other geologists as the American equivalent of the
Loess of the Rhine, whieh is SO well adapted to the culture of the grape.
The indigenous trees ot the country all do well, as might be expected,
and many others which have never been found in the West grow rapidly
and healthfully. The trees most in cultivation are the indigenous ones,
as the cotton-wood, (Populus monilifera, ) soft maple, (Acer rubrum, ) elm,
( Ulmus americana, ) bass-wood, or linden, ( Tilia americana, ) black-walnut,
(Juglans nigra,) honey-locust, ( Gleditschia tricanthus,) and several vari-
eties of willows.
At Mr. Griffin’s farm I found cotton-wood trees, ten years’ growth,
with a circumference of 2 feet 11 inches, 30 feet high; seven years’
growth, with a circumference of 2 feet; seven years’ ¢ evowth, with a cir-
cumference of 2 feet 6 mches soft maple, ten years’ 2 growth, with a cir-
cumference of 2 feet 8 inches; soft maple, seven years’ g erowth, with a
circumference of 1 foot 10 inches ; soft maple, seven year 's! erowth, with
a circumference of 2 feet 1 inch, 15 feet high; common locust, ten years’
erowth, with a circumference of 2 feet, 15 feet high; eo aey ‘locust, ten
years? erowth, 1 foot 8 inches; black- walnut, ten years’ growth, with a
circumference of 12 inches, 15 feet high; black- walnut, ten years’ growth,
with a circumference of 13 inches, 15 feet high.
At Dr. Enos Lowe’s place, nearOmaha, about 300 feetabove the water-
line of the Missouri, cotton-wood trees, ten years’ growth, circumference 2
feet 6 inches, 40 feet high; cotton-wocd trees, ten. years’ ‘growth, circum-
ference 2 feet 44 inches, 22 5 feet b high ; cotton-wood trees, ten years’ growth,
circumference 2 feet 5 inches; cotton-wood trees, ten years’ growth,
GEOLOGICAL. SURVEY OF THES TERRITORIES. Ll
circumference 2 feet 4 inches; cotton-wood trees, ten years’ growth, cir-
cumference 2 feet 9 inches ; cotton-wood trees, ten years’ growth, circum-
ference 2 feet 10 inches; common locust, ten years’ growth, circumference
2 feet, 1 foot 10 inches, 1 foot 9 inches, 1 foot 10 inches, 2 feet, 2 feet 1
inch, 2 feet, 1 foot 10 inches, 2 feet 5 inches, 1 foot 104 inches; soft
maple, seven years old, circumference 8 inches; box-elder, ten years old,
circumference 2 feet 2 inches; apple-trees, ten years’ growth, circum.
ference 1 foot 3 inches, 1 foot 1 inch, 1 foot 2 inches, 1 foot Linch; twelve
years’ growth, 1 foot 6 inches, 1 foot 3 inches, 1 foot 63 inches, 1 foot 6
inches; common red-cherry trees, ten years’ growth, circumference 12
inches; silver-poplar shade-trees, seven years’ growth, circumference 2
feet 4 inches.
Dr. Lowe’s garden shows 8 most healthy and vigorous growth of the
smaller fruits, and he has raised successfully out of doors the following
vines: Hartford Prolific, Catawba, Clinton, Delaware, and Concord.
These vines are loaded with young fruit at this time. Pears, apples, and
cherries abundant; peaches plentiful, but I do not think they will en-
dure the climate. Dr. Lowe has the following evergreens, which are
erowing finely: Scotch pine, Austrian, Russian, white pine, spruce,
balsam-fir, white cedar, or arbor-vitx, and red cedar.
Near the mouth of the Platte Rev. J. G. Miiler raises successfully the
Diana grape. Lombardy-poplars grow well; four years old, 20 feet high,
2 to 5 inches in diameter. Cotton-wood, four years old, circumference 18
inches, and 20 feet high.
__ Mr. Miller’s place is one of the most highly cultivated in the State.
He has twenty-five apricot-trees, raised from the seed, which are now
loaded with fruit; English red raspberries, blackberries, We., all bearing
thriftily. ,
At Rev. Mr. Hamilton’s, Bellevue, Sarpy County, I saw most of the
smaller fruitsin a high state of cultivation, as strawberries, blackberries, -
raspberries, currants, gooseberries, &c., and I am convinced that none
finer could be produced in any country.
On Mr. J. Sterling Morton’s farm, near Nebraska City, I observed a
cotton-wood tree that had grown from the seed in ten years to a height
of 50 feet, with a circumterence of 4 feet.
About ten miles south of Plattsmouth there is a fine grove of trees
upon a high elevation, composed of cotton-woods, maples, locusts, and
black-walnuts. Those of ten years’ growth are from 8 to 10 inches in
diameter, and 10 to 30 feet high. The black-walnut trees may be raised
from the seed with ease, and though of slower growth. than the others,
are very valuable from the fact that the astringent, pungent bark forms
their defense, not only against cattle, but the gopher, the most destruc-
tive of the wild animals. The gopher gnaws off the roots of some of the
most valuable trees, and is a source of great annoyance to the farmer.
The native or honey locust is not disturbed by the boring-insect, which
is destroying the common locust. The borer sometimes attacks the
cotton-woods.
I have said enough to show already that most of the hardy northern
trees may be cultivated on these western plains with entire success. The
cultivated forest will prove much more desirable than those of natural
growth, and their arrangements may be made as beautiful as the taste of
_ the proprietor may dictate. The greater portion of the more intelligent
and thrifty farmers are planting forests to greater or less extent. This
is done so easily that there is no excuse for a farmer to be destitute of
fuel after afew years. Nearly all the common forest-trees can be raised
from the seed as easily as corn or beans. As soon as it is understood
12 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
that coal is restricted to a small portion of the State, even if it occur at
all, every one will adopt the plan of raising his own fuel. So far as the
cultivation of the smaller fruits is concerned, I am convinced that Ne-
braska will not be surpassed by any other State in the Union. The
climate seems to be severe for peaches, though Mr. Morton, will have
thirty or forty bushels this season. The dwarf fruits seem to do best.
A row of forest-trees around the gardens and orchards proves a great pro-
tection from strong winds and cold in winter. The Osage orange is used
very successfully all over the State for hedges.
I have dwelt on this subject here, from the fact that it is a popular
notion at the Hast that trees cannot be made to grow successfully on the
western prairies, and especially that the climate and soil are unfavora-
ble to the cultivation of the fruits. I held that opinion until within two
years, but I now believe that, within thirty to fifty years, forest-trees
may be grown large enough for all economical purposes.
Mr. Griffen, in ten years) time, is able to supply his own fuel from the
limbs and dead trees which would otherwise go to deeay, and within four
or five years he will have fuel for sale.
ft will endeavor hereafter to report the results of my labors to you
weekly. If you wish to have me elaborate any special point more fully,
please give me instructions to that effect.
The great pest of this country appears to be the grasshopper. ‘This
year it seems to be restricted in its distribution. I did not observe any
north of the Platte, and very few north of Nebraska City. But at the
latter place, and for four or five miles around it, the grasshopper is very
abundant and destructive. Mr. Gilmore, one of the wealthiest farmers
in the State, has 10S seventy acres of wheat and sixty five acres of
clover and timothy-grass by the grasshopper, (Caloptenus spretus.)
Many other crops have been injured ; others have suffered in this vicinity.
I am making a collection of them of different ages, and intend to in-
vestigate their nature and habits with great care.
I hope to be at Brownsville, Nemaha County, in a few days, and
from that point will report on Otoe County.
OTOH AND NEMAHA COUNTIES.
Otoe is one of the most fertile sind thickly settled of the counties of
Nebraska. The fertility of the soil is shown by the richness and abun-
dance of the crops, which are remarkably fine. The winters are so severe
and the snow so thin that winter-wheat will not do well, and spring-
wheat is raised altogether, and is grown most suecessfully in ordinary
seasons. Thirty and forty bushels to the acre is not an uncommon yield
throughout the State, and last autumn Nebraska wheat brought from |
ten to. fifteen cents more per bushel in the market at Saint Louis than
wheat from any other portion of the West.
The great fertility of the soil in the river counties of Nebraska is
mainly due to the beds of siliceous marl which cover those counties to a
greater or less depth. This is usually called Loess, from a similar for-
mation which occurs along the Rhine, in Germany.
The sections which I inclose to you from time to time will reveal the
prospect of workable beds of coal in the State, so far as the surface ex-
posures are concerned. One outcrop at Nebraska City has been wrought
by drifting in a distance of three hundred yards, and several thousand
bushels of pretty good coal have been taken therefrom. The seam was
about eight inches in thickness. On account of the scarcity of fuel in
this region this thin seam has been made somewhat profitable. At Otoe
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 13
City, eight miles below Nebraska City, the lithological character of the
beds seems to change, so that we have red shales ‘and clays passing up
into soft, yellow sandstones, with comparatively little rock useful for
building purposes. There is here also a bed of slate and coal about
eight inches in thi¢kness, which has been wrought to some extent, and
the coal used in a blacksmith’s shop. Still higher up in the bank is
another thin bed of black Carboniferous shale, “which has been worked
to some extent. ;
At Peru, about six or eight miles further south, there is another com-
plete lithological change in the beds exposed. The bluffs along the
Missouri seemed to be formed of irregular beds of soft sandstone and
laminated arenaceous clays. High up in the lills, at some distance from
the river, there is a bed of limestone, twelve to eighteen inches in thick-
ness, which is quarried extensively and profitably. Onthe Missouri bot-
tom, about on a level with high-water mark, a well was dug sixteen feet
in depth ; a seam of coal was penetrated, which is represented as four
inches thick on one side of the well and about ten on the other. These
beds in the vicinity change rapidly, both in thickness and texture, within
very short distances. Again, at Brownsville there is a seam of coal
accompanied by many of the plants which are peculiar to the Carbonif-
erous rocks in other States. There are from four to six inches of good
coal; the whole bed of black shale and coal is about twelve inches in
thickness. There is a fine quarry of limestone at this point, which is of
very superior quality for building purposes, but there is too much sand
and clay in it to be converted into a good quality of lime. The bed is
about three feet in thickness near the water’s edge, concealed by high
water at this time. There is a bed of micaceous fine-grained sandstone,
which cleaves naturally into most excellent flag-stones, which are much
used here. These rock-quarries are of great value to the people of Ne-
maha County. The materials for making brick abound everywhere in
this region; clays, marl, and sands are abundant, and of excellent
quality.
Should the future prosperity of the country demand it, there are
abundant materials for the manufacture of what is called in England, and,
recently brought into use in this country, “ patent concrete stone.” It
is composed of small fragments of stone or sand reduced to a paste by
a fluid silicate, then molding the material into any required form and
dipping it into the chloride of calcium. The little particles of sand are
- thus cemented together, and it is wonderful how rapidly this rock can
be formed, and how durable it becomes. ‘This is a matter which seems
to me worthy of notice in the final report.
Several kinds of peat occur in small quantities in Otoe and Nemaha
Counties, which, as fuel, will rank next to coal. There are several
marshes or boge y places about six miles west of Nebraska City, from
which I have obtained some excellent specimens. On Long Branch,
Franklin, in Nemaha County, twenty-four miles southwest of Browns-
ville, there are spring-places where a pole may be thrust through the
peat to the depth of ten or fifteen feet. About ten miles west are sev-
eral other peat-bogs, which have attracted more or less attention.
At Aspinwall, in Nemaha County, we discovered the most favorable
exhibition of coal yet observed in the State. The. general dip of the
beds seems to be up the Missouri, or nearly north or northwest. It iS
difficult to determine this point with precision. The rocks at Aspinwall
are all geologically at a lower horizon than the Nebraska City beds, and
mostly beneath the Brownsville beds, so that the inclination must be
considerable—eight or ten feet per mile. Two seams of coal are met
14 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
with at Aspinwall: one crops out near the river, about fifteen feet above
the water, twenty-four inches in thickness—very good quality, A few
feet above this seam is a second seam—six inches of good coal. Some
English miners are sinking a shaft here, with full gonfidence that the
thickest bed can be made profitable, and I am inclined to think that,
with the present scarcity of fuel, they will succeed well. Coal com-
mands a ready sale at from forty cents to eighty cents per bushel ; and
even at eighty cents a bushel, coal is cheaper than wood. The miners
have already sunk the shaft about forty feet; have passed through the
6-inch seam, and are confident of soon reaching the 24-inch bed, when
the work of drifting in various directions will commence, and the coal
be taken out for market. The beds hold such a position here that, if the
miners are successful, this effort determines the existence of a work-
able bed of coal for Nemaha, Richardson, Pawnee, and Johnson Coun-
ties, which will be a most important matter for the whole State. We
have very abundant notes in detail, and many specimens to illustrate
the geology of the river counties.
Mr. Meek leaves me at Rulo and returns to Washington. The remain-
der of the year I must perform the field-work alone. My next examina-
tions will be in Richardson and Pawnee Counties.
I am informed that excellent hydraulic lime for cement exists in
Nemaha County, section 9, township 6, range 14; but I have not been
able yet to make a personal examination of the locality.
FOREST AND FRUIT TREES.
I would again speak of the great importance of planting trees in this
country, and the great ease with which these cultivated forests may be
produced. I do not believe that the prairies proper will ever become
covered with timber except by artificial means. Since the surface of
the country received its present geological configuration no trees have
erown there, but, during the Tertiary period, when the lignite or “brown
coal” beds were deposited, all these treeless plains were covered with a
luxuriant growth of forest-trees like those of the Gulf States or South
America. Here were palm-trees, with leaves having a spread of twelve
feet; gigantic syeamores—several species; maples, poplars, cedars,
hickories, cinnamon, fig, and many varieties now found only in tropical
or sub-tropical climates.
Large portions of the Upper Missouri country, especially along the
Yellowstone River, are now covered with silicified trunks of trees, sixty
to seventy feet in length and two to four feet in diameter, exhibiting the
annual rings of growth as perfectly as in our recent elms or maples.
We are daily obtaining more and more evidence that these forests may
be restored again to a certain extent, at least, and thus a belt or zone of
country about five hundred miles in width east of the base of the mount-
ains be redeemed. It is believed, also, that the planting of ten or fifteen
acres of forest-trees on each quarter-section will have a most important
effect on the climate, equalizing and increasing the moisture and adding
greatly to the fertility of the soil. The settlement of the country and
the increase of the timber have already changed for the better the climate
of that portion of Nebraska lying along the Missouri, so that within
the last twelve or fourteen years the rain has gradually increased in
quantity and is more equally distributed through the year. I am confi-
dent this change will continue to extend across the dry belt to the foot
of the Rocky Mountains as the settlements extend and the forest-trees
are planted in proper quantities. In the final report I propose to show
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 15
that these ideas are not purely theoretical, and that the influence of trees
on climate and humidity has been investigated by some of the ablest
scientific men in this country and EKurope. A French savant, M. Bous-
singault, states that in the region comprised between the Bay of Cupica
and the Gulf of Guayaquil, which is covered with immense forests, the
rains are almost continual, and that the mean temperature of the humid
country rises hardly to 80° Fahrenheit. The author of “Travels in
Bulgaria” says that in Maltarain has become rare since the forests have
‘been cleared Away to make room for the growth of cotton, and that, at
the time of his visit, in October 1841, not a drop of rain had fallen for
three years. The terrible droughts in Cape Verde Islands are attributed
to the destruction of the forests.
The wooded surface of the island of Saint Helena has extended eameide
erably within a few year s, and it is said that the rain is now double in
quantity what it was during the residence of Napoleon. A German
author remarks: ‘In wooded countries the atmosphere is generally
humid, and rain and dew fertilize the soil. As the lightning-red ab-
stracts the electric fuid from the stormy sky, so the forest abstracts to
itself the rain from the clouds, which in falling refreshes not it alone,
but extends its benefits to the neighboring fields.”
The forest presenting a considerable surface for evaporation gives to
its own soil and the adjacent ground an abundant and enlivening dew.
Forests, in a word, exert in the interior of continents an influence like
that of the sea on the climates of islands and of coasts; both water the
soil and thereby insure its fertility. Sir John F. W. Herschel says that
the influences unfavorable to rain are absence of vegetation, in warm
climates, and especially of trees. He considers this one of the reasons
of the extreme aridity of Spain. Babinet, in his lectures, says: ‘A few
years ago it never rained in Lower Hgypt. The constant north winds,
which almost exclusively prevail there, passed without obstruction over
a surface bare of vegetation; but since the making of plantations an
obstacle has been created which retards the current of air from the
north. The air thus checked accumulates, dilutes, cools, and yields
rain.”
I might cite many examples from the African deserts how the planting
of palm-trees is redeeming those barren sands.
Much might also be said in regard to the influence of woods in pro-
tecting the soil and promoting the increase in number and the flow of
springs, but all I wish is to show the possibility of the power of man to
restore to these now treeless and almost rainless prairies the primitive
forests and the humidity which accompanies them.
The counties of Otoe, Nemaha, and Richardson contain more timber-
land than any other portion of the State, and the aggressive character
of the patches of woodland can be seen everywhere. Hundreds of acres
have been covered over with a fine healthy growth of hickory, walnut,
oak, soft maple, coffee-bean, bass-wood, &e. , within the past ten or twelve
years, since the fires have been kept away ¢ and protection afforded the
young trees by the settlements.
In the more southern counties the success in planting trees and in
raising fruits, especially the smaller kinds, is even more marked than
north of the Platte. All kinds of garden-vegetables grow better in
Nebraska than in any other region with which I am acquainted. The
crops, when not injured by the erasshopper, are looking very fine at this
time. The corn has escaped so far and is pressing forward with great
rapidity. Up to the 1st of July I did not see any grasshoppers, except
within a radius of four or five miles around Nebraska City. There they
16 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
were most abundant and destructive. July 2d and 3d they commenced
their flight northward, filling the air as high as the eye could reach,
looking much like flakes of snow. They have committed some depreda-
tion in Sout! Nebraska, but more especially in Kansas. Whenever
counties become more thickly settled and more densely wooded, so that
the annual amount of moisture is more equally distributed over the
year, this pest I believe will entirely disappear.
IT am informed that notwithstanding the grasshopper there will be at
least half a crop of wheat. In Richardson County the harvesting of
winter-wheat has commenced, (July Sth.) Last year it commenced June
22d The corn looks finely everywhere. Alli the crops are late this
season on account of the wet weather.
RICHARDSON COUNTY.
Richardson County is in some respects the finest county in the State.
It lies in the southeastern corner of the State and borders on the
Missouri River, and forms the type of fertility of soil and climate.
Being located near the fortieth parallel, the climate seems to favor the
cultivation of all the hardy fruits and cereals.
The surface is more rugged than many of the interior counties, partly
on account of the extreme thickness of the superficial deposit of soft
yellow marl and the numerous layers of limestone which crop out along
the river-banks. The county is fully watered with ever-flowing streams
and innumerable springs of the purest water.
There is more woodland in this county than in any other I have ex-
amined, and on this account the planters have neglected the planting of
trees too much. I did not find the farms quite as well improved as in Ne-
maha County, but the county is now becoming thickly settled by actual
settlers, who are devoting themselves to the improvement of their farms
and the raising of large crops.
It is not an uncommon thing for a farmer to have growing 40 or 50
acres of corn and about the same number of acres of wheat and oats,
and not unfrequently as high as 100 or 200 of each.
There is a ready market for all kinds of produce at the highest price.
Although nearly all the settlers came into the country poor—many with-
out any money at all—nearly all are becoming moderately rich, and
every man with industry and prudence may become independent in a
few years. This country may certainly be called the poor man’s para-
dise. There is scarcely a foot of land in the whole county that is not
susceptible of cultivation. I have never known a region where there is
so little waste land. The underlying rocks of the whole county belong
to the age of the Upper Coal-Measures, and are composed of alternate
beds of limestones, sandstones, and clays of almost all color, textures,
and compositions. There are several localities along the Missouri River
and the larger streams where there are good natural exposures of the ©
rocks, but, as a rule, the beds are concealed by the superficial covering
of yellow marl or Loess, which gives the beautiful undulating outline to
the surface, gentle slopes, with only now and then an exposure of the
basis rocks. ‘This aids in rendering the investigation of the geological
structure of the county more complicated and difficult.
The river counties present better exposures of the rocks than any
other counties in the State, and it is partly on this account that I have
given them my first attention. Even these exposures are by no means
good. . :
In my last communication I spoke of the coal-seam at Aspinwall, Ne-
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 17
maha County ; en about 16 feet above the water-level of the Missouri
a bed of coal 22 24 inches in thickness was observed cropping out
from the bluff, ind a few feet above this, in the same range of hills, was
a second seam six inches in thickness. These beds do not appear again
for considerable distance down the river, until we come to Ralo, except
at one or two localities near Saint Stephen’s, At Arago I saw no out-
croppings of coal at all, and could not hear that any had been observed,
butthere are some eood quarries of limestone, bedsof ‘clay, sands, &e. The
“next marked exhibition of coal is at Rulo and its neighborhood, about
two miles above Rulo, on land belonging to Mr. 8. ne N uckolls, ‘of N e-
braska City. At this locality Mr. N. has drifted into the bank 100 feet
or more and taken thence over 200 bushels of coal, which has been used
by blacksmiths with success. The outcrop was about 5 inches in thick-
ness, but increased as the drift was extended in the bank to 11 inches,
and again suddenly diminished to 1 inch of good coal, the remainder
being “composed of impurities or ‘muddy coal,” as the miner called it.
The coal which has been thus far taken from this mine sells readily for
30 to 40 cents per bushel. The abrupt termination of the coal-seam, or
“fault,” is undoubtedly due to the sliding down toward the river of the
superincumbent beds, a phenomenon which is very common everywhere
along the Missouri. Still the irregularity of the thickness of this coal-
seam is everywhere apparent, vibrating between 4 and 20 inches, thus
alternating, exalting, and depressing the hopes and prospects of the
miner. On the farm belonging to Mr. St. Louis, about 14 miles below
Rulo, the same bed of coal has been worked with some success by drift-
ing, and a considerable quantity of coal taken out. Mr. St. Louis un-
wisely sunk a shaft at a higher point on the hill, thinking to cut the
coal-seam at a more favorable point, the expense attending it exhaust-
ing his means at 40 feet. He sunk a drill, however, into the bed of coal
and found if 12 teet below the position at the outcrop, showing an ex-
tensive inclination of the beds from the river, or toward the west.
This dip may be readily accounted for by the extensive erosion of the
rock prior to the deposition of the yellow marl and drift deposits, which
erosion has given rise to many perplexing local inclinations of strata.
These local dips will not interfere with the miner so much further in the
interior of the county. The thickness of the coal-bed at this locality is
10 to 12 inches, increasing in one instance to 17 inches. On the Lowa
. reserve, along the Great Nemaha River, the same bed again crops out
in the ravines or banks of little streams, and has been wrought with
some success, several hundred bushels of the coal having been taken out
from time to time for several years past. The country along the Nemaha
is quite rugged, or ‘‘ rough,” as it is termed by the settlers, owing to the
several beds of sandstone, and the overlying or cap-rock of the coal-bed,
which prevents the water from forming gentle siopes, as in the case of
_ the more yielding clays or marl-beds. This bed of coal is probably the
equivalent of the 2-foot bed seen at Aspinwall, while the upper 6-inch
bed is not exposed at all. The rocks in contact with the coal are as
follows:
1st. Underlying the coal a bed of light-gray fire-clay, full of fragments
of plants, as fern-leaves, stems of rushes, calamites, &c., the same as
occur in the underlying clays in Ohio and Illinois coal. fields. Above
the coal there is about 4 feet of very hard laminated or shaly clay, vary-
ing from black to dark ash color, all of which must be removed with
great labor before the bed of limestone, or cap-rock, as it is called, can
afford suitable protection to the miner as he drifts into the bank. Thus
the small amount of coal is obtained with great labor, and it is only the
2H
18 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
great scarcity of fuel that will warrant any labor being expended upon
it at all.
We passed over the almost treeless prairie from Rulo to Falls City,
the county-seat, about nine miles distant. Some beds of limestone crop
out from the hills occasionally, but usually all the basis rocks are con-
cealed from view, and the surface is gently and beautifully undulating.
The fertility of the soil is everywhere shown by the luxuriance of the
crops. Falls City is located upon high ground overlooking the valley
of the Nemaha. There isnota native shrub or tree of any size growing
within a mile of the town. Although the same coal-bearing beds form
the underlying basis rocks about Falls City, yet not an outcropping of coal
could be found in the vicinity. Some good quarries, however, were ex-
amined. Having heard that a boring had been made at Hiawatha, the
county-seat of Brown County, Kansas, ten miles south of Falls City, I
visited that place to ascertain the result. I was informed that a com-
pany had bored near that place 240 feet without success, and that the
project had been abandoned; and as the strata in all this region are
very nearly horizontal, the same result would follow any attempt at
boring at Falls City, to that depth at least. About nine miles south-
east of Hiawatha, a bed of coal is worked with considerable success, and
many hundred bushels of coal are taken out of the mines and sold annu-
ally. Mr. Laycock, a lawyer at Hiawatha, informed me that during the
past winter he used about one hundred and thirty bushels of coal, for
which he paid 50 cents per bushel; and he found it cheaper than wood,
even at that price. He spoke highly of its qualities as fuel. Iam disposed
to believe that it is the same bed seen along the Missouri, in Nemaha
and Richardson Counties, although I did not examine it in person.
Continuing.our course westward to Salem, we observed no marked change
in the country; indeed, there is a remarkable uniformity in the charac-
ter of the country over a large area. The changes that take place are
usually the result of some change in the underlying geological forma-
tions, and are, therefore, quite gradual. No outcroppings of coal could
be found at Salem or vicinity, and it is quite possible that none will be
found exposed to the surface in that portion of the county, except
along the Missouri River. I am convinced, however, that boring at a
moderate depth, at almost any point, would penetrate the thin bed seen
at Rulo. The quarries of limestone, for building purposes, &e., are
much finer at Salem than at any other point observed in the county. .
The town is located upon an elevation on the point of the wedge of land
between the two forks of the Nemaha. Forming a part of the town-site
is a high hill with two beds of limestone, both of which form large quar-
ries, which yield an abundance of stone for all economical purposes. All
along the Nemaha and its numerous branches are quite well-wooded
tracts of land, which are held at a high price, though no portion of the
county would be called well timbered in any of the States east of the
Mississippi. | ;
BLUFF FORMATION.
IT have not unfrequently alluded to a superficial deposit of yellow
siliceous marl, occupying much of the country, and concealing the under-
lying basis rocks, thus rendering the study of the details of the geology
somewhat difficult. The geologist is dependent upon natural exposures
of the basis rocks by streams, or by uplifts of the beds by internal vol-
cani¢ action, or by artificial excavations. Now, in a new country there
are very few artificial works, and all over the State of Nebraska the beds
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 1S,
of rock are horizontal or nearly so. Indeed, it is very seldom that the
beds incline to such an extent asto be perceptible to the eye. That
there is a general inclination of the beds to the west or northwest is
evident, but it is very gradual. This yellow-marl deposit, or bluff forma-
tion, as it was called in the geological report of the State of Missouri, is
found largely developed in the valley of the Missouri, and extends from
its mouth to the foot of the great bend above the mouth of White River.
This deposit was first noticed by Sir Charles Lyell in his visit to this
country in descending the Mississippi many years ago, and he regarded
it as the equivalent of the Loess of the Rhine. It is called the “ bluff
formation,”. because it forms the picturesque hills or bluffs which are
seen along the Missouri River, especially on the Iowa side, between
. Council Bluffs and Sioux City. This deposit was accumulated just prior
to the present period, after the surface had received its present outline
by erosion, and after the great valley of the Missouri had been carved
out. It would appear that one of the comparatively recent geological
events was the settling back of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico by a
depression of all this western country in such a way that there was.a
vast fresh-water lake, extending up the valleys of the larger streams for
a considerable distance into the interior of the country, generally not
more than from 50 to 130 miles. Its greatest thickness is along the
Missouri River, where it is sometimes seen in vertical exposures from 50
to 150 feet in thickness. Sometimes the stratification is quite distinct ;
but, as a rule, no lines of deposition are visible, showing that the mate-
rials were brought down into the lake by the myriad little streams, and
mingling with the waters of the lake settled to the bottom quietly like
gently-falling snow. In the drift or gravel deposit underneath are abun-
dant exhibitions of turbulent waters, but never in the yellow-marl beds.
All of this marl is full of nutritious matter for vegetation, and it is proba-
ble that it is to this deposit that the inexhaustible fertility of all the
river counties of Nebraska may be attributed.
Upon this marl rests the soil, which is usually darker colored, and is
composed largely of humus arising from the annual decay of a luxuriant
growth of vegetation. The soil on the upland is usually from tweive to
eighteen inches thick, and along the bottoms of streams is sometimes
ten to twenty feet in thickness. In the yellow-marl formation are found
numerous shells, all identical with recent species, and most of them liv-
ing in the vicinity. This shows the modern character of the deposit.
There are also some bones of extinct animals, as the mastodon, elephant,
a species of beaver of huge dimensions, and other animals, mingled with
bones of species now living. Along the Missouri the bluffs formed by
this deposit are very steep, and I have seen vegetation growing upon
them when the sides had an inclination of fifty degrees. These hills,
although furnishing good grass, cannot be devoted to the raising of the ce-
reals; but, as the soilis chemically about the same as that of the Loess
of the Rhine, which makes that valley one of the finest vine-growing
countries of Europe, the same may be inferred of this region, and it is
my belief that at some future period these marl-hills will produce some
of the finest vineyards in America.
Erratic blocks or bowlders are most abundant along the river, yet a
few are found from time to time half buried beneath the surface. They
reveal the fact at once to one acquainted with the rocks of Nebraska
that they are foreigners and were transported from Dakota, Minnesota,
or the country bordering upon the Rocky Mountains. Many of them
are red quartzite, comparatively little worn, but now and then are seen
masses of the different varieties of granite, gneiss, hornblende, &c., which
20 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. :
remind one of the rocks in the mountains. The red quartzite is the under-
lying rock all over the north, and is the formation in which the red pipe-
stone layer of the Indiansis located. Itis supposed by Professor James
Hall to belong to the period of the Huronian system, so largely developed
about Lake Superior and Canada.
Fences are made mostly of wood and in the rude way, which indicates
either great carelessness or want of timber, Wire fences seem to be the
cheapest and best, and are now coming into general use. Alongside of
them may be planted the Osage-orange hedge, and by the time the wire
fence begins to yield to decay, a good hedge, which will turn any stock,
supplies its place and adds greatly to the beauty of the farm. Most of
the energetic farmers appreciate this, and are setting out hedges; but
improvements of all kinds must be gradual, from the fact that nearly
all the settlers come into the State poor. I believe that in ten years
from this time there will be some of the most beautiful farms in Nebraska
to be found in the United States. I have urged the farmers to make use
of the honey-locust, (Gleditschia tricanthus,) three-thorned locust, a native
tree which grows finely, and may be so trained as to make an impene-
trable hedge. When cultivated as a forest-tree it makes very handsome
and durable timber for fence-posts, railroad-ties, &c.
Tree-planting has received comparatively little attention in Richard-
son County, on account of the greater amount of native timber. Along
the Missouri and most of the larger streams the wooded portions are
extending themselves, so that the area is nearly doubled since the coun-
try was first settled. Many groves of fine, healthy young trees, of oak,
hickory, elm, cotton-wood, black-walnut, honey-locust, &e., are seen. Some
persons are so sanguine as to believe that if the fires are kept out of the
prairie the whole country will become covered with forest-trees in a few
years; but that is certainly an impossibility, and the old Tertiary forests
can be restored only by the hand of man.
‘It is my belief that the subject of peat will soon attract the attention
of the people of this State. But few persons seem to know what it is,
or where it may be found. Their ideas of it are founded upon what they
have read of the peat-bogs of Ireland, where it is composed mostly of a
kind of moss, or “sphagnum.” Peat is really an accumulation of half-
decomposed vegetable matter, formed in wet or swampy places, and may —
therefor be composed of any plants that are fond of growing in wet
places. Underneath the water the vegetable matter, which is composed
of the roots and stems of the weeds, grass, and rushes growing most
abundantly in low places all over the West, undergoes a slow decompo-
sition, or combustion, as it were, so that a sort of imperfect coal is formed,
not subject to that pressure by which true coal is formed. In the State
of lowa, opposite Nebraska, I am informed that peat-beds are now worked
with success. It is estimated that in Massachusetts alone there are
120,000,000 cords of peat. and an organized company is now operating at
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, making 100 tons of crude peat per day, which,
when dry, makes 30 tons of fuel, ready for use. °
My attention has been directed to several valuable peat-beds in Otoe,
Nemaha, and Richardson Counties, and although the area covered by
these wet places is not great in the State, yet I regard it as the most
certain source of fuel to the people during the interval that must elapse
before the artificial forests will have reached a suitable size to supply
the country with timber. There is scarcely a township in the State that
will not have a small quantity of peat, which ranks next to coal as fuel.
At Falls City I observed some quite extensive beds; also at Salem.
There are several kinds of peat, as hearth-turf, grass-turf, leaf-turf, mud-
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. Pil
turf, pitch-turf, &c., and when the people of the State give this matter
their serious attention, I have no doubt that various kinds will be found
in a far more abundant supply than I have suspected from my observa-
tions. When the annual fires sweep over these prairies, in the autumn,
they not unfrequently burn down into the boggy places a foot or two.
I shall hereafter make careful observations on this subject, and pre-
serve specimens of the peat, from time to time, as opportunity presents.
Building stone is found in moderate quantities all over the county, but
it is by no means as well supplied as some of the more interior counties,
especially the second tier from the Missouri. Still there is sufficient
to supply the wants of the people, and suitable material for burning to
lime.
_At Hiawatha, Kansas, a number of buildings are built of yellow lime-
stone that is composed almostentirely of organicremains. Itis asoft but
very tenacious rock, and is easily wrought into good and durable building
material. This bed undoubtedly forms one of the underlying rocks of
this county, though I did not observe it in my examinations. At
Hiawatha an excellent cement is made from lime and sand, which, when
dry, is as hard as the rock it cements. The materials for brick-
making, &c., are everywhere without limit. There are a number of
good mill-sites along the Nemaha; probably all that are needed.
The crops throughout the county are looking very fine, indeed. The
grasshoppers have not disturbed the corn, and they have left a good
half-crop for the farmers. The grass crop is unusually fine; the upland
will cut 14 to 2 tons to the acre, and the bottom 1 to 3 tons. ;
I have but little time to elaborate these brief reports, merely seizing
a little time now and then to write them hurriedly, but they will afford
material which can be expanded into the final report. I hope they will
at least furnish suitable material to be incorporated into the appendix
of your annual report. I shall be glad to get any suggestions that may
present themselves to you from time to time.
PAWNEE COUNTY.
This county is equally fertile with Richardson, the latter possessing
only the geographical advantage of bordering on the great navigable
river Missouri. Its surface is more rolling or undulating, the slopes are
‘more gentle, and, tothe eye, it iseven more desirable for farming purposes.
Both counties are remarkably well watered and well drained by nature,
so that there is hardly a foot of land in either that is not susceptible of
cultivation. J cannot ascertain that one produces better crops than the
other. Richardson County may have more woodland than Pawnee,
but the numerous branches of the North and South Nemaha, circulat-
ing all over the county, render the land very attractive to the settler
and speculator, who have absorbed, already, every acre of land in it.
It is not irrelevant for me to state, in a report which is to convey in-
formation in regard to a district of country and promote immigration,
that the inhabitants of Pawnee County belong to a superior class, with
respect to their industry and morals, and that there is not a locality in
the county where ardent spirits are sold as a beverage. There was an
attempt on thé part of some person to establish a saloon at Pawnee
City. The proprietor was at once waited upon by the ladies of the
place and politely but firmly requested to leave the county within
twenty-four hours. Of course the prosperity of this beautiful region is
decided. Pawnee County lies directly west of Richardson, forming one
of the southern tier of counties. It is entirely underlaid by rocks of
22 _ GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES,
the Upper Coal-Measures, which give aremarkable uniformity of char-
acter to its surface. These rocks are composed of alternate beds of
clays, sandstones, and limestones, with some thin beds of coal. Al-
though no seams of coal were observed in Richardson County at any dis-
tance from the Missouri River, yet soon after reaching the limits of |
Pawnee County a bed of coal appears, which is creating some excite-
ment among the people. It has not yet been observed along the Ne-
maha River itself, but on its small branches; but I suppose the reason
of this is the great erosion of the underlying rocks in the river valley,
and the subsequent deposition of a vast thickness of alluvial material,
effectually concealing all the outcroppings. The first locality where the
coal appears is about fifteen miles west of Salem, on Turner’s Branch,
on school-section township 1, range 12, one and a half miles northeast
of Frieze’s miJl. The following section of the beds is given in descend-
ing order: :
4, Limestone, somewhat irregular in cleavage at top, but rather mas-
sive at base, four to eight feet thick.
3. Bluish-black indurated clay, some portion slaty, and filled with fos-
sils, three to four feet thick.
2. Rather pure coal, ten to sixteen inches thick.
1. Yellow plaster clay, passing up into a hard blue clay, upon which
the coal lies as if pressed down, twenty feet thick.
No rocks below bed 1 are seen in this immediate vicinity. The coal
seemed to be packed closely down on to the clay beneath, like masses of
flat rock, as if it had been originally deposited there like a layer of clay
or sand. The clay below is quite hard and filled with fragments of fern-
leaves, stems of the rush-like calamites, like the clay underneath the
coal-seams in Ohio or Pennsylvania. The under surface of the coal
seems to be composed of stems, like grasses, as if the vegetable débris —
began upon a densely grass-covered surface. The vegetable impressions
do not go down into the clay more than an inch or two, and above the
seam, where the coal ceases, all traces of vegetable matter disappear
and the clay is charged with a variety of molluscous remains. The clay
above the coalis very hard, and yields with difficulty to the pick, and the
coal is extracted with great labor. Several hundred bushels have been
- taken out and sold, and the bank of the creek reveals fifteen or twenty
openings like that shown by the illustration. This shows the coal-seam
at the base, the bed of indurated clay above, which is generally three
to four feet thick, all of which has to be removed, and the heavy-bedded
limestone forms an excellent cap-rock above. At Frieze’s mill, still
farther on, this same bed of coal is again wrought with some success.
On Mr. Boston’s farm, township 1, range 12, section 34, several open-
ings have been made; and here the coal-seam increases in thickness to
sixteen inches. Mr. B. has taken out nine hundred bushels of coal here.
He finds a ready market for it at the mine at thirty cents per bushel.
This coal-seam averages a bushel of coal to a square foot of surface. I
have collected abundant specimens of this coal at different localities,
and they will be properly investigated for the final report.
This seam is also worked on Lee’s Branch and on Miner’s Creek, so
that it is now wrought, more or less, over an area of ten miles square,
at least. The coal seems to have been worked with more system, in-
dustry, and success than in any other portion of the State.
Near Pawnee City there is another small seam of coal holding a higher
geological position, which has attracted some attention. I made a care-
ful examination of all the localities, and found it not more than four
inches in thickness generally. On Mr. Jordan’s farm, at the water-level
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. Ze
of Turkey Creek, a branch of South Nemaha, this seam increased to
eight inches, but So impure and full of sulphuret of iron as to be quite
unfit for use.
A company has been organized at Pawnee City, called the Pawnee
County Coal Company, with Governor Butler as president, with the
object of searching for coal in this district. They had intended to com-
mence boring last spring, but waited for my-coming to advise them of
the best locality to begin operations. I gave them the best information
in my power, but I could not risk my reputation upon any positive
statement in favor of the existence of coal at all in this region, or any
workable bed in the State.
There are some reasons in favor of the existence of a bed of coal in
Nebraska, at a moderate depth beneath the surface, and there are others
against it. Jam inclined to the belief that the Coal-Measures of Ne-
praska form a portion of the western rim of the great western coal-basin,
and that none but similar thin ‘seams to those now cropping out along
the Missouri River, and at other localities, will ever be found. But the
exact truth can never be determined except by boring. At Des Moines,
in Lowa, about one hundred and seventy-five miles east of Nebraska
City, a bed of coal six feet in thickness was penetrated at a depth of
two hundred feet.
Professor White, of the lowa geological survey, and Mr. Meek, paleon-
tologist of the Nebraska survey, traced the rock in which this bed of
coal is located from Des Moines, across the State of Iowa, to Nebraska
City. They made an estimate, by taking into account the general dip
of the rocks west or northwest, that this same bed would be reached at
from four hundred to six hundred feet beneath the surface at Nebraska
City.
According to a section given by Major Hawn of the Missouri coal-
fields, there should be a 6-foot bed at a depth of five hundred or six
hundred feet beneath the surface at Rulo, for the rocks rise from beneath
quite rapidly in descending the Missouri. The reasons that cause me to
hesitate to give positive encouragement are, the entire want of success
in the borings made at Omaha and Nebraska City; the failure, or only
partial success, at Saint Joseph, Missouri, at Leavenworth City, and all
over the northern part of Kansas, where the rocks hold a geological
position several hundred feet lower than at either of the points men-
tioned; the apparent thickening of the Coal-Measure rocks in their west-
ward extension from Des Moines; the fact, also, that Mr. Brodhead, a
geologist and civil engineer connected with the Missouri survey, has
published a detailed section of the rocks of Northern Missouri, opposite
Nebraska, and finds about two thousand feet of Upper Coal-Measure
beds, with only the thin seams of coal already mentioned; also, that in
these same Upper Coal-Measures, limestones are found thrown up by
the Black Hills, and exposed fully all along the eastern slope of the
Rocky Mountains, without the remotest indication, even by a slate-bed,
of coal having existed in them. You will, therefore, readily see why I
hesitate to oive a positive opinion, and why I am inclined still again to
express the opinion, given some years ago, that the State of Nebraska
borders on the great western coal-basin.
I have stated | to the members of the Pawnee County Coal Company
that a boring may be made eight hundred feet for about one thousand
six hundred “dollars, which will settle the question, for that depth, for
the whole county for all time to come. It would hardly be profitable to
go any deeper, and the question would arise whether it would not be
24 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
cheaper to hasten the building of railroads and the transportation of
fuel from Iowa or other neighboring States.
Building-stone, limestone, &c., are very abundant all over Pawnee
County. Thin beds, from six inches to two feet in thickness, crop out
from the sides of the hills in many places, and almost every farm has a
quarry.
The best quarry yet worked is located on a farm belonging to Gov--
ernor Butler, cropping out near the edge of the hill bordering a small
stream, about eight miles west of Pawnee City. It is a soft, cream-
colored limestone, full of small cavities caused by the decaying out of a
small shell, “‘ Fusulina cylindrica.” It is a true fusulina limestone, and
is a great favorite with masons for building purposes. It is easily
wrought in any desirable shape, is very tenacious in texture, and durable.
It seems to hold a position about one hundred feet above the water-level
of Turkey Creek, and belongs to the age of the ‘‘ Permo-Carboniferous,”
or intermediate between the Upper Coal-Measures and the Permian
series, the general inclination of the beds being toward the west and
northwest. New and more recent beds are continually making their
appearance as we proceed toward the west, and this choice bed of lime-
stone has made its appearance here for the first time. It will doubtless
be found to extend over considerable area in a southeasterly direction.
There is still another bed of bluish limestone cropping out of the hills,
which, though useful, is not regarded with the favor bestowed on that
just mentioned. It does not dress as nicely, is not as handsome for
caps or sills; it is equally durable with the other. There are several
beds in the county which are employed, to a greater or less extent, for
various economical purposes.
Potters’ clay, fire-clay, brick-materials, &c., are abundant all over the
county.
Peat-beds are found to some extent, sufficient, I think, to attract at-
tention in the future. Near Table Rock, about six miles northeast of
Pawnee City, on Hider Gidding’s farm, on fhe Nemaha bottom, there is
a low, flat marsh, covering about one hundred acres or more, whieh will
furnish a peat of good quality, two feet in thickness or more, on an
average, over the whole surface.
Near Pawnee City there is a small peat-bog on which one can stand
and jar the ground for a considerable distance. The surface of this bog
is about six hundred feet in length and three hundred in width, and the
peat is ten to twelve feet in thickness.
The best peat-beds are those which are formed of the decayed roots
and stems of the large rushes and the reed-grasses of the country.
These bogs are covered with water a large portion of the year, and are
the favorite abode of musk-rats, which pile up the reeds and rushes
for their houses like hay-cocks. Very few people seem to know what a
peat-bed is; but their attention once turned in that direction, they will
find them quite abundant in this county.
No iron-ore of any economical value has been discovered in Nebraska.
Even if there were rich beds of ore, the absence ef fuel would render
them almost valueless.
- There is a great amonnt of sulphuret of iron—“‘iron pyrites”—scat-
tered through the county, sometimes presenting some beautiful crystal-
line forms, attracting the curiosity, as well as hopes, of many of the
settlers, who have frequently mistaken it for gold.
Mill-sites are numerous along the Nemaba and its larger branches,
and some mills are now in process of erection.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 25
The crops are very promising; corn and potatoes are excellent, and
the grasshoppers have left a full half. crop of wheat.
The grass-land is about the same as in Richardson County, yielding
from two to three tons per acre. Tree-planting has received but little
attention as yet, but many of the settlers are fully alive to its impor-
tance. A few hedges have been planted, and fruit-trees are attracting
some attention. The best of success attends all efforts in that direction.
Mr. Hollingshead, of Pawnee City, will have this year one hundred and
fifty bushels of peaches.
Water is abundant all over the county, so that there is scarcely.a
section of land without a running stream or a flowing spring. |
Water is obtained by digging, at moderate depth. ~ Near the streams,
in almost all cases, water is reached near the water-level in the alluvial
formations, and when the basis rocks are penetrated on the higher
elevations, the clay-beds act as reservoirs for holding water, and yield
a most abundant supply when struck.
I have not seen or heard of a well or spring of poor water in the
county, and most wells have a continual supply of from six to ten
feet.
For the raising of fine, healthy stock, horses, cattle, sheep, &c., it
seems to me that this county is unsurpassed.
GAGE COUNTY.
Leaving Pawnee City we took a course nearly southwest across the
open, high prairie, crossing the divide between the valley of the Nema-
ha and that of the Big Blue. Very few exposures were to be seen for
ten miles or more.
The surface is rolling, covered with a heavy deposit of alluvium, so
that the underlying basis rocks are concealed from view, even along the
little streams.
The soil is very rich and deep, producing from one and a half to three
tons of hay to the acre. All the crops look remarkably well. In pass-
ing over this divide I saw the first long interval of waterless and tree-
less prairie, and one that reminded me of the dry plains farther west.
There was no living water and no houses to be seen for seven miles.
The timber is also. _very scarce, not enough even for the thin settle-
ments.
About seven miles before reaching the Otoe agency a bed of lime-
stone crops out of the hills, forming a sort of terrace about fifty feet
above the beds of the streams. This hard bed of rock gives to the
country a more abruptly rugged character; the little branches have
steeper banks, and there is a greater variety to the scenery. . There is
a belt of land, ten to twelve miles in width, between the Nemaha and
Big Blue, that j is doubtless underlaid by the more yielding clays and
sands of the Carboniferous period, and therefore the effect of erosion
seems to have been to produce gentle slopes or lawns, as it were, beau-
tiful but monotonous, effectually concealing, down to the water edge of
the streams, all the basis rocks.
At the Otoe agency the bed of limestone before alluded to is exposed.
It is a cherty limestone, breaking into small fragments. ‘There are one
or two layers, six to twelve inches in thickness, of good limestone for
buildings. At various localities within two miles of this place I ob-
tained a pretty fair section of the rocks:
7. Superficial deposits of soil and yellow mud.
26 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
6. Yellowish white limestone, rather soft, yielding readily to atmo-
spheric influences, 2 feet.
5. Slope, same as No. 3, 6 feet.
4. Yellow fine-grained arenaceous limestone, 18 inches.
3. Slope, supposed to be laminated clay, but covered with grass, 20
feet.
2. Yellow and gray limestone, portions of it filled with seams and-
nodules of chert or flint.
1. Bluish gray, laminated, calcareous clay, with numerous fragments
of fossils, as crinoids, corals; &c., 30 feet above water.
The outcroppings of the rocks form benches or terraces along the
- Streams, the hard layers yielding less readily to erosion. There is an
abundance of excellent limestone for all economical uses on the Otoe
HeEServie. 1:
The soil is very fertile all over the reserve, but there is the appear- -
ance of the far western prairies to some extent—few springs, and long
intervals without wood or water.
The cherty limestone bed extends beyond Blue Spring, and forms the
same bluff-like bench along all the streams; it then passes beneath the
water-level of the Blue. At this point it presents the appearance of
mason-work, the cherty material forming the cement between the blocks
of limestone.
At the Blue Spring there is a fine mill-site, the banks and bottom of
the stream being formed of rock. A fine saw and grist mill is in pro-
cess of erection at this place. There are building-materials of all kinds
in this region sufficient for the wants of the settlers.
A section of the rocks as exposed at Blue Spring may be of some in-
_terest, as they soon pass beneath the water-level of the Blue and are
seen no more in our examinations westward :
4. Two feet worn pebbles and sand, and the remainder yellow marl,
with about ten inches soil. The roots of trees pass all through this bed,
fastening into the bed below.
3. Layers of cherty nodule of variable thickness, with intercalations
of fine gray sand, Productus, Orthis, and other fossils, 2 to 24 feet.
2. Bluish ash-colored argillaceous limestone, easily decomposing on ~
exposure to the atmosphere; will not answer for building purposes ;
containing great numbers, of shells, especially a species of Productus of
large size; 6 to 8 feet.
1. Greenish, ash-colored clay, breaking into small, angular fragments,
and containing al irregular seam of argillaceous limestone, only about
twelve inches above water.
Along the Blue the second terrace is sometimes cut by the river, re-
vealing thirty to fifty feet of alluvium. There is about two to two and
a half feet of vegetable soil or humus, and the remainder is yellow sili-
ceous marl. If any portion of this bed, throughout its entire thickness,
is brought to the surface, it produces vegetation, showing that it con-
tains more or less nutriment for plants. The bottom- land of all these
streams may be said, therefore, to have a soil from five to fifty feet in
depth, possessing the highest fertility.
On our road to Beatrice were a number of exposures of limestone.
On Bear Creek, about four miles east of Beatrice, there is a ledge of ©
limestone fifteen to twenty feet thick, yellow magnesian, full of cavities
or geodes. This same bed is seen along the Blue to Beatrice; is cut
through by the little branches, so that it forms some of the most im-
portant quarries in this portion of Nebraska.
Fine large columnar masses are worked for buildings, a foot or more
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. ait
in thickness, and ten to twelve feet long, a beautiful cream color, soft
but tenacious in structure, and easily cut with a knife; can be made
very smooth for caps and sills with a jack-plane.
This rock is abundant here, and is in very high favor with masons
and builders, and would be superior to the Pawnee City limestone were
it not for some small geode cavities which mar its beauty.
The following is the general section of the rocks around Beatrice:
_ 6. Dark-brown ferruginous sandstones, of variable color and texture,
used for buildings; contains many leaves of plants; 50 to 60 feet.
5. Yellowish-gray sandstone, soft, easily crumbling and wearing
away, exposed on Blakely’s Run, two miles west of Beatrice ; 30 to 50
feet.
4, Slope in most places, but composed of variegated ‘clays of doubt-
ful age—potters’ clay ; 40 to 50 feet.
3. Loose layers of yellow limestone, fuli of geode cavities, porous,
spongy.
2. Yellow, rather compact limestone, good for building purposes; 2 -
to 24 feet.
1. Dark gray argillaceous limestone, becoming light gray on expos-
ure, filled with geodes, with cavities full of crystals of carbonate of
lime. This bed is at times massive, heavy-bedded limestone, of a bean-
tiful ear color; 10 feet.
Beds 1, 2, and 3 of the above section are undoubtedly of Permian or
Permo-Carboniferous age, though they contain fossils common to both
Permian and Carboniferous rocks.
Bed 4 is of doubtful age. Beds 5 and 6 are exceedingly interesting
in a geological point of view, from the fact that they represent a new
geological formation not before seen east of this point.
Bed 4 seems to form a sort of transition bed between the Permian
and Cretaceous formations. The Permian rocks pass beneath the water-
level at Beatrice westward, and over a belt ten to fifteen miles wide, in
a northeast and southwest direction ; the brown sandstones prevail to
the exclusion of all other rocks.
The village of Beatrice is pleasantly located on a second terrace in a
bend of the Big Blue, and is a prosperous place, surrounded with a
thickly-settled farming region, and bids fair to become an important in-
land town. It contains thirty or forty houses, several stores, a saw and
grist mill, &c.
The soil of Gage County does not equal thatof Pawnee County, or the
counties along the Missouri, as a whole. The bottom-lands are excel-
lent, but the upland soil is thin. The grass is less luxuriant and the
timber along the streams less abundant. For wheat, however, this soil,
composed as it is largely of the eroded materials of the Cretaceous sand-
stones, contains a large amount of silica and seems to be most favora-
- ble. A bushel weighs more than that of the river counties, but the
corn and other kinds of grain are not quite as good. Yet too much can-
not be said in favor of Gage County as an agricultural and grazing re-
‘gion. No coal will ever be found there, and the sooner the farmers
commence planting trees the more prosperous and happy they will be.
Comparatively little peat will be found in the county, so that the
question of fuel must be determined by the intelligence and industry of
the people. If they plant trees now they cannot suffer for fuel, for be-
fore that which they now have is gone the planted forests will be ready
for use.
In regard to fruits, garden-vegetables, &c., the same may be said of
28 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
Gage County as of the other counties before described. Success will at-
tend all well-directed efforts that way.
There are several fine springs of water in this county, but they are
not numerous. Good water is always obtained by digging wells, and
the depth beneath the surface generally depends on the elevation above
the principal water-courses. Wells vary from twenty to sixty feet in
depth. Near Blue Spring Mr. Tylor dug a well twenty-five feet deep
through the yellow mar! to a point on a level with the bed of the Big
Blue River, or perhaps a little below it, and obtained a copious supply
of water which never fails. At the village of Blue Spring a well was
dug on an elevated terrace fifty-five feet through clays and quicksands
‘without passing through a particle of rock—all alluvium or superficial
deposits. At the depth of fifty-four feet the bones of a mastodon were
found. At another locality a well was dug forty-four and a half feet
through alluvial marl and gravel to a bed of clay on a level with the
ved of the Big Blue, and the water flowed in, and now continues per-
manently eight feet in depth.
The excellence of the water in springs and wells in this county is a
‘most important feature in a sanitary point of view.
There are no minerals that can be worked to advantage in this portion
of the State. In the Cretaceous sandstones there are large masses of
limonite, (hydrated sesquioxide of iron,) but they are so full of siliceous
matter that they can never be of much value. Even if there was an
abundance of iron in. this county there is no fuel to prepare it for use.
Every county bears testimony to the statement that Nebraska is wholly
an agricultural and grazing State. For building-stone, gravel, lime,
different kinds of clay, materials for making brick, &c., this county com-
pares favorably with any other in the State.
Most of the settlers came into the county poor, and have not yet com-
meneed planting fruit and forest trees to any extent.
Very little attention has been paid to hedges, but all the cereals are
most excellent, and the grasshoppers passed by without doing much
damage, and the harvests of this autumn will be the best known since
the State was settled.
There are many fine horses and cattle in the county; very few sheep
as yet.
JEFFERSON COUNTY:
The Nebraska legislature of 186667 united the two counties of Jones
and Nuckols under the name of Jefferson. Leaving Beatrice we took a
southwest course across the divide between the waters of the Big Blue
and those of the Little Blue. The first branch we came to and the first
living water that we saw was at Rock Creek, a branch of the Little Blue,
- twenty miles distant. We traveled at least eighteen miles over the
almost waterless and treeless prairie—about fifteen miles of our journey
without any water at all.
There were no exposures of rock, but a broad level prairie much of the
way, too flat to possess a suitable drainage. I knew, however, that the
underlying basis rocks were Cretaceous, probably the loosely aggregated
sandstone seen on Blakely’s Run, near Beatrice. The configuration of
the surface everywhere would indicate that the rocks beneath were of a
texture to yield readily to atmospheric influences, and the little ravines
and valleys were grassed down to the edge of the water.
All the land that we passed over was clothed with a thick covering of
grass, the soil appeared to be fertile, and the great proportion of silica
?
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 29
in the soil, derived from the erosion of the Cretaceous sandstones, would
render these broad level prairies admirable for wheat. Aithough the
grass is so abundant and nutritious, I fear the lack of living water will
prevent certain portions of this region from being useful for stock-rais-
ing. It seems to me too flat and wet at certain seasons for sheep to
prosper well. There is an interval of about eighteen miles between Big
and Little Blue Rivers along this road without a dwelling. On Rock
Creek the settiements begin to grow numerous again, and nearly all the
bottom-land of the Little Blue is taken up by the actual settlers. There
are some excellent farms here, and the crops the present season are
very bountiful.
On Rock Creek, a little branch six or seven miles long, we saw the
first exposure of rock—tle red sandstones of the Dakota group. Along
the Blue for eight or ten miles quite precipitous ravines are formed by
this rock, as shown by the illustration.
Fig. 1 shows a bluff or projecting ledge of sandstones along the Little
Blue, and Fig. 2 represents one of the many rugged ravines near the
mouth of Rock and Rose Creeks. The clays, sand, and sandstones of
the Dakota group extend down the Little Blue to a point about two
miles below the south line of Nebraska, and, of course, influence the
agricultural character of the entire region.
The soils of a district are generally composed, to a greater or less ex-
tent, of the eroded materials of the underlying basis rocks. The sand-
stones of this formation being largely composed of silica, the soils and
subsoils are largely formed of silica also; and the consequence is that
wheat and oats grow remarkably well, but corn-crops are not as good.
The wheat raised in the district underlaid by the sandstones of the
Dakota group is said to weigh more per measured bushel than that from
any other portion of the State.
These districts also produce most excellent nutritious grass, and the
hills, though covered with a thin soil, would be superior for sheep-graz-
ing. Indeed, as we go west of this latitude, the uplands are more suit-
able for stock-raising. The water, though somewhat scarce, is most ex-
cellent, and the climate healthy. A section of the rocks along the Lit-
tle Blue, below the Big Sandy, would be as follows, descending :
5. Yellow and dark-brown rust-colored sandstones of the Cretaceous
or Dakota group, so well known in many other portions of the West. A
few dicotyledonous leaves were found. This bed is of irregular thick-
ness, from 50 to 100 feet.
4, Moderately coarse, yellowish-white sand, with irregular laminz of
deposition—50 feet.
3. Dark-colored, arenaceous, laminated clays, with particles and seams
of carbonaceous matter. All through are beds of carbonaceous clay, 18
inches to 3 feet thick—much sulphuret of iron and silicified wood—30 to
50 feet.
2. Variegated arenaceous clays; the slopes exposed are so great that
I cannot give the exact thickness—probably 50 to 70 feet. Some seams
of excellent potters’ clay.
1. Dark-bluish shaly clay, upon which the foundation of Mr. Jen-
kins’s mill rests. . It is, undoubtedly, Permian or Permo-Carboniferous,
bat is not exposed to view by natural excavations until we reach a point
south of the Nebraska line near Marysville, Kansas.
The dark bed in division 3 of the above section has been regarded by
the settlers with a good deal of interest as indicating the proximity of
a workable bed of coal. I gave all the exposures a careful examination
and found them of no possible value.
30 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
Large masses of iron pyrites, some with brilliant crystalline forms,
were found; others mixed with bits of charcoal and large masses of
petrified wood, showing the vegetable structure with great distinctness.
Bones of some extinet saurian animal are frequently found in these
beds. In the sandstones of the upper bed many impressions of leaves
similar to those of our existing forest-trees are found. They comprise
the cinnamon, fig, laurel, sycamore, sassafras, magnolia, and many others
belonging to a genera common to both tropical and temperate climates,
but all belonging to extinct species.
Indeed, the Cretaceous period marks the dawn of the existence of
dicotyledonous trees, or those similar to the existing forest, fruit, or
ornamental trees on our planet, and consequently forms a new and most
important era in the progress of American geological history.
I shall have more to say in regard to them in my description of the
geology of other counties.
These sandstones continue up the Little Blue until we arrive within
four miles of the mouth of the Big Sandy, when masses of a whitish lime-
stone make their appearance on the summits of the hills, and eight or
ten miles west of the Big Sandy these rocks assume an important thick-
ness. .
They are composed of bivalve shells, (Inoceramus problematicus,)
which are as closely packed together in these rocks as if they had been
submitted to pressure, with enough carbonate of lime to cement the
shells together. The settlers find it useful for building-stones, but more
useful for converting into lime. It is a chalky shell-limestone and burns
into the best lime of any rock in the State. Whether it will be found
in great quantities either in the valley of the Little or Big Blue River
remains still to be determined.
On account of the hostility of the Indians in that region, I did not
think it safe or prudent to extend my examination more than about
eight miles above the mouth of the Big Sandy.
The same rock occurs on Swan Creek, Turkey Creek, and the Big Blue
above the mouth of Turkey Creek. This rock was first studied on the
Missouri River, and first appears capping the hills about 30 miles below
Sioux City, lowa, and extends to the foot of the Great Bend, near
Yankton, the capital of Dakota Territory. It occupies the whole country
to the exclusion of all other rocks, and a portion of it assumes the ap-
pearance of chalk. It has been hitherto supposed that the chalk of
commerce is not found in any portion of America, and although this
rock has the appearance and nearly the chemical composition of impure
chalk, the formation itself has not yet been clearly shown to be the
geological equivalent of the true chalk-beds of Europe.
On the Missouri River this formation covers an area about 200 miles
wide and 400 long. The Cretaceous rocks in the valley of the Missouri
were, Several years ago, separated into five divisions by Mr. Meek and
the writer, and were for a long time designated by numbers, as 1, 2, 3,
4, and 5. :
In a paper published in the proceedings of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia, December, 1860, we published a general sec-
tion of the Cretaceous rocks of the Northwest.
The sandstones which we have referred to in this report we designated
the Dakota group, or Formation No. 1. because these rocks were then
supposed to reach their largest development along the Missouri River
near Dakota Territory.
Formation No. 2 was called the Fort Benton group, having its
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. ol
greatest thickness adjacent to Fort Benton, near the source of the
Missouri River.
Formation No. 3 was named the Niobrara division, from the fact that
it is most conspicuous near the mouth of the Niobrara River. These
three divisions constitute the lower series of Cretaceous rocks in the
West, and are supposed to be the equivalent of the Lower or Gray
Chalk and Upper Greensand of British geologists.
Formation No. 4 we call the Fort Pierre group, because it reaches its
greatest thickness near this post along the Missouri River.
Formation No. 5 was called the Fox Hills beds, from the fact that
they form a conspicuous range of hills between the Big Cheyenne and
Moreau Rivers.
These two groups of rocks constitute the Upper Cretaceous series of
the West, and are regarded as the equivalent of the Upper or White
Chalk and the Maestricht beds of Europe.
This brief description of the nomenclature of the Cretaceous rocks of
the West is considered necessary in this place, from the fact that I shall
be compelled to refer constantly to the various subdivisions in all my
future reports.
The limestone rocks referred to as exposed on the high hills near the
Big Sandy, and upon the upper portions of the Big Blue and its tributa-
ries, belong to Cretaceous Formation No. 3, or the Niobrara division.
Formation No. 2, or the Kort Pierre group, I did not see exposed to view
in this region with certainty.
The foundation of a saw-mill on the Little Blue, about four miles above
the junction of the Big Sandy, rests upon a dark pudding-stone, which
I suspect belongs to this group, but it cannot be of very great thickness.
. About a mile above the mill, 50 or 60 feet of a dark gray calcareous
shale oceur, holding a position beneath the true limestone, which I
suppose belongs to the Niobrara division, but which may possibly be in-
cluded in the Fort Benton eyoun I would remark just here that pale-
ontologically Formations Nos. 2 and 3 are embraced in one division, and
Formations 4 and 5 also, the fossils of one group of rocks passing up
into the other.
As a general rule, all these formations are lithologically distinct.
The soil of the valleys of the streams in Jefferson County is excellent,
and produces abundant crops. Some of the most productive and highly
cultivated farms which | observed in the State were seen in the valleys
of the Little and Big Blue Rivers and their tributaries.
The belt of country underlaid by the sandstones of the Dakota group
runs northeast and southwest, extending through the States of Kansas
and Nebraska into lowa and Minnesota, and is about 40 to 50 miles
wide. In this group there are about 45 to 50 feet of yellowish-white fri-
able sandstone, the small particles of quartz scarcely adhering together,
which I am confident will yet be made of great ecouomic importance.
_ The sand, which is very abundant, could be used in plastering, in the
manufacture of bricks, and more especially in the construction of the
patent concrete which is so popular i in some portions of this country and
Kurope.
The soilis largely composed of silica from this rock, and thus it seems
to be well adapted to the production of valuable crops of wheat, the
berry being more plump than that raised on any other geological forma-
tion in the State.
On the more elevated prairie the soil is thinner, and we miss the
yellow-marl deposits which cover the first two tiers of counties along the
Missouri. Still the grass is short and nutritious, and the surface is dry
32 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
and covered with a great variety of small pebble-stones, rendering this
district a most excellent one for sheep-raising.
There are many fine springs of the purest water scattered through the
county, but there are extended intervals between them, and there are
many entire townships of land with no permanent living water in them:
Iron is found in considerable quantities in the sandstones, but there
is no fuel to render it useful. There is only a narrow fringe of trees
along the streams, and no workable bed of coal is even within the range
of probability.
There are a few good mill-sites, and several valuable saw and grist mills
are now in process of erection.
There is really no fine valuable building-rock in Jefferson County.
From Beatrice for 30 or 40 miles up the valley of the Big Blue, only the
rusty sandstones of the Daketa group are found, and these are exposed
only in a few localities.
The same sandstones prevail in the valley of the Little Blue from the
Nebraska line to the mouth of Big Sandy.
Even the whitish limestones of the Niobrara division, which are quite
abundant west of the limestone belt, although excellent for lime, are not
tough and hard enough for building-stone ; so that no portion of the
county can be regarded as well supplied with economical rocks.
Still, in the absence of the massive limestones of the Carboniferous
beds farther east, these Cretaceous sandstones and limestones will prove
of much service. The ease, however, with which these rocks yield to
atmospheric influence has given a most beautiful outline to the surface
of most of the county.
The wide bottoms and gently sloping hills along the Big Blue andits
tributaries can hardly be surpassed for their monotonous beauty. The
high prairies are gently rolling yet well drained.
I was not a little surprised at the advance of settlers so far westward.
The valleys of the two Blues are nearly all occupied by the actual set-
tlers. There are a large number of Germans who have taken farms in
this county. Six years ago they came into this region and took posses-
sion of these homesteads, many of them without any money at all; now
they have highly cultivated farms, with 20 to 40 acres of wheat that
will average 30 bushels to the acre; oats, 40 to 50 bushels; corn, 60 to
70 bushels; a large number of fat horses and cattle, with everything
comfortable around them.
By their industrious and frugal habits these Germans have made for
themselves an independence in the short space of six years.
Surely the great West, with its broad fertile acres, to be had almost
for the asking, through the generosity of our Government, is the poor
man’s paradise.
BRIEF NOTES ON THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE OTOE INDIANS.
In our wanderings over the State of Nebraska we came to the Otoe
reserve, and pitched camp near the hospitable mansion of the agent.
In the absence of Major Smith we were most pleasantly entertained
by Mr. Moore, the farmer of the Otoe Indians. It occurred to me that
I could, not occupy my time better, in the brief space allowed me to re-
main here, than in securing, as far as possible, such information as sug-
gested itself in regard to the present condition of this once powerful
tribe of Indians, now fast dwindling away.
The Otoe reserve is located on “the Big Blue River, mostly in the
southern portion of Gage County, but extending into J efferson County.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF, THE TERRITORIES. a
it oceupiesasurface 10 x 24— 240 square miles—153,600 acres of the finest
land in Southern Nebraska. The Big Blue, one of the most beautiful of
the inland streams, with several of its most important branches, passes
through it. Like all other portions of the State, there is, comparatively,
little ‘timber, yet as much as on other streams. Some of the branches
have the most desirable farms bordering on them. They occupy asmall
village bordering on the Blue, and are not distributed over the reserve.
The ‘land is not divided out to them, but they are all aggregated to-
gether in the village of mud huts. They seem to have no idea of indi-
vidual independence, but have all things in common, as it were.
They have now about 300 acres in corn in good condition, which will
prevent them from starving if judiciously cared for by the agent and
farmer. It seems hardly possible that a tribe with over 150,000 acres
of this tillable land should have no more than 300 or 400 acres in culti-
vation. These Indians have the same lazy, improvident habits of the
wild Indians farther west, and the result is that there is at least from
three to four months of the year that they are in a pitiable state of
starvation. Last spring they ate all the cats and dogs within their
reach ; horses, cows, or sheep that had been dead for ten or twelve days,
and were in a complete state of putrefaction, were eagerly devoured by
them. Anything, however filthy or decayed, that had ever been in the
form of food, was eagerly devoured ; and yet no lesson is taught them
by such severe experience, for nothing could be easier than to place
themselves beyond the possibility of want. . Even at this time they have
nothing to eat but corn, which they cook by boiling in the kernel. Most
of the tribe, both men and women, have gone on a hunt at this season
to the Republican, where buffalo are said:to be plenty. They usually
prepare about 500 robes annually, for which they get $5 to $7 apiece.
The meat they dry for winter use.
There are now about 430 persons in the tribe, men, women, and chik-
dren, a small remnant of a once-powerful tribe. They persist in living
in filthy, ill-ventilated mud huts, which at night they close upas tightly
as possible, so that they are swept otf annually by various diseases, and
those that remain are deficient in energy and strength.
Two or three of the families live in rude board houses, but they are
not pleased with them, preferring their rude huts.
There are three groups of huts occupying three different elevations on
the same ridge, representing three different bands, which are governed
by sub-chiefs. The head chief is quiteashrewd man. Some one asked
him, when the agent and farmer first came, how he thought he would
like them. He at once replied that he could tell that better when he
had seen their table. So they made the head chief and his principal
men (eight in number) a feast, and they prepared themselves to do
justice to the agent’s dinner by a three days’ fast previously—one hun-
dred pounds of mutton, bread and coffee in proportion—and they made
way with it all. Their powers of endurance are exhibited in as marked a
manner in devouring food as in abstaining from it. It is a rule with
them to eat all that is set before them, however much it may be.
The Indians have a saw-mill and grist-mill, all under one roof, and a
great amount of lumber is sawed and grain ground for the inhabit-
ants of the neighboring region, the avails of which are supposed to go
into the Indian fund.
The dirt huts have a diameter of about thirty feet. They are formed
by placing a circular row of upright posts in the ground and then fast-
ening to the tops of these horizontal poles, and to these horizontal
poles are fastened the poles that form the roof, all slanting toward the
3 H
Ore GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
top, at which point a round hole is left, two feet in diameter, for the
smoke to pass out, then this frame-work is covered over with sods.
and dirt. The fire is placed in the center in a circular depression of
about six inches deep and four feet in diameter. All around the inside
of ‘the hut are board buuks of the rudest kind, usually designed tor
two persons. Upon these are spread skins or blankets, which serve
them for beds. I have seen ten of these in a single hut. On the sides
and posts are suspended a great variety of articles—cooking-utensils,
. clothing, the hunting-apparatus, &c., which constitute the furniture of
' the dwelling. :
The entrance is about ten or twelve feet long, and is protected by a
thick sod covering. Sometimes twenty or thirty persons sleep at night
in these huts, every avenue for the admission of fresh air closed up, so
that it can hardly be expected that their children will grow up healthy.
Many of these Indians have been educated to some extent at the
mission-school, but all that has been taught them, and all that they
have seen of the superior comfort of the whites around them, has had
no influence in changing their mode of life. They seem to be destitute
of the desire for improvement and averse to change, preferring their
ancient habits and customs. If they can avoid it they will not travel
in the roads made by the whites, but follow their old trails.
A few of the half-breeds live in bark huts. In August, when the
heat is excessive, and when the fleas and other vermin become too
_ abundant, they go down by the river in the timber and erect temporary
bark huts, and live in them until cold weather commences.
Not far distant from the village are the graves of their dead. In this
matter, also, they adhere to‘their ancient customs. They dig a hole in
the ground just about large enough to receive the body, and then pile
a mound of earth on it from two to four feet high, and if the deceased
possessed a horse, it is killed at the grave, so that the spirit need not
be compelled to walk to the celestial hunting-grounds. When the flesh
of the horse decays, the skull is usually placed upon the grave.
There are, also, two oak-trees near the burial-ground in which were
a large number of bodies, some in small board cofiins, and others in the
original wrappings of skins:and blankets; these were piled one across
the other, as many as could rest in the tree.
The Indians have great veneration for their places of burial, and are
always loth to leave the graves of their ancestors. They have attempted
to protect them by means of permanent graves.
On @ high hill across Plum Creek may be seen the nicely fenced
graves of two native interpreters of this tribe, who were killed by them
some years ago. It is supposed that while on their annual hunt they
committed some depredation on white people which they wished to
have kept a secret. These interpreters were privy to it, and being on
most friendly terms with the white men, the Indians suspected they
intended to expose them. They were shot in a ravine in the night near
the same spot, and within two days of each other.
We-ha-ta, ‘ Wild-fire,” was the presiding genius of our camp. He
considered himself specially commissioned to look after our interests in
return for his board and that of his family. He wore a turban about
his head and a huge necklace of bears’ claws around his neck, and con-
ducted himself with all the dignity of a chief.
AS I have before mentioned, these Indians possess a reservation cover-
ing over 150,000 acres of land. They do not make use of 2,000 acres.
They are now surrounded with white settlers who are bitterly prejudiced
against them, and the Indians do very little to remove that prejudice.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 3D
On the contrary, depredations are committed not unfrequently which
are attributed to them, for which they must suffer, in the estimation of |
the white settlers, whether guilty or not.
Situated as they are at present, they are like a small tree under the
shadow of a large one; they will dwindle away slowly and soon become
extinct.
If the agents of the Government that are sent among them would
do their duty, and they (the Indians) would put forth a proper amount
of industry and energy, they might become very comfortable and pros-
perous, even rich; but they are constantly deteriorating, and they now
possess none of the warlike, manly qualities which are exhibited by
some of the wild tribes farther west. They are a filthy, begging, lying,
thieving race, lazy and improvident in the extreme, doing nothing that
can possibly gain the respect of any white man. It would be better
for both Indian and white man if all these wild tribes that are located
in Kansas and Nebraska could be removed far west, where they would
be prevented from contact with the whites.
The study of the language of the different Indian tribes of the West
is one of peculiar interest to the philologist. In my memoir on the
‘““Hthnography and Philology of the Indian Tribes of the Missouri Val-
ley,” in the possession of the Commissioner, I have attempted to give
some illustrations of the language of the tribes roaming about the
sources of the Missouri. I hope, at some future period, to prepare a
second part, containing examples of the languages of the different tribes
along the Lower Missouri. I have prepared these notes to aid me in
making out their history.
The language of the Otoes belongs to the Dakota group, which com-
prises a large number of tribes: Iowa, Otoe, Missouri, Winnebago,
Kansas, Osage, Quapaw, Omaha, and Ponka, of the Lower Missouri.
All the different bands of the Dakotas, Sioux, Crows, Minnetarees,
Mandans, and the Assiniboins of the Upper Missouri, belong to one
group, and the careful student will discover a relationship more or less
close in all their dialects; yet most of the tribes cannot understand each
other, and interpreters are required for each.
The Rev. William Hamilton, of Bellevue, Sarpy County, who lived
many years among the Iowa and Otoe Indians as a missionary, has
written a very good grammer of their language, a copy of which I was
able to procure.
NotsE.—I forgot to mention the Green-Corn Dance. This is going on
every evening at this season of the year, as the corn is becoming fit for
roasting. ‘They build a fire in the center of the lodge, and dance around,
keeping time with a rude thumping on a gong. Their women and
children all join in the dance.
I found two old village sites, one at Blue Spring, on the Big Blue;
the foundations of the huts can be distinctly seen by the greater growth
of weeds, and old pottery and arrow-heads have been found there. I
think it was once the village of the Pawnees. At another locality,
between Turkey Creek and Big Blue, at their junction, a most beautiful
locality, some specimens of pottery were dug up three feet under ground.
It is plain there wasa village here many years ago; how far back in the
past it is impossible to tell. Some information may be obtained from
the tribe, perhaps.
JOHNSON COUNTY.
The north branch of the Great Nemaha River runs nearly diagonally
through Johnson County, in a southeasterly direction. It is the only
36 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
important water-course in the county, and its value to the inhabitants
cannot be overestimated. The entire county is underlaid by rocks of
the age of the Upper Coal-Measures; hence the geology is comparatively
simple.
There are very few exposures along the Nemaha and its branches,
and the high divides on either side present only rolling prairies covered
with a luxuriant growth of grass, exhibiting every evidence of remark- |
able fertility, but having no-timber and comparatively little living
water.
From Beatrice our course was nearly northeast, passing over the divide
between the waters of the Big Blue and those of the Nemaha. This
divide, as usual, was treeless and nearly waterless for 18 miles; yet,
either to the right or to the left of our road, water and small trees
could have been found within five or six miles. The grass was excellent,
showing a fertile soil, and the surface was monotonously beautiful to
the eye, but not an exposure of the underlying rocks could be seen.
On Yankee Creek, a branch of the Nemaha, the first exhibition of the
rocks was observed. A few limestone quarries were opened for obtain-
ing building-materials. The beds are thin, not more than from six to
twelve inches in thickness, intercalated with beds of clay and sand.
The surface is rather rugged, some abrupt hills, but usually clothed
with grass down to the water’s edge.
At Tecumseh a thin seam of coal has been opened, and is now worked
with some success by Mr. Beatty. The drift is very similar to that
before described in my report of Pawnee County, and extends into the
bank about 100 yards. Mr. Beatty has taken out about 1,000 bushels
of coal, which he sells readily at the mine for twenty-five cents per
bushel. Itis undoubtedly the same bed that is opened on Turner’s
Branch and at Frieze’s mill, in Pawnee County, but it is not quite as
thick or as good; it contains large masses of the sulphuret of iron and
other impurities. The coal-seam here varies much in thickness, from
ten to fifteen inches. The cap-rock is a bed of limestone not more than
two or three feetin thickness. A well was sunk in the village of Tecum-
seh sixty feet; a drill was driven down through rock and hard clay a
few feet farther, and passed through what the workmen thought to be
three feet of good coal. This discovery created much excitement at the
time, and increased the demand for the public landsin Johnson County.
It afterward turned out to be the same seam of coal worked by Mr.
Beatty on the Nemaha, and was only eleven inches in thickness. .The
prospects, therefore, for workable beds of coal in Johnson County are
no better than in the neighboring counties already examined. The
evidence against any important bed of coal bein g found within the limits
ot Nebraska diminishes in force continually. I have already presented
a portion of the evidence in former reports. The fact that all efforts in
. Searching for coal in neighboring districts have resulted in failures,
renders the prospect very doubtful. All the rocks at Saint Joseph,
Missouri, Leavenworth, and Atchison, Kansas, hold a lower position
geologically ; yet borings have been made about 500 feet at Atchison
and Saint Joseph, and a shaft has been sunk about the same depth at
Leavenworth, resulting in the discovery of a bed of very impure coal
three feet thick, quite unfit for use. The evidence is quite strong that, |
as I have before suggested, Nebraska is unfortunately located on the
western rim of the western coal-basin, and that no workable bed will
ever be found in the State at a reasonable depth.
Tecumseh is the county-seat of Johnson County, a small town located
on the elevated prairie near Nemaha River. The following sketch will
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. on
give some idea of its size, as well as the surface of the surrounding
country:
From Tecumseh to the source of the Nemaha, about forty-five miles,
I did not discover a single exposure of rock, and I could not ascertain
that any had ever been observed by the settlers. We must conclude,
therefore, that building-materials in the shape of rock are not well dis-
tributed over the county; indeed, I do not know of any one in which I
_ observed less.
The soil is very fertile, however, and in that respect will compare
favorably with any in the State. In what are called the alluvial clays,
near Tecumseh, were discovered some interesting remains of extinct
animals, which appear to have been abundant all over the West at that
period. Just over the cap-rock of the coal-seam, in stripping away the
alluvial clay, Mr. Beatty discovered two molar teeth of a mastodon,
. in a fine state of preservation, one of which I was fortunate enough to
secure.
About six miles west of Tecumseh, Mr. Caldwell, in digging a cellar,
unearthed a fine molar tooth of an elephant, which probably belongs to
the well-known species Hlephas americanus. This huge animal seemed
to have ranged all over America, east of the Mississippi, and of late
years its remains have been found in California and Colorado. This is
. the first specimen ever found in the Missouri Valley, to my knowledge.
In 1858 I was fortunate enough to discover the remains of a number
of species of extinct animals, in some Pliocene Tertiary deposits on the
Niobrara River, and among them was a species of mastodon which Dr.
Leidy, of Philadelphia, described as M. mirificus, and an elephant a third
larger than any ever before known, extinct or recent, Hlephas inperator.
These two species have never been found at any other localities, and
were geologically much older than those first mentioned.
There are many fine farms in this county, and some of them are under
a good state of cultivation. The best one I saw is improved by Mr.
Luke Corson, about one and a half miles from the village of Tecumseh.
He has planted with success almost all the common varieties of forest-
trees of this latitude, and his experiments in all kinds of hardy fruits have
been eminently successful. Apples, pears, peaches, cherries, apricots,
plums, blackberries, strawberries, gooseberries, and currants, have been
raised in great perfection.
He has surrounded his farm with the willow hedge, which in his case
has been remarkably successful. The willow makes a most beautiful
hedgetotheeye. Five years ago he put the cuttings, three or four inches
long, in the ground, and now these willow-trees are fifteen feet high,
and often four to six inches in diameter at the base, and in most cases
as a fence it is capable of turning cattle. Although fully as handsome
in its appearance to the eye, it does not equal the Osage-orange hedge
aS a fence. The attention of farmers in this county has been directed
to the importance of planting hedge-fences as soon as possible. One
gentleman put out fourteen miles of Osage-orange hedge this season ;
another two and a half miles, and there is. probably from one hundred
to one hundred and fifty miles of young fence in Johnson County at this
time.
Building-materials, as clays, sands, &c., with the exception of lime-
stone, are abundant. The water is excellent all over the county, and
on the Nemaha there are some good mill-sites. Peat is found in limited
quantities. Fuel is scarce, and must be supplied by the planting of
forrest-trees.
In conclusion, I would say that there is no county in the State with
38 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
better farming land, or land more suitable for the cultivation of trees
and fruits, and its position will depend entirely upon the industry and
skill with which these, its only resources, are developed.
ADDITIONAL NOTES ON LANCASTER AND CASS COUNTIES.
From the sources of the Nehama River we simply pass over a some-
what elevated prairie, which forms the divide between that stream and
- the head-branches of Salt Creek.
Like the Nemaha, in Johnson County, Salt Creek passes diagonally
through Lancaster County, in a northeasterly direction. It empties into
the Platte River about thirty-five miles above its mouth. This creek,
with its branches, forms the entire drainage of the county.
The southeastern portion of Lancaster County is underlaid by rocks
of the Permian or Permo-Carboniterous age. ‘The basis rocks of three-
fourths of the county are the rusty sandstone of the Cretaceous formation,
No. 1, or Dakota group. After passing the divide, from the sources of
the Nemaha to those of Salt Creek, we find no exposure of the under-
lying rocks. At Mr. Mills’s farm, about twelve miles down the valley, are
some exposures of the Permo-Carboniferous rocks, occupying an area of
about five miles square. The entire thickness of the rocky strata here
is ten to fifteen feet, arranged in layers six inches to two feet in thick-
ness.
In abstracting the rocks from the quarry the fracture is so regular,
breaking into massive square or oblong blocks, and the texture so fine,
compact, and of light cream color, that they are highly esteemed by
builders, and make beautiful as well as durable houses. There are
quite a number of large dwelling-bouses (made of this stone) in the
vicinity. It is works quite easily. The finest springs of water in this
‘county issue from this rock.
There are five or six of these quarries opened at this time, but the
principal one occurs on the farm of Mr. S. B. Mills.
These fine quarries must become of great value to this county, for
they yield the only good building material for thirty to fifty miles north,
south, and west, and from ten to twenty miles east, of the place.
The rusty, rather soft, friable sandstones of the Dakota group are
used, to some extent, for dwelling-bouses. It presents an exceedingly
somber and unpleasant appearance to the eye, and possesses no elements
of durability. It can be relied on only in the absence of other building-
material. About twelve miles below these quarries, near the salt-basins,
Lincoln, the capital of the State, is located. Pretty good water is ob-
tained here by digging, but there is a liability even then to strike brack-
ish water, on account of the proximity to the salt-lands.
From a point five miles above Lincoln to a point five miles above the
mouth of Salt Creek, there is a scant supply of building-material, of
timber, and of fresh water, so that it can: be seen at a glance that this
valley is not as desirable as many other portions of the State.
Near Miss Warner’s, about ten miles above Lincoln, a well was dug on
the high hills, bordering g the valley, to the depth of sixty feet, without
striking rock. At Yankee Hill, two miles above Lincoln, a well was dug
sixty-six feet, without reaching the basis rocks.
These facts show the great thickness of the superficial alluvial depos-
its of this region, and also the skeleton form of the surface prior to the
disposition of these deposits. I shall treat more fully on this subject at
a future time.
The sandstones of the Dakota group are quite largely developed in
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 39
this region, and exhibit their usual variability of texture and color.
The prevailing color is a deep drab rusty-brown, sometimes yellow or
nearly white. Some !ayers contain many impressions of dicotyledonous
leaves. I was unable to find as large and perfect impressions as I have
collected at many other localities.
So far as the surface of the country is concerned, in Lancaster County
it may be regarded as remarkable for its beauty.
It is always gently rolling, well drained, and from elevations the views
are very fine, forming most excellent building-sites.
When the soil is not influenced by salt-springs, it is equal to any in
the State, but, in an agricultural point of view, there is no doubt that
Salt Creek, with the numerous salt-springs that) issue forth near it, is a
disadvantage to the valley.
That portion about two miles above Lancaster does not seem affected
by the salt. The farm of Mr. 8S. B. Mills, of over one thousand acres,
about ten miles above the county-seat, is one of the most fertile and
valuable in the State. Although the salt-springs in this county may
eventually be of some value to the State in the production of salt, yet
I am convinced that if there was not a salt-spring of any kind in the
county, the difference in the value of the lands for agricultural and
grazing purposes would much more than balance all income that will
ever arise from the salt-springs.
In that case Salt Creek, instead of being almost useless, or rather an
impediment, would be a fine fresh. water stream, making it one of the
finest stock counties in the State.
The surface of the uplands lies very beautifully, is very attractive to
the eye, but there is scarcely any timber in the county.
The soil is excellent, and forest-trees may be planted with success
whenever settlers choose to do so, though very little has been done as
yet.
Cass County is the best settled county in the State. It is covered
with fine farms, and many of them begin to show their capacity not only
in the production of the grains, as wheat, oats, and corn, but also of
fruits, forest-trees, hedges, &c. Along the Platte Valley, as well as the
Missouri, the surface is rough, the hills being sometimes very steep, and
the ravines deep and numerous; but the soil is of inexhaustible fertility,
and well watered with streams and multitudes of springs of the purest
water.
In all that pertains to successful agriculture, and the raising of all
kinds of stock, I could not conceive of a more desirable district. ;
There are rock-quarries enough in Cass County to supply all that por-
tion of the State south of the Platte, if it could be equally distributed.
On the Platte, near the northwest corner of the county, a yellow mag-
nesian limestone is obtained, which is regarded with great favor as a
building-stone. It is very durable, with a tenacious texture, but so soft
that it can be cut with a knife or plane, thus rendering it easily worked
for caps or sills, &e.
I have not observed this bed of rock in any other portion of the State.
The geological formations in this county are the Upper Carboniferous
beds, capped along the west and southwest portions with the sandstones
of the Dakota group. The Coal-Measure rocks appear near the edge of
the water, at the mouth of Salt Creek, near Ashland, the county-seat of
Saunders County. Last of this point, for twenty to twenty-five miles,
the red sandstones occupy the hills along the Platte, but the limestone
continues to rise higher and higher and assume more importance.
40 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
The sandstones disappear entirely about ten to fifteen miles west of
Plattsmouth.
In both the sandstones and limestones extensive quarries have been
opened; the sandstone is used for all ordinary purposes, while the lime-
stones are made into the walls of buildings and for ornamental purposes.
Some fine dwelling-houses have been made of these limestones.
The quarries of sandstones have been wrought to considerable extent,
and the stone is used for cellar-walls, wells, and some other purposes
where nice work is not required.
The Cretaceous rocks of Cass County are composed of the same beds
of clays, sands, and sandstones before observed in formations of the
same age in the valley of the Little Blue River.
About twenty-five miles west of Plattsmouth a bed of fine argillaceous
grit is exposed, which was regarded by the settlers‘as gypsum. It may
become of some economical value at-some future time as fine clay for
mingling with other earths in the manufacture of bricks. On the
Weeping Water, an important stream near the central portion of Cass
County, are some very heavy beds of limestones, which are of great
economical value for building purposes.
The limestone is readily burned into lime, and numerous dwelling-
houses, mills, &c., are constructed of this rock.
These alternate beds of limestones, sands, and clays give to the sur-
face of the country bordering on the Weeping Water an unusually
rugged character. The bottoms of the little streams are narrow, the
soil is good, water excellent, and the valley is well settled and prosperous.
Near the mouth of Stone Creek, section 12, range 10, township 10, in-
dications of coal were observed, and Mr. EH. L. Reed, residing at Weep-
ing Water, sunk a shaft through the following beds:
. Sandstones, which form the bed of the creek, 10 feet.
. Slate and clay, 3 feet.
Coal, 9 inches.
. Whitish fine clay, 3 feet.
Crystalline quartz, 3 inches.
. Bluish clay, 4 feet.
. Whitish fine clay, 6 feet.
Red clay, 3 feet.
. Soft, white limestone, (?).
The coal above, although so thin a seam as to render it unprofitable
for working, is of good quality, and is useful to the blacksmiths in the
vicinity.
We must, therefore, conclude that neither in Lancaster nor Cass
Counties will there ever be found any thick beds of coal, but in the
valleys of all the streams, and in numerous other localities, there are
low, boggy places which seem to promise peat, especially on the broad,
low bottoms of the Platte.
J am continually more and more impressed with the importance of this
material as an article of fuel for the people of Nebraska, and I am con-
fident that before many years it will become an object of earnest pur-
suit and of great profit.
The red sandstone of the Dakota group contains a considerable quan-
tity of iron ore, but the absence of fuel renders it unavailable, so that,
exclusive of the common building-materials, these counties may be said
to have no mineral resources. ‘Their wealth lies in their inexhaustible
soil, which is this year producing most luxuriant crops.
Wheat yields 30 to 35 bushels per acre; oats 40 to 50, and corn 60 to
75 bushels per acre; and in this respect it iS EES to predict for Nebraska
a remarkable destiny in the future.
bt bo bo HE OL IG
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 4t
ADDITIONAL NOTES ON SARPY AND DOUGLAS COUNTIES.
Sarpy County borders on the Platte River and the Missouri, and thus
has a large share of bottom-land, as well as the rather rugged or hilly
portions along those streams. It has superior advantages over the more
northern counties in its numerous quarries of limestone, which are des-
tined to prove of great value.
Already do the quarries along the Platte and the Papillion furnish
the greater portion of the lime and building stone used at Omaha, and
most of the rock needed for the contemplated railroad-bridge across the
Missouri must of necessity be obtained there.
The basis rock which underlies the surface of the greater portion of
Sarpy and Douglas Counties is Carboniferous limestone. These lime-
stones are evidently of the age of the Upper Coal-Measures, as their fossil
remains indicate.
The western portions of the counties are occupied by the rusty varie-
gated sandstones of the Dakota group. The soil is of great fertility,
seeming to be composed of a mingling of the eroded materials of the
sandstones and limestones with the yellow marl of the Loess deposit,
which covers the surface of the country here to a greater or less depth.
The result is a surface-soil eminently adapted for the growth of all
the cereals, as wheat, oats, and corn. The scenery is beautiful indeed;
the rolling or undulating character of the country, while it relieves the
monotony, does not obstruct the vision, so that objects may be seen with
distinctness ten to twenty miles on every side.
The river-bottoms, especially through Missouri and the Platte, are of
inexhaustible fertility. . With a soil not unfrequently ten to thirty feet
in depth, they sustain a most luxuriant vegetation, while during the
greater portion of the year the broad upland prairies are clothed with
grass and flowers of great variety and beauty.
The yellow siliceous marl covers the greater part of Douglas County,
so that the limestones are exposed only in a few localities.
Near Omaha City a few beds are revealed at the water’s edge, perhaps
ten to fifteen feet, and over these layers is a deposit of gravel and marl
one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in thickness.
At Florence, about five miles above Omaha, these limestones are again
seen at very low water in the bottom of the Missouri, but as a rule the
rocks of the country are concealed from view by this great deposit of
marl. In consequence of this fact, the limestone quarries along the
Platte assume a far greater importance and value.
There is a quarry of limestone at Bellevue Landing, near Sarpy’s old
trading-post, which has been wrought for many years; but the most
valuable layers of the rock are not visible in time of high water. Wat-
son’s quarry, on the Papillion, three miles west of Bellevue, has been
worked for many years, and contains several layers of valuable rock for
building purposes. This quarry is a source of considerable revenue to
the owners, and the materials are taken to Bellevue and Omaha in great
quantities.
The following is a section of the beds, in descending order:
6. Vegetable soil, two to four feet thick, with a few stray water-worn
rocks.
5. A bed like No. 3, with fragments of fossils capped with loose layers
of limestone, eighteen inches to two feet thick.
4. Three inches of light-yellow clay—a hard layer.
3. Yellow, indurated, caleareous clay, full of shells; ten inches.
42 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
2. Several layers of hard limestone, very compact with Crinoids,
Corals, Chonetes mucronata, Athyris subtilita, Productus, &c.; six feet.
1. Greenish-yellow clay, underneath the most valuable and massive
bed of limestone, as shown in the illustration; twenty inches thick.
Below this there is a layer of yellow limestone eighteen inches thick.
Bed 2 in the section is the one that produces the valuable rock for
building purposes. The organic remains determine at once the geolog-
ical position of the rocks.
About six miles above the mouth of the Platte I observed a large
number of bowlders or erratic rocks scattered over the hills, composed
of granite and red quartzite. These were undoubtedly transported
hither by glacial action; and the rocks themselves come from the north
and northwest—from Dakota, Minnesota, and perhaps from the region
of Lake Superior, where the rocks abound. Near this point, also, a ledge
of rusty sandstone of Cretaceous age was seen capping the hills. Its
character has been described before, as a dark, ferruginous, coarse-
grained micaceous sandstone, but sometimes becoming a tough, close-
grained, compact, siliceous rock, or quartzite. 1t is very difficult to find
rocks of this group resting directly upon the beds below, from the fact
that in almost all cases a grassy slope intervenes, and it became a matter
of much importance to find the junction of the two great formations, or
ascertain what beds come between.
In 1857, while making an exploration of this region, I was so fortu-
nate as to discover this apposition of the two formations, and the results
were published in a memoir in the Transactions of the American Philo-
sophical Society in 1862. The section taken at that time was observed
near the old Otoe Village, about eight miles above the mouth of the
Platte River.
The Cretaceous rock set directly upon the limestone, although we know
what a vast thickness of beds of various ages are absent. This illus-
trates what Professor Rogers has denominated, in his Geology of the
State of Pennsylvania, an unconformable sequence of beds; that is, the
eye will observe no apparent want of conformity, the lowest bed of one
tormation reposing upon the highest of the other, as if no interval had
occurred during the deposition. The section, in descending order, is as
follows:
1. Gray, compact, siliceous rock, passing down into a coarse conglom-
erate, an aggregation of water-worn pebbles, cemented with angular
grains of quartz; then a coarse-grained micaceous sandstone—twenty-
five feet.
2. Yellow and light-gray limestone of the Coal-Measures, containing
numerous fossils—Spirifer cameratus, Athyris subtilita, Fusulina cylind-
rica, with abundant fragments of coral and crinoid remains—twenty to
fifty teet. A, quartz rock; B, conglomerate; ©, coarse micaceous sand-
stone; D, carboniferous limestone.
This conjunction of the two great formations at this point is quite in-
structive. We see the tremendous effects of erosion prior to the deposi-
tion of the sandstones, in the fact that hundreds of feet of limestones
must have been swept away.
In Kansas, near Fort Riley, there are several hundred feet of Permian
and Permo-Carboniterous rocks, not a trace of which can be seen in this
valley. Even in the Salt Creek Valley, above Lancaster, there is one
hundred feet or more of rocks that do not appear here; and yet I can
see no good reason for not supposing that all these rocks were deposited
here in the great oceans of the Coal period, but have been worn away
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. = 43
and ground up into materials for rocks of more recent date by the waters
of subsequent oceans.
Then, again, between the Coal-Measures and the Cretaceous rocks, as
shown in the illustrative section, the two great ages, Triassic and Juras-
sic, are not represented at all.
We have reason to believe that rocks belonging to these eras were
even deposited here, and yet every trace of them has been washed
away.
_ In Kansas, on the Smoky Hill Fork, there are a series of variegated
beds of clays and sands interposed between the Permian and Cretaceous, —
which we believe belong to the Triassic or Jurassic period, or both.
Along the eastern slope of the Laramie, Big Horn, Wind River Mount-
ains, and the Black Hills of Dakota, the red beds of the Triassic and
the marls and marly limestone of the Jurassic eras are developed to a
thickness of several hundred feet, while on the Platte not a trace of
them is to be seen.
The evidence seems to me to be clear that beds of greater or less
thickness, belonging to all these periods, once existed in this region,
and that they have been swept away by the erosive action of water.
This subject, which is one of the most interesting as well as important
in the geology of the West, will be discussed more fully in the final
report.
Like all other portions of the State, the interest in the discovery of
workable beds of coal in this region is very great. Along the Platte a
seam of Carboniferous shale crops out, occasionally twelve to eighteen
inches in thickness, and wherever it occurs it is regarded by the settlers
as a sure indication of coal. I have examined all the indications with
care, and I see no evidence of any coal at a reasonable depth. I hold
the same opinion now that I expressed in a scientific paper in 1858, that
I was “inclined to the belief that it was a geological impossibility for
a workable bed of coal to be found within the limits of the Territory of
Nebraska.
re
oO
~
p=
E
000 | 1,000 feet or more. | 300 to-400 feet. | Thickness.
Light-gray and ash-colored sandstones,
with more or less argillaceous layers; fos-
sils: fragments of Trionyx, Testudo, with
large Helix, Vivipara, petrified wood, &c.
No marine of brackish water types.
Wind River Valley; also west of
Wind River Mountains.
Wind River
deposits.
feet.
1,500 to2
Beds of clay and sand, with round ferru- : Oceupies the whole country around
ginous concretions, and numerous beds, Fort Union, extending north intothe
seams, and local deposits of lignite ; great British possessions to unknown dis-
numbers of dicotyledonous leaves, stems, tances; also southward to Fort
&c., of the genera Platanus, Acer, Ulmus, | Clark; seen under the White River
Populus, &c., with very large leaves of true group, on the North Platte River,
fan-palms; also Helix, Melania, Vivipara, above Fort Laramie; also on west
Corbicula, Unio, Ostrea, Potamomya, and side of Wind River Mountains.
scales Lepidotus, with bones of Trionyx,
Emys, Compsemys, Crocodylus, &c.
lignite deposits.
Eocene?
2,000 feet or more
| Fort Union or great
The details of all these formations will be discussed more-fully in the
final report.
Commencing with the oldest of these Tertiary basins, we have—
ist. Judith River basin, which is located near the entrance of the
Judith into the Missouri, and is separated by the latter river into two
nearly equal portions. It covers an area of about fifteen to twenty miles
east and west,.and forty miles from north to south.
This basin is one of much interest, as it marks the dawn of the Ter-
tiary period in the West, by means of the transition from brackish to
strictly fresh water types. It is also remarkable for containing the
remains of some curious reptiles and animals, reminding the paleon-
tologist of those of the Wealden of England.
2d. The great lignite basin which occupies all the country from Heart
River to the Muscle-Shell—most of the Valley of the Yellowstone—
extends for an unknown distance northward into the British possessions
and southward at least to the North Platte,where the beds of the fourth
basin overlap, coming to the surface again at Pike’s Peak, and extend-
ing to Raton Pass, in New Mexico.
The limits of this great basin have not yet been determined. Although
not known to occur within the present defined limits of the State of |
Nebraska, it will undoubtedly have an influence on the prosperity of
the State, on account of the extensive lignite beds which occur in it.
Along the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers are forty or fifty beds of
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 57
lignite, varying from one to seven feet in thickness, of various degrees
of purity.
In the vicinity of Denver, Colorado Territory, according to Mr. E. L.
Berthoud, civil engineer, there are several beds of lienite twelve to
eighteen feet in thickness, which must furnish an immense mass of fuel,
which will soon become accessible to the people of Nebraska through
the Union Pacific Railroad.
‘‘Our coal-seams extend, to my knowledge, sixty mile due east from
Pike’s Peak, in one direction, south to Raton Mountains and the Raton
Pass, and northward to near Denver, on Cherry Creek, and on the west
side of the South Platte as far north as the Caché la Poudre, and to the
foot of the main mountain-range.
“¢ Here, in Golden City, we have a large outcrop of coal, which has
been opened successfully, and which inclines toward the town. In one
of the newly-opened mines on the same outcrop of the Golden City vein,
which lies north on Coal Creek, about nine miles from Golden City, I
saw, in 1861, the trunk of a tree taken out of the 11-foot vein then
opened and mined, which trunk, though turned into coal of a good
quality, exhibited carbonized bark, knots, and woody fiber, with con-
centric rings of growth, such as our dicotyledonous trees plainly show ;
indeed, one of the miners remarked that, from the bark, and the grain
and fiber of the coal, it was very much like bitter cotton-wood , (Populus
angulata,) examples of which grow close to the mine.
~ “Tn 1862, while on a scout east of Pike’s Peak sixty-five miles, I found
a bed of coal almost identical with the Golden City bed, nine feet thick,
lying almost horizontal, with bluffs one and a half mile north contain- *
ing fine specimens of belemnites.
“Again, in November, 1866, | went northeast of Golden City to see
the coal-beds on Rock Creek, sixteen to nineteen miles distant. I found
beds of coal fourteen to eighteen feet in thickness, almost horizontal, or
dipping eastwardly at a small angle; above them, ferruginous sand-
stone, and vast beds of bog-iron ore and clay iron-stone, in nodules, with
numberless fragments of bones. In the sandstone I have obtained fos-
sils like hippurites, but in none of the beds so far have I found a single
marine or fresh-water shell, with the exception I have before mentioned.
“ Hverything that I have so far seen points out that the coal is either
Cretaceous or Tertiary, but I believe it to be Tertiary, or of the same age
as the coal near Cologne, on the Rhine; but I am perplexed at the
inversion of the dip of the coal, sandstone, and the iron ore, which here
incline toward the mountains instead of away from them, and nothing
else that I have observed can compare with these tilted-up beds.
‘“‘T have not time now to follow up this subject, nor to give you all
the data that I have gathered so far; I shall report to you in full in
regard to the points you mention, but will give you, as soon as time
permits, a full report, with elevations, profiles, &c.; also some speci-
mens to prove the relative age of the strata shown in my sketch.”
In the newspapers may be seen advertisements of coal for sale, so
much per ton delivered, and so much at the mine.
This coal, as well as that at Raton Pass district, is of Tertiary age,
and it is questionable whether the true Coal-Measures furnish any coal
in any portion of the Rocky Mountain region.
3d. The Wind River deposits, which occupy an area about one hun-
‘dred miles in length and forty to fifty in breadth.
These deposits. are located between the Wind River and Big Horn
Mountains, and are of no economical importance.
4th. The basin of the Mauvaises Terres, or Bad Lands of White River,
58 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
covers a large region, at least 100,000 square miles, and from isolated -
patches on both sides of the Missouri River, I would infer that this
great fresh-water lake must have spread over 150, 000 square wiles. It
is this latter formation which covers the oreater portion of Western
Nebraska. The colors on the geological map will show the area. The
Cretaceous beds occur along the Niobrara for eighty to one hundred
miles above its mouth; then the loose sandy and marl beds of the Ter- _
tiary basin overlap them. Irom thence to the source of the Niobrara,
about three hundred miles, the river runs through the Tertiary deposits
only.
This stream forms the northern boundary of the State. All of Ne-
braska west of longitude 101° is occupied by the sands and clays of the
fourth basin.
The ‘‘ Bad Lands of White River” are so called because, being com-
posed of indurated sands, clays, and marl, they have been so cut up
into ravines and cafions by streams, rains, and other atmospheric agen-
cies, as to leave cones, peaks, isolated columns, and towers, presenting
the appearance in the distance of a gigantic city in ruins.
It is so exceedingly rugged and difficult of access that itis only within
a few years that any route but the Laramie road, which runs through
the middle of them, was considered passable. Of late years it has been
shown by various expeditions, both public and private, that any portion
of the great West can be traversed with teams, if necessary.
The Cretaceous beds of the Fort Pierre group extend along White
River from its entrance into the Missouri, except about fifty miles near
the forks, where the White River Tertiary overlaps them.
Even now some isolated patches of Tertiary are seen, as Medicine and
Bijoux Hills.
From the forks or the junction of Little White River with the larger
streams the Tertiary beds occupy the whole country to its source. All
the intervening country between White and Niobrara Rivers is covered
with the sands, clays, and marl of the White River deposits, but along
portions of the Niobrara and south of that river the lower sands of the
Loup River deposits make their appearance. Here we find a singular
region of country called the “‘Sand Hills,” which occupy an area of
about twenty thousand square miles. These hills he mostly between
the Niobrara and the Platte, though a portion of them extend north-
ward of that river.
On the south side of the Niobrara the Sand Hills commence at Rapid
River and extend westward about 100 miles. Along Loup Fork they
commence near the forks or the junction of Calamus branch with Loup
Fork.
The whole surface is dotted over with conical hills of moving sand.
These bills often look like craters or small basins, the wind whirling
and, as it were, scooping out the sand, leaving innumerable depressions
with a well-defined circular rim. There is a great deal of vegetation
scattered through this portion, grass and plants peculiar to sandy dis-
tricts.
Many of the hills are so covered with a species of yucca that their
sides are well protected from the winds by their roots. It is the favorite
range for buffalo and antelope, and these animals become very fat,
and from this fact we may inter that this district may be adapted for
grazing purposes. It can never be used for purely agricultural pur-
poses.
Traveling is also very difficult among these hills; the wheels sink
deep into the loose sand, rendering it impossible to transport loaded
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE, TERRITORIES. 59
teams through them. The water, though not abundant, is usually quite
good, mostly in small lakes.
There are also many alkaline lakes, which may be readily distin-
guished from the fresh-water by the absence or presence of vegetation
around their borders. We may therefore conclude that an area of
20,000 square miles forming the northwestern portion of the State is
totally unfit for cultivation, and is even doubttully suitable for grazing.
There is scarcely any timber on the whole area. Along the Platte and
south of that river the surface is less sandy and the soil more fixed, so
that there is at least a moderate degree of fertility, but the absence of
timber and timely rains will render the whole quite undesirable for the
farmer.
As I have before remarked, the cultivation of crops and the planting
of forest-trees by the settlers farther to the eastward may so modify
the climate as to produce a more equable distribution of moisture
throughout the year. But at present I do not see how it can be settled
except by a pastoral people.
Aithough these Tertiary deposits cover so extensive an area and con-
tain no minerals of any economical value, and are of greatly diminished
value for agricultural purposes, yet for the geologist they offer the most
tempting treasures in the abundance of curious organic remains.
Two most remarkable extinct faune are found here, namely, the faune
of White River and that of the Niobrara, including the Loup Fork. The
first is found in what is called the ‘“‘ Bad Lands” proper, along White
River and its tributaries.
The first animal remains noticed from this deposit were described by
Dr. Leidy in the Geological Report of the Northwest by Dr. D. D. Owen.
The lowest bed of this portion of the Tertiary basin is composed mostly
of clay and is ealled the Yitanotherium bed, from the circumstance
that it contains the bones and teeth of this gigantic pachyderm. There
was also a Hyopotamus and the Lophiodon. It would seem as if the
earlier condition of this lake was that of a great marsh in which these
animals of the hippopotamus tribe could wallow at pleasure.
The next stratum above is called the Oreodon bed, from the remains
of vast numbers of this genus that occur there.
There were three species, Oreodon major, O. minor, and O. culbertsoni.
The latter was the most abundant, and seems to have existed in flocks like
the antelope of the prairies. Dr. Leidy has already examined portions
of more than 700 individuals of this species. It was a ruminant hog,
chewing its cud, and at the same time possessed of canine teeth for tear-
ing flesh.
There were also three species of the hyena family, a saber-toothed
tiger, and a gigantic weasel. The saber-toothed tiger would have tre-
mendous conflicts with the hyenas, and the wounds still can be seen in
the skulls.
In one of the skulls of a hyena, completely changed to stone, can be
seen two wounds on each side of the nose, which had partially healed
before the death of the animal, and the apertures just fitted the canines
of a skull of a hyena that was found in the same locality.
There were also two species of rhinoceros, which must have been
somewhat similar in their habits to those of the present day, but were
supposed to have been hornless; one of them was about as large as the
Asiatic species and the other about two-thirds as large. This White
River fauna composed about thirty-five species, all of them extinct
forms, and all restricted to this locality.
The fauna of the Niobrara is all extinct, and more recent in age, be-
60 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
longing to the Pliocene period, which in other countries contains mote
or less § species identical with living ones.
But this fauna comprises more than thirty species, all of them new
to science, and not one of them identical with any living species. Over
thirty species have been found along the Niobrara and. Loup Fork, and
others may be looked for on more careful examination.
Among the carnivora were four species of wolves, one about the size
of the large wolf of the plains, the others of smaller size; two cats, one
intermediate in size between the panther and lynx, and the other nearly
as large as the panther.
Among the rodentia was a porcupine about the size of the crested por-
cupine of Europe, and a small beaver about half the size of the living
one. Of the ruminants there were some remarkable species—two species
of deer, about the size of the common red deer of this country, and four
species of camel, one about the size of the common Bactrian camel, a
second species tivo: thirds as large, and the third about the size of the
Nama of South America. The fourth species was closely allied to the
living camel, but was of smaller size. Another species was more nearly
allied to the mountain-sheep, another was ruminant—hogs like the
Oreodon of White River. The solipedia were remarkably well rep-
resented, there being remains of not less than a dozen species of horses.
There ‘were two species of the genus Hquus; one of them (L. ewcelsus)
was about the size of the largest varieties of the living species; the
other was smaller. The remainder were of various sizes and forms; one
of them was not larger than a Newfoundland dog.
It is the law in animal development that groups reach their culmi-
nating period and decline. It would seem that during the latter Ter-
tiary period the horse tribe reached its highest point of development,
and that now it is on the decline. Among the pachyderms was a species
of rhinoceros about the same size and apparently closely related to the
living Indian rhinoceros, &. Indicus ; a species of Mastodon much smaller
than the one whose remains are so common in all parts of North Amer-
ica in the recent quaternary deposits.
The remains of the elephant occur in the Niobrara, which is remark-
able for being a third larger than any other ever known, extinct or re-
eent. In view of this fact, Dr. Leidy named it Hlephas imperator—the
emperor of all the elephants.
There was also one species of turtle in this more recent deposit, and
a species in the White River beds. The latter was exceedingly numer-
ous in this great. fresh-water lake, for the specimens are scattered all
over the country, many of them preserved with great perfection. We
know that this was purely a fresh-water lake from the fact that numer-
ous species of fresh-water and land shells of the genera Helix, Planorbis,
Physa, Linnea, &c., are found in fine state of preservation. There are
also some indistinct remains of fishes. From these two faunas, as well
as the fauna and flora of other formations of this valley, there are some
instructive lessons to be learned.
The fauna of White River, although entirely extinct as to species,
contained representations of some livi ing genera. The greater part
of the fauna of the Niobrara and Loup Fork belonged to living genera,
although every species was extinct, but the latter fauna is more closely
allied to the living fauna of Asia than to any of our own continent.
Indeed, it seems to have a true oriental character, and it is shown
clearly that, geologically speaking, our continent should be called the
Old World instead of the eastern continent. There are several other
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TIE TERRITORIES. 61
instances derived from the study of the flora and fauna of the Missouri
Valley which go to show this fact.
In the great lignite basin the molluscous remains, although extinct,
have their living representatives in China and Siam.
The comparison of the flora of the Dakota group, Cretaceous, shows the
samerelationship of age, and has been alluded tobefore. Again, these fos-
sil remains show that a tropical or subtropical climate prevailed through-
out this western country up to a very late period, at least to the close
of the Pliocene.
The prolific flora of the great lignite basin, which is supposed to be
of Miocene age, is at least subtropical, or similar to that of our Gulf
States. There is amingling of true tropical and temperate forms. One
species of palm was found fossil on the Yellowstone, the leaf of which
must have had a spread of twelve feet. At the present time the true
palms are found only within the tropics. The faunas of all these depos-
its at the different geological periods were tropical in their character,
and from these we infer that a tropical climate prevailed over this
country during their existence.
The fertility of the soil of the extended area described in this report
is beyond a question. It is for the most part covered with a great
thickness of the yellow marl, varying from a few feet to one hundred or
more. From Omaha City to the mouth of Niobrara the country bor-
dering on the Missouri is quite rugged, or one continued irregular series
of rounded hills, as is shown in the accompanying sketch.
These superficial deposits yield readily to atmospheric agencies, and
these hills are formed by the myriads of temporary streams produced
by rains. As we go farther into the interior the surface is more undu-
lating, yet the drainage is always excellent.
The superficial marl very readily absorbs the rain, so that even the
most level prairie is always sufficiently drained for all the purposes
of agriculture. The counties of Washington, Dakota, Blackbird, Cum-
ming, Dodge, Saunders, and portions of Sarpy, Douglas, Platte, Stanton,
and Dixon, are underlaid by the sandstones of the Dakota group, and,
in consequence, a large quantity of silica enters into the composition of
the soil, and hence their great reputation in the production of wheat.
The average quantity of wheat raised on an acre in the counties above
mentioned is from twenty-five to thirty bushels; forty to fifty bushels
not an uncommon yield.
On one farm in Sarpy County, in 1866, three thousand two hundred
bushels of wheat were raised, and the whole average was over thirty
bushels peracre. In Burt County, on Omaha Creek, Mr. George Smith’s
crop averaged forty-three and a half bushels per acre; Mr. Dugan har-
vested twenty-four acres, averaging forty-four bushels. In this region
the uplands seem to produce the best grain. Colonel Baird raised ‘this
year six acresof wheat that averaged thirty-three and one-third bushels;
Mr. Cornelia has taken from an eleven- acre lot, this year, the ninth suc-
cessive crop, and it averaged thirty-five bushels ; Mr. Neil had twenty-
two acres of wheat, averaging forty-three bushels. A gentleman near
Tekama, Burt County, hoed in three acres of wheat in 1866, and
harvested fifty-one and two-third bushels per acre.
J have accumulated a mass of statistics in regard to the growth of
wheat in this region, and I am convinced that twenty-five bushels per
acre is a small yield, while forty to fifty bushels is not unusual. Itisa
curious fact that wheat raised in this district brings in the market at
Saint Louis eight to ten cents more per bushel than wheat exposed for
sale from any other State.
62 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
The great severity of the climate in winter, and the absence of the
thick covering of snow, renders it impossible to cultivate winter wheat,
so that spring-wheat is the only kind raised. Dixon, Cedar, and L’Kau
Qui Court Counties are beginning to be settled, and good crops are
produced; but the land is not as desirable, generally, as that farther
south.
The soil is thinner and drier; water is far less abundant as we pro-
ceed northward. The basis formation of these counties is the chalky
limestone of the Niobrara group, and the rocks furnish moderately good
building-stone, and it is converted into excellent lime. The eroded
materials, also, are freely mingled with the soils of the river-bottoms,
adding much to their fertility.
Among the most fertile portions of the State are the bottom-lands
of the Missouri, as the Tekama and Dakota bottoms. These bottoms
cover so large an area that they deserve especial mention here.
The Tekama bottom is about forty miles long, and will average five
miles in width, and the luxuriance of the vegetation upon it attests most
emphatically the richness of the soil. Good grass grows on it, which
will yield two to four tons to the acre. Wheat and oats grow most
abundantly, with comparatively little cultivation. Wheat has been
raised here at the rate of fifty-two bushels by weight per acre. But
the bottom is low for the most part, and must be somewhat unhealthy ;
for such an abundant vegetation—almost tropical in its luxuriance—can-
not decay without sending forth into the atmosphere more or less
malaria.
The water is not good in many places, though it is obtained by dig-
ging within a few feet of the surface. The soil, to a great depth, has
been formed by the repeated overflow of the Missouri River, the water
of which held in suspension the clays and marls of the Cretaceous and
Tertiary formations farther up the river, which are always impregnated
with alkaline matters, and these have given something of their nature
to these bottom-soils, and these alkaline earths necessarily affect the
water.
Above Decatur there is a second boitom, about two miles wide and
eight or ten in length, which is owned by the Omaha Indians. This is
a low bottom also, which is easily overflowed in high water, but possesses
the same fertility with the Tekama bottom.
The next great bottom is the Dakota, upon which Dakota City is lo-
eated. This is the most important, not only on account of size and fer-
tility, but because it is several feet higher than the others, and is more
healthy and seldom overflowed. The Missouri River at times makes its
ravages upon it, removing many acres in a single season. The village
of Omadi, which was formerly quite a flourishing town, located some
distance from the channel and supposed to be safe, has been swept
away.
All these bottoms, as well as the immense bottom of the Platte, con-
tain some alkaline spots which are not usually productive. I am informed
by an old farmer on the Platte bottom that the second crop is success-
ful, and also that a coating of manure neutralizes the alkaline influence.
This alkaline matter increases in quantity as we proceed westward, and
beyond Fort Kearney all the soil of the bottom is more or less impreg-
nated with it.
When the water has stood for a time and dried away, a whitish
efflorescence is left on the surface.
The valley of the Elkhorn and the valleys of its branches, Logan,
Pebble, and Maple Creeks, are among the most fertile and beautifui in
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 63
the State, underlain as they are for the most part by the soft, yielding
sandstones of the Dakota group. The surface is gently rolling and un-
dulating, giving to the landscape a somewhat monotonous but exceed-
ingly beautiful appearance.
There is scarcely a foot of land in this great valley, covering an area of
over one hundred miles in length and fifty te sixty in breadth, that is
not susceptible of cultivation. But the great deficiency is a suitable
supply of stone and fuel. In this whole valley there are but few expo-
sures of the basis rock, and these are very small.
On the Elkhorn, about eight miles above Pebble Creek, there is an
exposure of the limestones of the Niobrara divisions, and two lime-kilnus
are in operation burning lime, which finds a ready market at Krémont,
on the line of the Union Pacific Railroad. On the Logan there is one
exposure of the lignite bed seen near Blackbird Hill, on the Missouri.
It was discovered here by digging beneath the water-level of the Logan,
and is not over eighteen inches in thickness—a very impure material.
Our observations north of the Platte show plainly that there are no
workable beds of coal in that portion of Nebraska. There are not
probably a half dozen exposures of rock in the Elkhorn Basin, and the
fuel consists mainly of a narrow fringe of cotton-wood along the streams.
On the bluffs of the Elkhorn there are a few dwarf oaks, but not enough
to furnish any permanent supply of wood for fuel or timber for the
settlers.
It is evident that the greater portion of the western half of the State
of Nebraska must remain unsettled or be inhabited sparsely by a people
devoted to pastoral pursuits. It is a well-known fact that the same hills or
other portions of the West that appear the most sterile and most deficient
in wood and water are the favorite resorts of the wild game, and that they
become exceedingly fat. The short grasses which grow upon these sup-
posed ar.d, sterile plains seem to suit the palates of the wild animals,
and they find sufficient water at all seasons of the year. I would inter
from this fact that it may yet become a fine stock-growing country, and,
aided by the facilities to market which wil) be furnished by the Union
Pacifie Railroad, I cannot but believe that some of the finest wool in
America will one day reach the market from Western Nebraska.
I should judge that peat beds will be found in great numbers along
the Missouri north of the Platte, and in the valiey of the Klkhorn and
along the Platte. No effort has yet been made to search for them, and
yet the indications are excellent.
The raising of timber, both on the upland and lowland north of the
Platte, is proven a success beyond adoubt. The example of Mr. Grif-
fin, west of Omaha, on the highest land, and some experiments on the
bottom land at Tekama, Burt County, afford ample proof. Still, so
little has been done in the way of supplying this country with living
forests, that I again call attention to this most vital matter to the future
prosperity of the State.
At Mr. Thomas’s, near Tekama, twenty-four cotton-wood trees, eight
years old, averaged two feet and ten and one-eighth inches in circum-
ference; sixteen locust-trees, (Robinia pseudo acacia,) five years old, from
seed, carefully cultivated, averaged twenty-three inches in circumfer-
ence; twenty-five locust-trees, six years old, from seed, but planted on
sod ground not cultivated, averaged seventeen and seventeen twenty-
fifths inches in circumference.
It will be seen by the above that cultivation of forest-trees is as im-
portant to their success as to that of any of our annual crops. The
\
64 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
cotton-wood trees would each furnish one to two ties for a railroad, and
the locusts good posts for a wire fence.
This question of the planting of forest-trees is one of the most im-
portant that can demand the attention of the citizens of the State, and
too much cannot be said in regard to it.
There is another question of importance to the West generally. While
there are most abundant materials for the manufacture of brick all over
the State, the fuel that is required to burn them forms a serious draw-
back, and it is an important matter to ascertain whether the making of
pressed brick would not prove in this country a success. The dryness of
the atmosphere in this country is most favorable for the experiment.
Mr. 8S. P. Reed, superintendent of construction on the Union Pacific
Railroad, a most intelligent and liberal-minded gentleman, tells me that
he has made the experiment at Frémont, Dodge County, where he made
40,000 bricks in this way, and that his success was complete. This fact
shows that a great obstacle is removed out of the way of the immediate
settlement of a great portion of this State.
I would here say that the numerous successful experiments upon
building materials, and for other purposes, by this powerful and wealthy
corporation, will be of incalculable value to the State, the future pros-
perity of which, it seems to me, will be very largely dueto its energy and
skill.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
F. V. HAYDEN,
United States Geologist.
Hon. Jos. 8S. WILSON,
Commissioner of the General Land- Office.
SECOND ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
OF THE TERRITORIES,
EMBRACING WYOMING.
BY
F. V. HAYDEN, U. S. Geologist.
CONDUCTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE COMMISSIONER OF
THE GENERAL LAND-OFFICE.
ibis @ Se
5
REPORT OF F. VY. HAYDEN ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE
MISSOURI VALLEY,
Sir: In accordance with instructions, [ have the honor to submit the
accompanying preliminary report of geological surveys during the sea-
son of 1868, preceding it with a brief outline of the physical geography
of the Missouri Valley.
Nearly all the vast area west of the Mississippi may be divided into
mountain and prairie, for very soon after passing westward from Leav-
enworth there is very little timber to be seen except that which skirts
the streams. This consists mostly of cotton-wood ; a few low oaks or
pines are found on the dry hills, and here and there an elm or ash. The
whole surface is undulating ; ridge on ridge and hill on hill as far as the
eye can reach. This combination of mountain and prairie may be said
to comprise what is generally known as the Rocky Mountain region.
AS we proceed westward, we find that the ascent is gradual, at first not
more than one foot per mile, gradually increasing until we approach the
mountain-elevations, when the grade of ascent becomes 40 to 50 feet per
nile. If we examine in their order some of the barometrical profiles
which have been made along the lines of the routes explored for the
Pacific Railroad, we can readily ascertain the gradual ascent, toward the
mountain-elevations.
Leaving Saint Louis westward, we gradually ascend, passing over a
prairie country for the most part, for the distance of nearly 800 miles,
and when we have reached an elevation of 6,000 feet above the sea we
come abruptly to the lofty rugged peaks which compose the various
series of elevated ridges. Examining the map of the country west of the
Mississippi, published by the War Department, we observe that the
immediate Rocky Mountain region is not composed of merely a single
lofty upheaved ridge extendiug across the continent, but a vast series of
ridges or ranges which, taken singly, do not seem to have any definite
trend, but, when viewed in the aggregate, extend across the map in a
direction nearly northwest and southeast, forming a zone or belt 500 to
1,000 miles in width from east to west.
From longitude 96° westward to the foot of the mountain-ridges, the
country traversed exhibits the true typical prairie, no timber being found
to any extent, except that which skirts the streams. From thence to
the Pacific coust we have what may be called the true mountain portion,
which is composed of a vast number of ridges of elevation, interspersed
with beautiful valleys, many of which are remarkable for their fertility.
Some of the valleys are quite large and surrounded by the mountain-
ridges as by gigantic walls.
If we examine the barometrical profile constructed by Governor Ste-
vens, from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to the foot of the mountains westward,
we find that the former locality is 828 feet above the sea-level. Near
the mouth of the Yellowstone, 670 miles to the westward, we find that the
elevation is 2,010 feet above the sea, and that we have made a gradual,
almost imperceptible ascent of, in that distance, 1,172 feet, or an average
of nearly two feet to the mile. As we approach the base of the mount-
68 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
ain-ridges, the ascent continues to increase, and when we reach the val-
ley of Dearborn River, 448 miles farther west, we ascertain that this
locality is 4,091 feet above the sea-level, and that in the distance of 448
miles we have ascended 2,081 feet, or nearly five feet to the mile. The
valley of Dearborn River is just at the foot of the mountains, and to that
point the country traversed belongs to the true type of the western
prairie. Again, if we examine the profile, commencing at Council Bluffs,
on the Missouri River, we find the elevation at that point to be 1,527 feet
above the sea-level. Thence proceeding westward to the sources of
_ Lodge Pole Creek, at the base of the Laramie range of mountains, we
have made an ascent, while thus passing over the prairie region, of
nearly 5,000 feet. We thus see that, in the distance of 550 miles, we
have reached an elevation of 3,000 feet higher than our starting-point,
by an ascent of five feet to the mile.
Again glancing at the profile extending from Fort Leavenworth west-
ward, we observe that at the Missouri River the elevation is 904 feet
above the sea. At the base of the Laramie range of mountains, 659
miles west, the elevation is 6,716 feet. To illustrate the increased ra-
pidity of ascent as we approach the vicinity of the upheaved ridges, we
see that the elevation at the forks of the Platte is 3,000 feet above the
sea, making an ascent from the Missouri River to this point, a distance
of 4135 miles, of 2,096 feet, or about five feet to the mile. From the forks
of the Platte to the foot of the Laramie Mountains, a distance of 246
miles, we find an increased elevation of 3,716 feet, or 15 feet to the mile.
After reaching the base of the elevated ridges, the ascent is more or less
abrupt, sometimes rising to the height of 3,000 to 6,000 feet above the
open prairie country around.
We might continue our remarks, in regard to the profiles, still farther
southward, with similar results, but we have said enough to indicate the
beautiful unity in the physical development of the western portion of
our continent. We have shown that the whole country west of the
Mississippi to the Pacific may be regarded as a vast plateau, and that it
was gradually elevated until the crust of the more central portions was
strained to its utmost tension, and that it then burst, and slowly were
evolved the lofty ranges which, taken collectively, soon pass under the
name of the Rocky Mountains.
So far as my own observations have extended, there appear to be two
types of mountain-elevations, namely, those elevations which have a
granite nucleus and form long continuous lines of fracture with far less
inequality of ontline, and those ranges which are composed of erupted
rocks, which are very rugged in their outline and irregular in their trend.
The Black Hills, the most eastern outlier of the main mountain-range,
present an excellent illustration of the first type. Very little was known
of these mountains until they were explored in the summer of 1857 by
an expedition placed, by the War Department, under the command of
Lieutenant G. K. Warren, United States Army, to which expedition the
writer was attached as geologist and naturalist. A preliminary report ,
of the results of this exploration was presented to the War Department
under the title “ Explorations in Nebraska and Dakota in the years
1855, 1856, and 1857.”
The Black Hills lie between the 43d and 45th degrees of latitude and
the 105d and 105th parallels of longitude, and occupy an area about
100 miles in length and 60 in breadth. According to Lieutenant War-
ren, ‘ the shape of the mass is-elliptical and the major axis trends about
20° west of north. The base of these hills is 2,500 to 5,600 feet above
the sea, and the highest peaks 6,700 feet.” The whole range is clasped,
‘EOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 69
as it were, by the north and south branches of the Big Cheyenne River,
the most important stream in this region. The north branch passes
along the rorthern side of the range, receiving very many of its tribu-
taries and most of its waters from it, but takes its rise far to the west-
ward of the range, near the sources of Powder River, in the “ divide,”
between the waters of the Yellowstone and those of the Missouri.
The south fork also rises in the same divide, flowing along the southern
base of the range, and also receives numerous tributaries which have
_ their sources in it. These two main branches unite about 30 miles east
of the Black Hills, forming the Big Cheyenne, which flows into the Mis-
souri, about 60 miles above Fort Pierre. The Moreau, Grand, Cannon
Ball, and other rivers flowing into the Missouri, north of the Cheyenne
and south of the Yellowstone, rise in a high Tertiary divide north of the
Biack Hills, and are, for the greater part of the season, quite shallow
and sometimes nearly dry; but the Little Missouri derives a portion of
its waters from the Black Hills through a number of small branches
which flow from the northwestern slope.
We thus see that the Black Hills do not give rise directly to any im-
portant stream, if we except the Little Missouri, afew branches of which
flow from springs near the base of the hills, but afford a comparatively
small supply of water from that source.
We will now allude for a moment to what we believe to be the econom-
ical value of the timber in the Black Hills to the people now rapidly
settling Dakota Territory. As we have previously remarked in this
chapter, these hills occupy an area about 100 miles in length, and about
60 in breadth, or about 6,000 square miles. I think it is safe to say that
at least one-third of this area, or about 2,000 square miles, is covered
with excellent pine timber, or 1,280,000 acres. How is this timber to be
made available? As I have before remarked, the two forks of the Chey-
enne River, as it were, clasp the Black Hills, the two branches passing
along close to the northern and southern borders of the hills. From
four to six months of the year these streams are quite high. The logs
could be cut and transported to the sides of these streams during the
dry season, and when the streams are high in the spring of the year,
they could be taken down into the Missouri River with a good degree
of safety and ease; at least that is my impression. In a report made
to Lieutenant G. K. Warren, March 15, 1856, I made use of the follow-
ing language in reference to this matier:
The Black Hills, which appear in the distance, and derive their name from their dark
and gloomy appearance, contain an inexhaustible quantity of the finest timber, mostly
pine, which will doubtless remain undisturbed for many years to come. I will, how-
ever, propose a plan for obtaining this timber, and rendering it useful to future set-
tlers; though I do it with some hesitation lest it may seem visionary. The left fork
of the Cheyenne passes through the northern portion of the Black Hills, and even
there is a considerable stream from 30 to 50 yards wide. In the spring the river is
much swollen and the current exceedingly rapid, and the timber, if cut and hauled to
the banks of the river, might be floated down into the Missouri with considerable
safety and ease.
At the time the above was written I had seen but little of the Black
Hills, and nothing was known of the geography of the forks of the
Cheyenne.
The geological structure of the Black Hills may be mentioned briefly
in this connection. The nucleus or central portion is composed of red
feldspathic granite, with a series of metamorphic slates and schists
superimposed, and thence upon each side of the axis of elevation the
various fossiliferous formations of this region follow in their order to
the summits of the Cretaceous, the whole inclining against the grani-
70 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
toid rocks at a greater or less angle. There seems to be no unconform-
ability in these fossiliferous rocks from the Potsdam inclusive to the
top of the Cretaceous.
From these facts we draw the inference that prior to the elevation of
the Black Hills, which must have occurred after the deposition of the
Cretaceous rocks, all these formations presented an unbroken continuity
over the whole area occupied by these mountains. This is an impor-
tant conclusion, and we shall hereafter see its application to other
ranges, and also to the Rocky Mountain range taken in the agegre-
gate.
Proceeding in a southwest direction from the Black Hills, we find
that there are ample proofs of the connection of these hills with the
Laramie Mountains, through a low anticlinal which can be followed for
many tniles. It is sometimes concealed by the recent Tertiary beds, but
it re-appears at different points. By the ‘Laramie Mountains we desi g-
nate those eastern ranges which extend from the Red Buttes southward
to the Arkansas. This range, when examined in detail, is composed of
a large number of smaller ranges, all, so far as I have observed, of the
true granitic type. The trend of the whole group is very nearly north
and south, northward as far as Fort Laramie, where they make an ab-
rupt flexure around to the west and northwest, and gradually cease and
die out at the Red Buttes. From this point westward and northward,
there is a space from 25 to 40 miles in width, destitute of mountain- de
vations, though the strata exhibit evidence of dislocation or crust move
ments.
Geologically the Laramie range is also composed of a granitoid nu-
cleus, with the fossiliferous formations, Silurian, Carboniferous, Red Are-
naceous beds, (Triassic,) Jurassic, Cretaceous, and in many places Lignite
Tertiary, inclining from each side of a central axis at various angles. It
is in these mountains that the numerous branches of the Platte have
their sources, extending a distance of nearly 400 miles. From the ob-
Servations which I have made in this range, it seems to me that the
conclusion is plain that all the above-named rocks in a nearly or quite
horizontal position were continuous over the whole area at present oc-
cupied by it some time during the Tertiary period.
The most important outlier of the Rocky Mountains on the eastern
slope is the Big Horn range, which, though somewhat irregular in the
shape of its mass, has a general trend nearly northwest and southeast.
It occupies an area about 180 miles in length and 50 in breadth, near
latitude 43° 30’, and longitude 102°. The line of fracture seems to have
partially died out as it were toward the south or southeast, and to have
made a general flexure around to the west, the whole range soon losing
its granitoid character and becoming entirely composed of more modern
eruptive rocks. The eruptive portion continues westward until it joins
on to the Wind River range, near the sources of Wind River, at the
southern end of the Big Horn Mountains. We can trace a single anti-
clinal across the prairie connecting these mountains with the Laramie
range at the Red Buttes on the North Platte. We also know by the
position of the sedimentary beds upheaved along the mountains that
these mountains also form a connection with the Wind River range by
the gradual fiexure westward of the eruptive rocks. The central por-
tion of these mountains is also composed of granite and granitoid
rocks, with the same series of fossiliferous formations, inclining at vari-
ous angles from each side of the axis of elevation, as are seen around
the Black Hills and along the Laramie Mountains. Some of the more
lofty peaks are from 8,000. to 12,000 feet above the sea, and are covered
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 71
with perpetual snow. We think that the evidence is quite conclusive
that, up to the time of the accumulation of a large portion of the Lig-
nite Tertiary beds, all these formations, from the Silurian to the true Lig-
nite strata inclusive, were in a horizontal position, extending continu-
ously over the whole area occupied by the mountains; but, as they
were slowly elevated, the central portions were removed by the erosive
action of water. The eruptive portion, which unites the Big Horn
range with the Wind River Mountains, is exceedingly picturesque, pre-
- senting the appearance of a connected series of basaltic cones, and so
rugged and inaccessible are they that the persevering trappers have
never been able to penetrate them in their hunting explorations.
Like the Black Hills, the Big Horn range does not give rise to many
important sub-hydrographical: basins. The largest stream in this re-
gion, and one which gives name to the mountains, rises in the Wind
River range, passes through the Big Horn Mountains, and unites with
the Yellowstone about 70 miles to the southward. Before reaching the
mountains it takes the name of Wind River, and assumes the name of
Big Horn after emerging from them. This range, however, constitutes
quite an important feeder to the Yellowstone. Powder River, which
rises in this range by bumerous branches, drains a large area mostly
Lignite Tertiary, and pours a considerable volume of water into the
Yellowstone, near longitude 105$° and latitude 464°. Tongue River is
the next most important stream, which, though not draining so great
an area aS Powder River, empties into the Yellowstone a much larger
volume of water.
The Medicine Bow and Sweetwater Mountains appear to be of the
same character for the most part; but on the east side of the Sweetwater
River the evidence of igneous action is shown on a large scale. The
ancient volcanic material would seem to have been elevated to a great
height in but a partially fluid condition, and then to have gradually
cooled, affecting to a greater or less extent the fossiliferous strata in
contact.
Near the junction of the Popoagie with Wind River we come in
full view of the Wind River Mountains, which form the dividing crest of
the continent, the streams on the one side flowing into the Atlantic and
those on the other into the Pacific. This range is also composed to a
large extent of red and gray feldspathic granite, with the fossiliferous
rocks inclining high upon its sides. After passing the sources of Wind
River the mountains appear to be composed entirely of eruptive rocks.
Even the three Tétons, which raise their summits 11,000 feet above the
ocean-bed, are formed of very compact basaltic rocks. The Wasatch
and Green River ranges, where we observed them, have the same
igneous origin, and the mountains all along the sources of the different
branches of the Columbia exhibit these rocks in their full force. In
Pierre’s Hole, Jackson’s Hole, and other valleys surrounded by upheaved
ridges, these ancient volcanic rocks seem to have been poured out over
the country and to have cooled in layers, giving to vast thicknesses of
the rocks the appearance of stratified beds.
The mountains about the sources of the Missouri and Yellowstone
Rivers are of eruptive origin, and in the valley of the Madison Fork of
the Missouri are vertical walls of these ancient volcanic rocks 1,000 to
1,500 feet in height, exhibiting the appearance of stratified deposits,
dipping at a considerable angle. As we pass down the Madison Fork
we find some beds of feldspathic rocks and mica and clay slates be-
neath the eruptive layers dipping at the same angle. After passing the
divide below the three forks of the Missouri, we see a number of pat-
(2 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
tially detached ranges which appear to be of the same igneous character.
In the Belt, Highwood Mountains, and indeed all along the eastern
slope in this region, we find continued evidence of the outpouring of
the fluid material in the form of surface beds or in layers thrust between
the fossiliferous strata. These igneous beds thin out rapidly as we re-
cede from the point of effusion. A large number of these centers of
protrusion may be seen along the slope of the mountains west of the
Judith range.
The erupted material sometimes presents a vertical wall 300 feet high,
then suddenly thins out and disappears. The Judith, Bear’s Paw, and
Little Rocky Mountains seem to be composed for the most part of granite
and other rocks, with igneous protrusions here and there. I had sup-
posed from the observations made in my former explorations that the
central portions of our mountain-ranges were composed of feldspathic
granite, and to acertain extent this is true of the more eastern outliers;
but the observations during this expedition have convinced me that these
rocks, which I have classed as eruptive, composed by far the greater
portion of the mountain masses of the West.
In this connection I have thought it best to remark more systematically
in regard to the principal rivers that drain this immense area of country.
The Missouri River and its tributaries form one of the largest as well as
most important hydrographical basins in America. It drains an area
of nearly or quite 1,000,000 square miles. Taking its rise in the loftiest
portions of the Rocky Mountains, near latitude 44°, longitude 113°, it
flows northward in three principal branches, Madison, Gallatin, and
Jefferson Forks, to their junction, and then proceeds onward until it
emerges from the gate of the mountains, a distance of nearly 200 miles;
it then bends to the eastward, flowing in this direction to the entrance
of White Earth River, a distance of nearly 500 miles; it then gradually
bends southward and southeastward to its junction with the Mississippi,
a distance of 1,500 to 2,000 miles. The branches which form the sources
of the Missouri rise in the central portions of the Rocky Mountain range,
flowing through granite, basaltic, and the older sedimentary rocks, until
it emerges from the gate of the mountains, when the Triassic and Jurassic
are Shown. The falls-of the Missouri, extending for a distance of 20 or
30 miles, cut their way through a great thickness of compact Triassic
rocks. Below the falls the channel makes its way through the soft yield-
ing claysand sands of the Cretaceous beds for about 250 miles, with the
exception of the Judith Tertiary basin, which is about 40 miles in length.
The Cretaceous beds continue, extending nearly to the mouth of Milk
River, when the Lignite Tertiary formations commence. These are also
composed of sands, marls, and clays, as the character of the valley will
show.
The river flows through these Tertiary rocks to the mouth of Heart
River, below Fort Union, a distance of nearly 250 miles, when the Cre-
taceous rocks come to the surface again. These latter rocks extend
nearly to Council Bluffs, a distance of over 500 miles. I have estimated
- the distance in a straight line as nearly as possible. Just above Council
Bluffs the Coal-Measure limestones commence, and the valley of the
Missouri becomes more restricted, though it is of moderate width even
below the mouth of the Kansas.
The Yellowstone River is by far the largest branch of the Missouri, and
for 400 miles from its mouth up it seems to be as large as the Missouri
itself from Fort Union to Fort Pierre. Itis navigable for large steamers
during the spring and early summer for 300 to 400 miles above its
junction with the Missouri. This river also takes its rise in the main
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. (i:
divide of the Rocky Mountains, near latitude 444°, longitude 1109, in
a lake, as some suppose, called Yellowstone Lake, which is about sixty
miles long and 10 to 20 wide. Its channel is formed in rocks similar to
that of the Missouri, about 400 miles of its course passing through Lig-
nite Tertiary beds. The character of its valley is very similar to that
of the Missouri. Most of the important branches of this river I have
alluded to in the preceding portion of this chapter. Tongue and Powder
_ Rivers, which are quite long branches, have their origin in the Big
Horn Mountains, their channels cutting through the different rocks
that surround the Big Horn range. Tongue River is nearly 150 miles
in length, and flows for the most part through the soft yielding rocks
of the Lignite Tertiary. Powder River is from 250 to 300 miles in length,
aud also flows. nearly all its course, through the same Tertiary beds as
Tongue River.
Passing below Fort Union we observe on the right side of the Mis-
souri River several large rivers, as Little Missouri, Big Knife, Heart,
Cannon Ball, Grand Moreau, and Big Cheyenne. The Little Missouri
receives a small portion of its waters from the Black Hills, but most of
its branches have their origin in the prairie. The Big Cheyenne,
though receiving most of its water from the Black Hills, takes its rise
far west of the hills, in the Tertiary beds; but, after flowing past the
Black Hills, wears its channel through the Cretaceous beds Nos. 4 and
5 of the section. The other rivers mentioned above take their rise in
the Lignite Tertiary beds near the eastern base of the Black Hills, and
flow through Lignite Tertiary rocks until very near or quite to their junc-
tion with the Missouri.
The Téton River takes its origin in the northwestern rim of the White
River Tertiary basin, runs nearly east, for the most part through forma-
tions Nos. 4 and 5 of the Cretaceous period. It drains an area about
100 miles in length and 30 to 50 miles in width. The next most promi-
nent stream is White River, which is noted for its relations to the “ Bad
Lands,” and giving name to one of the most remarkable Tertiary deposits
in the world. It takes its rise in the prairie, near latitude 424° and
longitude 104°, flows for a time in a northeast direction, then bends
around so as to enter the Missouri a little south of east near latitude
43° 41’ and longitude 994°. Nearly its entire course is through the
White River Tertiary beds, and, for the greater part of the year, its waters
are so full of sediment that they are quite unfit for use. When they
stand for a timea thick scum accumulates on the surface which has
much the color and consistency of cream. The water itself looks much
like very turbid lime-water, and is very astringent to the taste. The
river has generally a wide open valley, tolerably well wooded and abound-
ing in fine grass, and has always been a private resort for the Indians.
The road between Forts Laramie and Pierre passes along the valley for
a considerable distance, through some of the most picturesque scenery
in the West. It has numerous branches; the only one of importance is
ealled the South Fork, and is nearly as large and long as the main
stream. It drains an area about 250 miles in length and 40 to 60 in
breadth. °
The Niobrara River is the next most important stream; and as the
area drained by this stream has been the subject of much interest to the
inhabitants of Nebraska and Dakota, I take the liberty of quoting the
minute and excellent description of Lieutenant Warren :
* The Niobrara being a stream heretofore unknown, and one in which the people of
Nebraska feel much interest, I shall describe it in detail.
* Letter to Hon. G. W. Jones relative to his exploration of Nebraska Territory, January, 1868.
74 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
This river is about 450 miles long. From its source to longitude 103° 15’ it is a beau- ©
tiful little stream of clear running water, of a width of from 10 to 15 feet, gradually
widening as it descends. Its valley furnishes here very good grass, abounding in
rushes or prele, but is for the most part destitute of wood even for cooking. After
flowing thus far it rapidly widens, till in longitude 102° 30’ it attains a width of 60 to
80 yards; its valley is still quite open and easy to travel along, but destitute of wood,
except occasional pines on the distant hills tothe north. In longitude 102° 30’ it enters
between high steep banks which closely confine it, and for a long way it is a complete
cation; here, however, wood becomes more abundant and pine is occasionally seen on
the bluffs, while small clusters of cotton-wood, elm, and ash occupy the narrow points
left by its windings. In longitude 101° 45’ the sand-hills come on the north side close
to the river, while on the south they are at the distance of from one to two miles off,
leaving a smooth road to travel on along the bluffs; the blufts gradually appear higher
and higher above the stream as it descends until they reach the height of 300 feet. The
sand mostly ceases on the north side in longitude 100° 23’; but it lies close to the
stream on the south side nearly all the way to the Wazihonska. Throughout this sec-
tion, lying between longitude 102° and longitude 99° 20’, a distance of 180 miles, the
Niobrara is in every respect a peculiar stream, and there is none that I know of that it
can be compared with. It flows here between high, rocky banks of soft, white, and
yellowish calcareous and siliceous sandstone, standing often in precipices at the water’s
edge, its verticality being preserved by a capping of hard grit. It is here impossible
to travel any considerable distance along its immediate banks without having fre-
quently to climb the ridges which rise sometimes perpendicularly from the stream. As
you approach from the north or south, there are no indications of a river till you come
within two or three miles of the banks, and then only by the trees, whose tops occasion-
ally rise above the ravines in which they grow, so completely is it walled in by high
bluffs which inclose its narrow valley. The soft rock which forms the bluffs is worn
into the most intricate labyrinths by the little streams, all of which have their sources
in beautiful gushing springs of clear cold water. In these small deep valleys the grass
is luxuriant; pine, ash, and oak are abundant; cherries, currants, gooseberries, plums,
and grapes grow in profusion in their season ; elk, deer, and other animals find here
their choicest haunts, and here they congregate during the snows and cold of winter.
The region is a perfect paradise for savage life, and the brutes who now have possession
of it probably value it as highly as ever human being did a home. Their indignation
was great at our intrusion among them, and they were earnest in declaring that the
white man should never dispossess them while they lived. To the agriculturist this
section has, however, comparatively little attraction, and that between longitude 99°
20’ and the mouth, an extent of about 90 miles, is perhaps far more valuable. Here the
bottoms will probably average a width of a quarter of a mile; are susceptible of culti-
vation; and cotton-wood, oak, walnut, and ash will furnish settlements with all the
timber and fuel they will need. The river-banks seem to present no good building-
stone, nor did we, though searching diligently, discover any signs of valuable coal or
other minerals. In describing the tributaries to the Niobrara, I shall begin at the
mouth and take the north side first. The Ponka River, which has a very fine, well-
wooded, and fertile valley, runs into the Missouri, about five miles north of the Nio-
brara, in latitude 42° 48’ north. Its course is parallel and near to that of the Niobrara,
as far up as the mouth of Turtle Hill River. Turtle Hill River (Kehah Paha) is the
main branch of the Niobrara, and is about 120 miles long. I crossed it, in 1855, sixty.
miles above its mouth, and it has a very fine valley one-half to three-fourths of a mile
wide, with good soil and a limited quantity of fine cotton-wood timber. The bed of the
stream is sandy, and its waters are clear and sweet; width at the mouth, fifty yards.
The first 20 miles of the space between this branch and the main river is occupied by
sand-hills.
The next northern branch which joins the Niobrara, in longitude 100° 23’, is named
Minicha-Duza-Wakpa, or Rapid Creek. At its mouthit is about eight yards wide, with
a valley about a quarter to a half mile wide, and a soil quite fertile; the banks are
scantily fringed with small trees. It forms about the eastern border of the sand-hills
on the north side of the Niobrara as far as we could see. Its length is about 50 miles.
The mouth of the next stream is in longitude 101° 18’; it has scarcely any appreciable
valley, flows between high, rocky bluftts, difficult to ascend and descend ; it is about
fifty yards wide, with clear, deep, swift-running water, and is probably about 35 miles
long.
The mouth of the next northern tributary is in longitude 101° 30’, and is called White
Earth Creek; it is about three-fourths the size of Rapid Creek, which it resembles in
every particular, and is about 25 miles long. The next, in longitude 102°, is a small
spring rivulet about 26 miles long; and above this the branches are all small runs
coe ee the bluffs, generally dry except after rains, with scarcely any valleys to
speak of.
On the south side of the Niobrara there are numerous small branches coming in be-
tween its junction with the Missouri and the point where it receives the waters of the
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 15
Turtle Hill River. Three of these are of considerable size, probably 35 miles long, the
bluffs along nearly all of them being more or less covered with scattered pine, and
their valleys occupied with clumps of cotton-wood, oak, ash, &ce.
From the mouth of Turtle Hill River to that of the Wazihonska there are still a
greater number of short southern branches, all containing springs of water and abound-
ing in pine and beautiful oak groves.
Wazihonska means in Dakota tongue “the place where the pine extends far out ;”
and this stream, whose mouth is in longitude 100°, is probably 40 miles long, and all itg
bluffs and side ravines are green with pine. Its. valley, though not so wide, is very
similar to that of the Niobrara in this part, which has been described.
' Snake River, whose mouth is in longitude 100° 45’, is quite a large stream, some 3¢
yards wide, its bluffs covered with pine, with a narrow valley like the Wazihonska.
Above this there isscarcely any branch coming in from the south deserving mention.
Niobrara is a very shallow and ‘“‘swift-flowing stream,” as the Canadians say, L’eau
qui court, abounding in rapids in two-thirds of its upper course, and in its middle por-
tion filled with small islands. In the lower portion its width exceeds that of the Mis-
souri River and is spread out over sand-bars. The bed in the broad portions is quick-
sand and difficult to ford. Its waters rapidly increase in volume through its middle
portion, from the multitude ot springs and streamlets that constantly flow into it from
the foot. of the bluffs and out of the ravines. It furnishes no navigation, except it
might be for light flat-boats during floods, and probably might be used for rafting.
Logs could be driven if the timber should be found of a quality, quantity, and acces-
sibility to defray the expenses. I cannot, however, look upon it as capable of furnish-
ing timber for the country on the Missouri, for the reason that much of the pine is too
small, crooked, and knotty, and grows in places difficult to transport it from. The
species is what is called the Rocky Mountain pine, has a yellowish-white appearance,
and abounds in resin. The distance on the Niobrara over which these pine ravines
extend is about 120 miles.
A road could not be made on the bottom-lands of the Niobrara; it must keep out on
the high prairie so as to head the ravines. From the mouth to Turtle Hill River, it
would take the narrow divide between the Niobrara and Ponka Rivers. It should
remain on the north side of Turtle Hill River from 20 to 30 miles farther, and then
cross that stream, as it would thus avoid the sand at the junction of the Niobrara and
Turtle Hill Rivers, and cross the latter where there is a better ford or narrower stream
to bridge. Turning then toward the Niobrara, the river must be crossed in longitude
101° 20’ to avoid the sand-hills, and the route must continue on the south side to about
longitude 102°, when it should again cross to the north side. These crossings for a
wagon-road could easily be made at a ford or by bridging, but a proper bridge for a
railroad-crossing at these places would be a stupendous undertaking; for on account
of the nature of the banks and ravines good approaches could not be found so as to
descend to the level of the stream, and the bridge would have to be built very high.
From longitude 102° west there are no difficulties beyond a scarcity of wood in reach-
ing Fort Laramie, or continuing direct to the South Pass, and in this course abundance
of excellent pine would be found near Rawhide Peak.
A preferable road might: be found by continuing up Turtle Hill River to its source,
and then along the divide between Niobrara and White Rivers, striking the former
stream in longitude 102°; but these divides are generally bad tor wagon-routes on ac-
count of scarcity of water, and it is not certain that we would by that route avoid the
sand-hills.
The area oceupied by the Niobrara is about 450 miles in length from
east to west, and from 40 to 60 miles in width from north to south.
The next sub-hydrographical basin, and perhaps in many respects the
most important one in the Missouri Valley, is that of the Platte, which
flows into the Missouri River near latitude 41° 3/ 24”. Its valley forms
anatural grade for a railroad to the foot of the mountains, and already
one has been constructed from Omaha City, 640 miles, and before this
report will be given to the world it will doubtless be completed to the
foot of the mountains. The Platte River takes its rise in the Laramie
range, and flows for the greater part of its course through the more recent
beds of the Tertiary deposits. The area drained by this river must be at
least 600 miles from east to west, and 80 to 150 from north to south.
Although a wide stream, 1,000 yards or more, the water is so shallow
and the channel so shifting that it can never be rendered navigable even
for Mackinaw boats. Even the fur-traders have never been able to rely
upon it for the transportation of their furs and skins.
On the left or north side of the Missouri there are comparatively few
76 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
branches, the principal of which are Milk, White Earth, James, Vermil- |
lion, and Big Sioux. The three last named rise in the far north and flow
through amuch morerocky region and over astony bed, and their waters,
as they pour them into the Missouri, contain far less sediment than any
of the others. Indeed, most of the rivers previously described flow through
a more or less barren country, with a thirsty atmosphere and a still more
thirsty soil, and on their way to the Missouri they lose nearly or quite
all their waters. Many of these long rivers, as Grand, Cannon Ball, Chey-
enne, in the autumn frequently become so dry as to cease to be running
Streams, while perhaps 100 miles above their mouth, if in the vicinity of
some mountains, there is afull supply of water. The Muscleshell River
is a fine example. Toward the source of this river it is a fine running
Stream; in the dry season it is lost almost entirely before reaching the
Missouri. Much more might be said in this connection, but encugh has
been written to enable the reader to comprehend to some extent the vast
geographical area drained by the Missouri River and its tributaries.
oh SEN. EU ASYaD) BING,
United States Geologist.
\
d
Hon. J. S. WILSON,
Commissioner of the General Land- Office.
Geological Explorations in Wyoming Territory.
Fort STEELE, UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD,
September 5, 1868.
Sir: I have the honor to forward this day the first part of my prelim-
inary report from the field. Another portion, describing my examinations
from Fort Sanders to Benton Station and westward, will follow soon.
In the reports I have endeavored to give all the important details, and
as they are descriptive of regions almost or quite unknown previously to
the geologist, I hope they will be found of interest to you. The coal and
iron mines are of the highest value and almost unlimited in extent, while
indications of the precious metals have been observed in numerous locali-
ties. It is my intention to push on to Fort Bridger by way of the over-
land stage-route, and returning along the Union Pacific Railroad, so as to
construct a geological section of the route, making use of the cuts in the
road to give me aclearer knowledge of the different beds. It is my pur-
. pose to take as full and accurate notes of the country along the road as
possible so that they can be used as a guide to travelers when they wish
to study the geology of the route.
My party consists of nine persons. We have a two-horse ambulance
and a four-mule covered wagon, three tents, and fourriding-animals. I
hope to return to Fort Sanders with ali my party between the 1st and
10th of October. No draft has been received up to this time. All are
well and in good spirits.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
FE. V. HAYDEN,
United States Geologist.
Hon. JOSEPH S. WILSON,
Commissioner General Land. Office.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. An
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following preliminary report of
my labors in the field, connected with the geological survey of Colorado
and Wyoming Territories. I beg leave to state here that these notes are
prepared in the field after the labors of the day are completed, far away
from books and collections, and without that opportunity for mature
reflection which should characterize a final report, and therefore I ask
you to look with Jeniency on any errors that may occur, or any want of
precision of statement.
_ My examinations properly begin at Cheyenne City, along the line of the
Union Pacific Railroad; but the connection of the geology eastward with
that to the west will be better understood by a résumé of the structure
of the country from Omaha.
At Omaha, and extending above that point along the Missouri River
for about 40 miles, we find the underlying rocks to belong to the Upper
or Barren Coal-Measures; overlapping these are the sandstones of the
Cretaceous period, which first reveal themselves immediately along the
Missouri, about 20 miles north of Omaha, but are found about 10 miles
westward as much as 8 or 10 miles south of the Platte River.
Near the mouth of the Elkhorn the rusty sandstones of the Dakota
group occupy the whole country. Near Columbus and beyond for 20 or
30 miles traces of No. 3 Cretaceous are observed, but they are never con-
spicuous. Numbers 4 and 5 have not been seen along the Platte.
‘About 200 miles west of the Missouri River, along the Platte, the light
élays and mar!s of the Tertiary period commence, foreshadowed, however,
by a thick superficial deposit of fine brown grit, which seems to be of
Post-Pliocene age, as it is filled with recent tresh-water and land shells,
Helix, Planorbis, Pupa, Physa, &c. The Tertiary beds extend uninter-
ruptedly to the margin of the Laramie range, along the line of the Union
Pacific Railroad. For 150 to 200 miles west of Omaha the soil is very
fertile, and in an agricultural point of view can hardly be surpassed ; but
beyond that point there is an absence of both wood and water, which will
render it impossible to cultivate the western half of the State of Nebraska
successfully. As a grazing country, however, it will eventually prove
most valuable. For sheep-raising it, seems especially adapted. Sheep
would thrive well on the short, nutritious grasses, and the dry surface,
strewn with drift pebbles, would be admirably adapted to preseve their
feet from disease.
It seems to me that all this portion of the West may at some period
be inhabited by a pastoral people, who will raise some of the finest
flocks and herds in America. The soil itself is fertile enough, for the
cuttings along the railroad show a depth of 6 to 12 inches of vegetable
mold, but there are not streams enough to irrigate any great portion.
Even the Platte is sometimes so dry as to have no running water below
the junction of the forks.
The Platte Valley is very broad, averaging 5 to 15 miles in width, and
on the bottoms a good crop of grass grows every year, so that thousands
of tons of hay are made for the use of the Government and the Union
Pacifie Railroad.
The rocks for building purposes are not abundant anywhere along the
Platte east of the mountains, but the materials for making bricks or
artificial building-stones occur in the greatest abundance, scarcely
equaled in any part of the world. The vast superficial or Post-Plocene
deposits which cover the surface are especially adapted for these pur-
poses. At Sidney Station and westward there are some rather thick
beds of light-brown calcareous grit, which seems to answer an excellent
purpose for buildings, and has been much used in the erection of round-
78 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
houses and other buildings by the Union Pacific Railroad. Near Chey-
enne City these same Tertiary beds yield an excellent limestone, which
has been much used at that place. These Tertiary rocks are rather porous
but work easily, and are sufficiently durable in the absence of more
compact rock.
Along the margin of the Laramie range, about 16 miles west of Chey-_
enne City, there are beds of white limestone, of the Carboniferous age, .
which, when burned into lime, is of the finest quality. The walls of
houses plastered with it are as white as snow, and it is a great favorite
with masons. The supply is inexhaustible. As soon as we reach the
mountains the building-materials are as extensive as the ranges them-
selves. The syenites predominate and are of every quality, from a com-
pact, fine-grained quality to a coarse aggregate of quartz and feldspar,
decomposing readily under atmospheric influences.
I would here call the attention especially to some beds of fine-grained
compact syenite along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad near the.
summit of the first rauge, which nearly equals the best Scotch syenite
and resembles it very much.
The Union Pacific Railroad contemplate transporting this beautiful
syenite to Omaha, to construct with it the piers of the bridge across the
Missouri River. A few years ago such a thought would have excited
surprise and perhaps ridicule as visionary, but now it is so feasible that
it ceases to be wonderful. Iregard this syenite to be as durable and
more elegant for building-material than the Quincey granite.
One of the most important problems for solution, affecting the pros-
perity of this portion of the West, is the possibility of utilizing the vast
quantities of coal and iron with which this country abounds. All the
coals of Wyoming and Colorado appear to be of Tertiary age, and so
extensive are they in the West that it becomes a question whether the
Tertiary might not with more propriety be called the Carboniferous or
coal-bearing period. Ihave estimated the coal area north of the Arkan-
sas and south of the Lodge Pole Creek and east of the mountains at
5,000 square miles. It is quite possible that a more careful examination
will show that it covers a still larger area.
In connection with this coal are large deposits of brown iron-ore or
limonite, which is easily reducible, and if the coal or lignite can be used
in smelting these ores, the iron as well as the coal will prove a source of
great revenue tothe country. This iron-ore occurs in the form of nodules
or concretions, varying in size from an ounce to several hundred pounds
in weight. It resembles very closely the iron-ores of Maryland and
Pennsylvania. It seems to be co-extensive with the coal-beds, though
occurring more abundantly at some localities than at others. About
12 miles south of Cheyenne City there are large quantities, and,
within a few miles, beds of coal five or six feet in thickness are now
worked. At South Bowlder Creek it occurs again in great quantities,
scattered through 1,200 to 1,500 feet of sands and clays connected with
the coal. It will doubtless be found in the form of a carbonate of iron
beyond the reach of atmospheric influences.
The finest smelting-furnace erected in Colorado was established there
by Mr. Joseph Marshall, and he intormed me that it required about three
tons of the ore to make one ton of pig-iron. Over 500 tons of this ore
have been taken from this locality, and the area occupied by it is over
50 square miles. There are many other localities on both sides of the
mountains where this form of iron abounds, and it is safe to say that if
this mineral fuel, which abounds everywhere, can be made useful for
smelting purposes, these coal and iron ore beds will exert the same kind
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 19
of influence over the progress of the great West that those of Pennsyl-
vania do over the contiguous States. ‘‘When we reflect that we have
from 10,000 to 20,000 square miles of mineral fuel in the center of a
region where, for a radius of 600 to 1,000 miles in every direction, there
is little or no fuel either on or beneath the surtace, the future value of
these deposits cannot be overestimated.”
At the source of the Chugwater, about 30 miles north of Cheyenne
City, there is a vast deposit of magnetic-iron ore of the best quality.
Through the kindness of my friends Dr. Latham and Mr. Whitehead,
citizens of Cheyenne City, I had an opportunity to visit these iron-mines,
and 1 found them much richer and more extensive than I had previously
imagined. Iron bowlders of this ore have been found in the valley of
the Chugwater for many years. In the report of Captain Stansbury the
following paragraph is found: :
In the bed of the Chugwater and on the sides of the adjacent hills were found im-
mense numbers of rounded black nodules of magnetic-iron ore, which seemed of. unusual
richness. |
In the winter of 1859, I gathered a large number of specimens of this
erratic ore, which seems to be scattered in the greatest quantity through-
out the valley of the Chugwater; the snow was so deep that I could not
trace these masses to their source. This season I followed these erratic
masses up the valley of the Chugwater, and in the mountains, inter-
stratified with the metamorphic rocks, probably of Laurentian age, were
literally mountains of this magnetic ore. Mr. Whitehead traced one of
the beds a distance of 14 miles. It occurs in mountain-like masses similar ”
to the ore-beds on Lake Superior.
Mr. J. A. Evans, engineer of construction, who made a careful explora-
tion of these ore-beds, thinks that the ore can be transported from the
Black Hills to the Laramie Plains, and then smelted with the coal which
is found in the greatest abundance along the line of the railroad. Pro-
fessor Silliman is of the opinion that the two ores, the magnetic ore of
the Laurentian epoch and the brown hematites of the Tertiary beds, can
be more easily reduced by mixing them together. In that case, Chey-
enne City would be the most desirable point for the erection of a rolling-
mill orfurnace. The Union Pacific Railroad contemplates erecting several
rolling-mills along the line of the road, and when this is done these ores
will come into demand.
In regard to the coal of this country, the evidence seems to be clear
that it is probably all of the Tertiary age. I have traced it over a vast
area on the Upper Missouri River, and it seems probable that it extends
far northward toward the Arctic Sea. I have also traced the Lignite
coal-beds from the Yellowstone Valley, by way of the Big Horn Mount-
ains, to the North Platte, until they pass beneath the White River Ter-
tiary beds, about 80 miles north of Fort Laramie. ‘These beds re-appear
again about 10 miles south of Cheyenne City, and continue uninterrupt-
edly to the Arkansas. On the west side of the Laramie range these
beds appear again a few miles east of Rock Creek, and from there con-
tinue westward to Salt Lake and perhaps farther.
In Colorado these coal-beds have been wrought to considerable ex-
tent. At South Bowlder Creek there are 11 beds of coal varying in thick-
ness from 5 to 13 feet. The lowest bed is 13 feet in thickness, and is of
excellent quality, very much resembling anthracite in appearance,
though much lighter. An analysis of this coal by Dr. Torrey, of New
York, shows it to contain 59.20 per cent. of carbon; water in a state of
combination or its elements, 12.00; volatile matter, expelled at a red
heat, forming inflammable gases and vapors, 26.00; ash of a reddish
80 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
color—color sometimes gray—2.80. As a fuel for domestic purposes, L
am convinced that this coal will rank next to anthracite and prove supe-
rior to the ordinary bituminous coals.
It is as neat as anthracite, leaving no stain on the fingers. It produces no offen-
sive gas or odor, and is thus superior in a sanitary point of view, and when brought
into general use it will be a great favorite for culinary purposes. It contains no dis-
tinctive elements, leaves very little ash, no clinkers, and produces no more erosive
effects on stoves, grates, or steam-boilers, than dry wood. If exposed in the open air
it is apt to crumble, but if protected it receives no special injury. Dr. Torrey thinks
there is no reason why it should not be eminently useful for generating steam and for
smelting ores.*
In the Laramie Plains, along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad,
extensive beds of this coal have been opéned, and the coal is used for
generating steam and for fuel on the cars. It cannot be long before it
will come into general use throughout the West.
August 15.—Left Cheyenne City with Dr. Curtin, an assistant on the
survey, and Mr. Whitehead, a citizen of Cheyenne City, for the purpose
of exploring the Chugwater Valley toits head. For the first 20 miles
we passed over the light-colored marls and sands of the White River Ter-
tiary. AS we approached the foot of the mountains we came into a
beautiful valley, ranging from three to ten miles in width, looking as
though it had been scooped out, as it were, during the glacial period by
forces from the mountain-side.
All over this country are marked proofs of a powerful erosion at the
close of the Drift period, which gave to the surface of the country its
present configuration. There are also terraces along the base of the
mountains, as well as along the streams, and the nearer we approach
the mountain-slopes the more conspicuous the terraces become.
We camped, the night of the 15th, on Horse Creek, a branch of the
North Platte. This valley can hardly be surpassed for grazing pur-
poses. The water is excellent and the grass good. Near the point where
the creek issues from the foot-hills of the Laramie range, there is a series
of upheaved ridges, with a strike nearly east and west, the beds inclin-
ing from 50° to 70°. The series of strata seem to be nearly as complete
as those observed southward toward Denver. The red arenaceous beds
are well shown, but no gypsum was seen. ;
In the valley of the Chugwater, near the point where the branches
issue from the mountains, the unchanged rocks are elevated at various
angles, and, by their great variety of colors, give a most picturesque
appearance to the scenery.
In clearing away from the syenite nucleus, we have here, first, the red
arenaceous beds, 1,000 to 1,500 feet in thickness; then 660 to 800 feet of
variegated marls and clays, with layers of sandstones, all destitute of
fossils or any evidence of their age. These beds incline southwest at
various angles, 19°, 11°, 6°, &c. Then the Cretaceous beds are quite
well represented. rom No.5 I gathered Baculitus ovatus and a species
of Inoceramus.
Upon the Cretaceous beds, but not conforming to them, rest the White
River Tertiary beds, inclining at a small angle, as if they had partaken
of the latest upward movement of the mountain-ranges.
The central portions of the mountains are composed of syenite mostly.
The outer beds are rotten syenite of a dull-gray color, disintegrating to
such an extent that the surface is covered with a thick deposit of crys-
tals of feldspar. As we approach the dividing ridge the beds of syenite
become more compact and durable. Now and then we find thin beds of
*Silliman’s Journal, March, 1868.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 81
hornblendic gneiss, or white quartz. All these rocks are nearly verti-
eal. Intercalated among these beds of syenite we found the beds of iron-
ore, Which, though not continuous like the syenite, occur here in large
quantities. The ore-beds incline in the same direction with the others,
with the same joints and cleavage, and the surface of many of the layers
has the appearance of ‘ slicken-sides.”. Thousands of tons of this ore
have been detached from these beds and distributed about the valley of
the Chugwater in a more or less worn condition. 4
Although the amount of iron-ore which we were able to discover was
indefinite in extent, yet we had evidence of the existence of other beds
in the mountains at the sources of all the branches of the Chugwater.
The Chugwater empties into the North Platte and has a valley about
100 miles long. It has been for many years a favorite locality for win-
tering stock, not only for the excellence of the grass and water, but
also from the fact that the climate is mild throughout the winter. Cat- .
tle and horses thrive well all winter without hay or shelter.
The soil of the valleys of all the streams that flow into the North
Platte is fertile, and when the surface can be irrigated good crops of all
cereals and hardy vegetables can be raised without difficulty. While
my explorations this season will be confined mostly to the plain-coun-
try, yet my plans contemplate numerous side trips to interesting points
in the contiguous mountains.
Within a few weeks a great excitement has been created at Fort San-
ders and Laramie City, by the reported discovery of rich gold-diggings
near the source of Little Laramie River. This district has a regular
organization; hundreds of claims have been staked out, and the name
of “ Last Chance” diggings given toit. Some very large and valuable nug-
gets of gold have been taken from these mines, and the usually exag-
gerated reports of their richness were circulated everywhere.
August 20.—I started from Fort Sanders to make an examination of
this district, under the auspices of Major-General Gibbon, United States
Army, the commander of the Rocky Mountain district. We were so for-
tunate as to have the company of Professor James Hall, State geologist
of New York. Our course was nearly southwest up the valley of the
Little Laramie River to its source in the Snowy Mountains. From Fort
Sanders to the Little Laramie River the distance is 18 miles, over a
very nearly level country, underlain by Cretaceous beds holding a hori-
zontal position nearly.
Nos. 2 and 3 are quite well shown. No. 2, with its dark plastic clays,
is first observed at the Big Laramie stage-station, six miles west of
Fort Sanders. In the broad, level plain-country west of this point, No.
5 attains a thickness of 50 to 100 feet, sometimes exhibiting its usual
ehalky character, but mostly composed of thinly. laminated calcareous
shale. All through are thin layers of fibrous carbonate of lime. The
fibers are at right angles to the plane surface, and attached to these
masses or layers are myriads of the little oyster, Ostrea congesta. I also
found a number of vertebre of a saurian animal. From the stage-sta-
tion we passed directly up the valley of the Little Laramie. On either
side were long ridges, covered with grass and water-worn rocks, but from
their sides projected a bed of rusty sandstone which contained Jnocera-
mus and other marine fossils, which indicated the Upper Cretaceous or
No. 5. These beds continued for about 15 miles to a point where the
river issues from the foot-hills of the mountains, and thence to its
source we follow its windings through some most beautiful and rugged
Scenery. ;
The river itself has wrought its way through a synclinal valley, caused
6
82 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
by two separate minor ranges projecting out from the main range of
mountains, and the trend of these minor ranges is nearly north and
south. One of the small ranges is quite peculiar in its character. On
its east base, which fronts on Laramie Plains, the Upper Cretaceous beds
jut up against its side, and no unclranged rocks of older date are seen,
while on the west side, about five miles distant in a straight line, the
entire series, from the Carboniferous to the summit of No. 3 Cretaceous, |
are all visible, inclining at greater or less angles from the slope.
The nucleus of the mountain is syenite, of various degrees of fineness
and compactness, inclining at a large angle, from 50° to 70°, toward the
southeast, or nearly east. It is an important question to determine the
exact relation of these metamorphic rocks, which form the central por-
tion of all the mountain-ranges, to the unchanged weds which usually
incline from their sides. Do they conform to each other or not? Did
the metamorphic rocks lie in a more or less inclined position prior to-
the deposition of the Silurian or Carboniferous beds upon them ?
We have thus found it difficult to determine the conformability or
unconformability west of the Laramie range, but on the east side of the
mountains, especially near Fort Laramie, and along the eastern slope of
the Big Horn and Wind River Mountains, the discordant relation of the
two series iS very apparent.
These question will have a most important bearing when we attempt
to reconstruct the history of the physical revolutions which have oc-
curred in the West during past geological epochs.
The syenite beds which form the nucleus of the small range of mount-
ains between the Big and Little Laramie Rivers, inclining eastward,
were pushed up in such a way that the east front is almost vertical, and
the Cretaceous beds at the foot, which must have been borne upward in
part during the elevation, have fallen abruptly down, so that in some
instances they have passed the vertical position 20° to 30°.
East of the Big Laramie, and all along the western slope of the Lara-
mie range, the entire series of unchanged rocks are visible, inclining at
moderate angles from the mountain-sides. On the west side of this
range the slope is more gentle, and the Carboniferous, Triassic, Jurassic,
and Cretaceous beds present their upturned edges clearly to the scrutiny
of the geologist.
The synclinal valley here, through which the Little Laramie flows, is
about five miles wide, and crossing this stream west, we find the full
series inclining from the mountain eastward. The dip of the red beds
is from 40° to 60°, that of the Cretaceous 40°. No fossils have been
found in any of the unchanged rocks below No. 3 Cretaceous, west of
Fort Sanders, nor does the nature of the beds indicate that the physi-
eal conditions during their deposition were favorable for the existence
of animal or vegetable life, certainly not for the preservation of its re-
mains.
Between the well-marked Cretaceous beds and the metamorphic rocks
nearly all the rocks are of a brick-red color, or tinged more or less with
red from the presence of the peroxide of iron, and diffused through them
there is a certain amount of gypsum; hence they have been called gyp-
siferous deposits. In the Black Hills, Big Horn, and Wind River Mount-
ains, these red beds are largely developed, and there they contain beds
of beautiful white amorphous gypsum, varying in thickness from 5 to
60 feet. Along the east slope, near Pike’s Peak in Colorado, these for-
mations contain valuable beds of gypsum, but in the Laramie Plains I
have as yet observed no regular beds. The thickness of these deposits
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 83
was estimated by Professor Hall to be about 3,000 feet, while the Cre-
taceous beds were 500 to 800 feet thick.
Camping with our wagons at the base of the main range of mount-
ains, near the source of the Little Laramie, we ‘prepared to ascend the
mountains on horseback to the gold mines. The distance was about 10
miles before we came in view cf the “diggings,” and to reach them we
made an ascent of 2,000 feet above the bed of the creek. We were then
between 10,000 and 11,000 feet above the sea, very near the elevation of
perpetual snow, and where frost occurs every night of the year.
On the summit of these lofty mountains are some beautiful open spots
without a tree, and covered with grass and flowers. After passing through
dense pine forests for nearly ten miles, we suddenly emerged into one of
these park-like areas. Just on the edge of the forest which skirted it
were banks of snow six feet deep, compact like a glacier, and within a
few feet were multitudes of flowers, and even the common wild straw-
berry seemed to flourish. Here the mountain is filled with streams of
the purest water, and for six months of the year good pasturage could
be found.
The gold is sought after in the gulches that are formed by the little
streams that flow from the Medicine Bow and other snowy mountains,
most of which flow into the North Platte.
- We labored two days to discover the quartz seams which we supposed
to be the source of the stray lumps of gold, but the great thickness of
the superficial drift which covers all these mountains concealed them
from our view. ‘The gold, so far as known in this district, seems to be
confined to the lower glacial drift, and it was the conclusion of Professor
Hall that gold would not be found here in paying quantities. But that
valuable mines will be found in these mountains at no distant day seems
probable.
The geological evidence is quite conclusive, as these mountains form
a continuation northward of the same range in which the rich mines of
Colorado are located.
Not only in the more lofty ranges, but also in the lower mountains,
are large forests of pine timber, which will eventually become of great
value to this country. Vast quantities of this pine, in the form of rail-
road-ties, are floated down the various streams to the Union Pacific
Railrcad. One gentleman alone has a contract for 550,000 ties, all of
which he floats down from the mountains, along the southern side of the
Laramie Plains.
The Big and Little Laramie, Rock Creek, Medicine Bow River, and
their branches are literally filled with ties at this time, and I am informed
that in time of high water they can be taken down to the railroad from
the monntains, after being cut and placed in the water, at the rate of
from one to three cents apiece. These are important facts, inasmuch as
they show the ease with which these vast bodies of timbermay be brought
down into the plains below and converted into lumber.
Should the future settlement of the country demand it, I am inclined
to believe that a peculiar class of people, like the lumbermen of Maine
and Michigan, will some day fill these mountain regions.
There are several species of pine and one spruce or balsam fir—Abies
douglassi. The latter is a beautiful and symmetrical tree, rising to the
height of 100 to 150 feet, and as straight as an arrow. The ties that are
made from this spruce are of the best quality.
On the morning of August 25 I left Fort Sanders on a third side trip
to the North Park, in company with a hunting party composed of General
F. P. Blair, Colonel Dodge, United States Army, and Captain Proctor,
84 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
United States Army. Messrs. Smith and Carson, assistants, accompanied
me. The examination of the North Park being contemplated in your
instructions, I regarded this as the most favorable opportunity that was
likely to present itself, affording adequate protection. I was the more
desirous of visiting that interesting locality from the fact that the
geological character is entirely unknown. Our course from Fort Sanders
was nearly southeast, up the Big Laramie River toward its source in the
mountains.
The geology of the plain country through which the Big Laramie flows
is similar to that of the Little Laramie River, about 15 miles to the west-
ward. There are comparatively few exposures of the basis rocks, on
account of the superficial drift which covers all the country ; still, we find
along the banks of the river, near the stage-station, the same black plastic
clay of No. 2, with Ostrea congesta and a few remains of fishes, also the
chalky marls of No. 3. About two miles above there are long high ridges
on either side, extending up for several miles, composed of the rusty
yellow sands and sandstones of No. 5.
The dip of these beds is very gentle—hardly perceptible to the eye.
: The Big Laramie is a very clear stream, about 50 yards in width, and
averaging two feet in depth, easily forded in most places. Like most of
the western streams, the difference between high and low water mark is
very great. In the spring and early summer, when the snows of the
mountains melt, these streams become formidable rivers.
The soil along the bottoms appears to be very good; the grass grows
quite heavy, and hundreds of tons of hay are cut here by the settlers for
winter use.
The grazing is excellent, and numerous ranches have been started all
through the valley forthe purpose of raising stock. Even at this season of
the year a great variety of flowers covers the surface; the Composite and
Leguminose prevail in numbers, and yellow is the dominant color.
As we approached the foot-hills of the mountains the transition beds,
or No. 1, appeared on the ridge, rocks of more recent date having been
swept away by erosion. Fragments of pudding-stone and rusty-colored
masses of sandstone were scattered here and there, and beneath them
were exposed about 6¢0 feet of variegated, arenaceous layers, of uncer-
tain age, perhaps Jurassic; then a little higher up the mountain were ©
revealed the red beds, 1,500 feet or more in thickness, presenting a won-
derfully picturesque appearance. All these beds seemed to have been
lifted up ina nearly horizontal position, so that they present lofty escarp-
ments, sometimes cone-like or pyramidal in shape, revealing each layer
in the order of succession. The harder layers, yielding less readily to
atmospheric influences, project out from the sides, adding much to the
novelty of the view. Most of the beds incline from the flanks of the
mountain at various angles, 3°, 8°, and 15°, and then continue along the
river, following its windings for 25 miles among the mountains, almost
to the snow-covered peaks. On either side can be seen a number of
syenitic nuclei, but I could not find the unchanged rocks so clearly in
contact with them that I could define their relation to each other.
Before reaching the mountains we passed a series of alkaline lakes,
which are simply shallow depressions, receiving the drainage of a small
area without any outlet. From these shallow lakes the water is evapo-
rated, so that in the autumn the bottoms are dry and covered with a
white incrustation, which looks much like water at a distance. One of
these lakes contains water, and seems to have a fair supply at all sea-
sons. Itis about a mile in length and half a mile in width. In the
spring these lakes are quite large, and are filled by the overflow of the
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 85
branches of the Big Laramie, which are greatly swollen by the melting
snow. Great quantities of fish are swept into the lakes from the neigh-
boring streams, and in the autumn the water becomes so alkaline by
evaporation that the fish die in great numbers along the shores. It isa
curious fact that not a single trout has been taken from any of the
branches of the North Platte, unless a few have been caught in the
Sweetwater, while the little branches of the South Platte are filled with
them.
After entering the foot-hills of the mountains the Big Laramie and
its branches wind their way through the valleys or gorges formed by the
anticlinals and synelinals, produced by the upheaving of the unchanged
rocks. All the lower beds are more or less arenaceous and of a brick-
red color, with only three layers of light-gray sandstone. No fossils can
be found in any of the rocks, so that it is difficult to determine their age
with certainty. We believe that the lower beds are Carboniferous, and
have received their color from the fact that the sediments were doubt- .
less derived from the disintegration of the red syenitic rocks upon which
they rest. It is also quite possible that a portion of the red beds are
Triassic, and also that the yellow, gray, and rusty sands and sandstones
alone are Jurassic. Lying above the supposed Jurassic, and beneath the
well-defined Cretaceous, there is a considerable thickness of sandstones,
which I have calied transition beds, or No. 1, because they occupy the
position of the Lower Cretaceous No. 1, as shown on the Missouri River
and in Middle Kansas. These beds are well developed and quite uniform
in their lithological character all along the mountain-sides, from latitude
49° to the Arkansas, yet they have never yielded a single characteristic
fossil that would determine their age. I have, therefore, called them,
provisionally, Lower Cretaceous, or beds of transition from one great
period of geological history to another, aud the character of the sedi-
ments which compose them justify the name.
Near our camp on the Big Laramie, which was about thirty-five miles
southwest of Fort Sanders, and about fifteen miles above the foot of the
hills, were some singular illustrations of the dynamics of geology. On
the southwest side of the stream, and inclining eastward or southeast-
ward, the entire series of red and variegated beds are shown in their
order of suecession, 1,500 or 2,000-feet in height. At the foot of this
escarpment is a low.ridge of the red material, which is so grassed over
that the connection cannot be seen with the syenitic nucleus. Then
comes a belt of syenite, about 200 yards wide and three to five miles
long, the jagged masses of rock reaching a height of 1,000 feet or more,
and standing nearly vertical, or dipping slightly to the southeast.
Between the syenitic beds and the river are two low ridges of Cretaceous
Nos. 2 and 3, which seem to have been lifted up with the syenitic, but
to have fallen back, past a vertical position, so that they now incline
from the syenitic ridge, while on the opposite side the beds have a reg-
ular dip from the ridge. This peculiarity seems to be common in various
localities, owing to the fact that the metamorphic beds, which compose
the central portions of all the mountains, had suffered upheaval prior
to the deposition of the unchanged beds. Therefore, in the quiet eleva-
tion of the mountain-ranges, the beds are merely litted up in the direc-
tion of the dip of the older rocks, while they are, as it were, pushed
away from the opposite side, forming what may be called an abrupt or
incomplete anticlinal.
On the opposite, or south side of the river, there is a gradual slope
for 2,000 feet along the bed of the stream, the strata inclining 5°, until
we reach the nucleus of another mountain-range; so that we have here,
86 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
as it were, two huge monoclinals. These monoclinals form local anti-
clinals, inasmuch as in some places all the beds incline, for a short dis-
tance, from a common. axis.
On the north side of the river, and east from 10 to 20 miles, the flanks
of the mountain-ranges are covered with the unchanged rocks, which
give comparatively gentle grassy slopes, owing to the readiness with
which they yield to the atmospheric agencies. Through these slopes —
many little streams cut their way, forming huge cations, which reveal
along their sides the series of beds in their order of succession. From
a point near the source, for 20 or 30 miles, the river flows through a
synclinal valley, the conspicuous red beds dipping from either side.
Along the valley of the river are marked deposits of drift, the result of
glacial action; but the most beautiful feature is the well-defined ter-
races, about 50 feet high, and smoothed off like a lawn. The terraces
are covered with considerable deposit of drift, but when they are cut
through by streams the basis rocks are shown. The scenery on either
side of the valley is beautiful beyond description. On the west side are
the snow-clad peaks of the Medicine Bow Range, in the distance, with
numerous intervening lower ranges, ascending like steps.
The Snowy Mountains are mostly destitute of vegetation, and are
covered with eternal snows, but the lower mountain-ridges are covered
mostly with what may be called groves of pine. Indeed, the pine and
erassy openings are so arranged and proportioned that the whole scene
appears as if it might have been partially the work of art, and the trav-
eler imagines himself in a sparsely-settled, mountainous district, instead
of the unexplored Rocky Mountain region. The openings and grassy
slopes will make excellent pasture-grounds, for the grass is good, and
they are watered by the finest mountain-Streams and springs.
IT would again remark that the pine forests of these mountains must,
at some future period, be an object of earnest pursuit. Even now the
mountain-sides are full of tie-cutters, who cut and float hundreds of
thousands of ties down the mountain-streams, 20 to 100 miles, to the
Union Pacific Railroad, where they can be transported by rail to any
desired point.
In the moist ravines of the mountain-sides are patches of the aspen,
Populus tremuloides, which form a striking feature in the landscape,
from its peculiar mode of growth. They grow very thickly, seldom at-
taining a height of more than 40 or 50 feet, and not more than 12 or 18
inches in diameter, The bodies are very smooth and nearly white, and
the tops form a rounded cone-shaped mass of foliage. These aspen
groves are the favorite resort of elk, deer, grouse, and all kinds of
game.
On the east side, also, is the snow-clad range, which, in its southward
extension, includes Long’s Peak, and numerous peaks in the vicinity.
On either side of this lofty range, which often rises above the limit of
vegetation, are a number of successive lower ridges which descend like
steps. There is such a wonderful uniformity in the structure of these
mountains that a detailed description of a portion applies for the most
part to all.
Our course along the Cherokee trail was about southwest from the
Big Laramie River, over ridge after ridge, and after traveling 25 miles
we entered the North Park, through some of the most beautiful scenery
of that interesting region. From the summit of the high ridges on the
north we looked to the southward, over a series of lofty cones or pyra-
mids, as it were, all clothed with a dense growth of pine. The meta-
morphie rocks of which these are composed disintegrate so easily that
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 87
their surface is covered with a deposit of loose materials, as fine earth
and fragments of rocks.
The hills have, therefore, been so smoothed down that it is difficult
to see the basis rocks in continuous lines. We saw enough, however,
to show us that red syenite, in its various forms, constitutes the prin-
cipal rock, while now and then a bed of hornblende, gneiss, white quartz,
and greenstone occurs.
All through the mountain region are small open areas, sometimes on
the hills and sometimes in the lower ground, forming meadow-like spots
which the various kinds of animals love to frequent, to feed on the
abundant grass.
The old Cherokee trail derives its name from the fact that a party
of these Indians cut their way through the thick pines, about thirty years
ago, with a train of about 300 wagons. The traveling was difficult at
this time, owing to the ruggedness of the surface and the obstruction
from the fallen pines.
So far as I could ascertain, the trend of the upheaved mountain-ridges
of syenite was nearly east and west, and the dip nearly north.
The North Park is oval or nearly quadrangular in shape, is about 50
miles in extent, from east to west, and 30 miles from north to south,
occupying an area of about 1,500 square miles. Viewing it from one of
the high mguntains on its border, it appears like a vast depression
which might once have formed the bed of a lake. Its surface is rather
rugged, yet there are broad bottoms along the streams, especially the
North Platte and its branches. Scarcely a tree is to be seen over the
. whole extent, while the mountains which wall it in on every side are
dotted with a dense growth of pine. The grass grows in the park quite
abundantly, often yielding at least two tons to the acre. Streams of
the purest water flow through the park, and there are some of the finest
springs I have yet seen, a few of them forming good-sized streams where
they issue from the ground. I am quite confident that this entire park
would make an excellent grazing region for at least six or eight months
of the year. Myriads of antelopes were quietly feeding in this great
pasture-ground like flocks of sheep.
The soil is very rich, but the seasons must be too brief for the suc-
eessful cultivation of any crops. Indeed, there is a frost, there nearly
every night, and snow falls every month.in the year.
As I have before stated, the park is surrounded with lofty ranges of
mountains as by gigantic walls. On the north and east side may be
seen the snow-covered ranges, rising far above all the rest, their sum-
mits touching the clouds.
On the west side there is also a short snowy range. The snowy ranges
on the eastern border of the park have their north sides abrupt, and the
south sides less so, as seen from a distance, as if the massive piles in-
clined southward.
All along the north side of the park the lower hills incline southwest-
ward, while the higher ranges are quite steep and correspond, in the
apparent dip of the beds, with the lofty snow-clad mountains on the east,
which incline south or southwestward. The inclination of the meta-
morphic beds composing the higher ranges is from 60° to 80°.
On the west side of the park long ridges seem to come into the park,
so that they die out in the plain, forming a sort of ‘‘en échelon” ar-
rangement. Itis due to this fact that the area inclosed receives its oval
shape.
The general trend of all the continuous mountain-ranges is nearly
88 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
northwest and southeast on all sides, but there are many local dips and
variations from this direction.
I was much interested to know whether any of the unchanged rocks
which are so well developed in the Laramie Plains occur in the North
Park. I found that the entire series of red and variegated beds, includ-
ing a portion of the Cretaceous strata, were fully represented, all inclin-
ing from the flanks of the mountains and gradually assuming a horizon-
tal position, or nearly so, toward the central portion of the park.
The transition beds, or Lower Cretaceous No. 1, form quite conspicuous
ridges, inclining 19° to the southwest. They are composed of a very
beautiful pudding-stone, an aggregation of small rounded pebbles, most
of them flint, cemented together with a siliceous paste.
On the north side are quite large areas covered with loose sand, whick
is blown about by the wind, resembling the sand-hills on the Niobrara
River. A close examination of the sand shows thatit is composed mostly
of rounded particles of quartz and feldspar. The surface sustains little
or no vegetation, presenting a peculiar barren appearance, the sand
moving readily with the wind. !
Hitherto it has been impossible to color on any map the geological
formations of any part of this mountain region, and no information has
ever been given in regard to the structure of the North Park. It will
be impossible even now, with the imperfect topography of any of the
maps, to color the geology in detail; but these explorations will enable
me to fix the outline of the formations, in a general way, with a good
degree of accuracy.
FORT SANDERS, WYOMING TERRITORY,
September 25, 1868.
Siz: I have the honor to transmit the concluding portion of my field-
report of Wyoming Territory. Although written quite hastily and under
pressure of other duties in the field, | am sure it must commend itself
to your attention, from the fact that it is descriptive of a portion of the
West rich in coal and iron, but about which there was previously very
little information of a definite character.
I shall be able to color on a map the outlines of the great geological
formations as far west as Fort Bridger. My collections are getting to
be quite large. Professor Agassiz, who is here now, regards them as
very remarkable and entirely new to science. Both the professors,
Hall and Agassiz, have given their testimony to the truthfulness of my
scientific labors here in the most emphatic terms.
Colonel Smith is doing most excellent work in securing materials for
a map of this portion of the West. He is now copying the map of the
Union Pacific Railroad office. He will be able to construct a map of
this portion of the West which wil! be far in advance of any preceding
one.
No draft has yet come to me from the United States Treasury up to
this date. I have borrowed money from bank at 12 per cent. discount,
and drawn on my friends until I am very much embarrassed. I do not °
like to go on my Colorado work until I know something more definite.
Should you wish any more preliminary reports from the field, please
mention it in your next communication. I have hurried this last one
so as to get it to you before the 1st of October.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 89
We have had a severe snow-storm, 6 inches on the plains, and 12
inches in the mountains. The mountains are now covered with snow.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant.
BF. V. HAYDEN,
United States Geologist.
Hon. JOSEPH 8. WILSON,
Commissioner General Land- Office.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1868.
Pursuing our course westward, across the Laramie Plains, from Fort
Sanders, we took the overland stage-road, which continues near the foot
of the mountains on the south side of the plains, and usually from 5 to -
15 miles south of the railroad-route. I give my notes of the different ©
routes in detail, from the fact that my explorations extended over a
region almost entirely new, and also because there have existed no defi-
nite data which could be used in coloring a geological map.
As I have before remarked, the Laramie range of mountains forms
one of the most complete and beautiful anticlinals seen in the Rocky
Mountains. This range extends from a point near the Sweetwater,
southeastward, in the form of a curve, until it is lost in the main Rocky
Mountain range near Long’s Peak. It forms a conspicuous wall, closing
_ in the northeast and east side of the Laramie Plains.
The nucleus is red syenite for the most part, while from the margins
incline, from eitber side, unchanged rocks belonging to the Carbonifer-
ous, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and, in some localities, Tertiary.
These beds incline at different angles, depending upon the character
ot the elevating force.
The plains of Laramie, as this area inclosed by mountains is called,
exhibit a broad undulating, almost treeless surface, about 60 miles in
length from east to west, and 50 miles from north to south.
From Fort Sanders, along the stage-route to Little Laramie, the dis-
tance is about 18 miles. The surface is undulating, but all the slopes
are moderate in the inclination. ‘The basis rocks are all of the Creta-
ceous period. In the banks of the Big Laramie may be seen a small
thickness of the black slates of No. 2, and here and there are isolated
hills with the yellowish chalky layers of No. 5. Some of the higher
ridges, which extend down into the plains from the foot of the mount-
ane reveal here and there the rusty yellowish arenaceous marls of
0. O.
From Little Laramie Station to Cooper’s Creek it is15 miles; over all
this distance the Cretaceous rocks prevail, belonging for the most part
to the upper portion of that period. There are isolated patches of Ter-
tiary probably overlapping the Cretaceous beds. About two miles north
of the station, on the west bank of Cooper’s Creek, an excellent coal
mine has .been opened, with a bed nine feet in thickness. The coal is
quite pure, compact, but rather light. It burns very well, and though
I do not think the bed will be continuous over a large area, it will yield
a vast amount of fuel.
The evidence of drift action in the valley is very striking. The valley
of Cooper’s Creek forms a triangular area about five miles wide at the
base of the mountains and extending down the creek to a gorge through
which the stream passes, a distance of eight or ten miles. On the south
side there is a hill 500 feet high, with the summit covered with a heavy
deposit of drift, and the surface literally paved with worn rocks.
90 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
On the northwest side there is a low ridge, the summit of which is
composed of Upper Cretaceous rocks. ‘The valley as well as the high
ground is covered with the drift material. The evidence seems to be
clear that much of this drift deposit is local and derived from the mount-
ains in the immediate vicinity.
All along the base of the mountains, interrupted occasionally, is a
deep valley varying from three to ten miles wide, which seems to have
been scooped out as it were by forces which must have come from the
mountain-ranges. " .,
At right angles to this valley, and extending down into the plain, are
numerous other valleys of erosion, walled on each side by high narrow
ridges. Upon the sides of the ridges facing the mountains are the
heaviest deposits of drift, extending to the summits of the hills, while
the opposite sides are smooth and usually covered with grass.
Sometimes these hills have quite gentle slopes, facing the mountain-
sides, and are so thickly covered with loose rocks that no vegetation
can gain a foot-hold, while the opposite sides descend abruptly and are
clothed with vegetation, with scarcely a pebble on the surface.
Whether all the drift phenomena of this region are due to these local
influences I will not now attempt to decide, but we believe that the
greater portion of them may be accounted for from the joint action of
water and ice operating from the direction of the mountain-ranges in
the immediate vicinity. In my final report I shall attempt to discuss
these points more in detail.
Westward from Cooper’s Creek, eleven miles, we come to the deep,
wooded, and somewhat fertile valley of Rock Creek.
Soon after leaving Cooper’s Creek west we observe the Tertiary rocks
beginning to overlap, and six miles distant we come to a most excellent
exposure of the coal beds. The slopes are all so gentle, and the super-
ficial drift deposits cover the surface to such an extent, that I found it
difficult to secure a connected section of the beds in their order of super-
position.
The rusty arenaceous marls of No. 5 seem to pass gradually up into
the coal-bearing layers without any perceptible break and without a
very marked change in the sediments. The lower beds of the Tertiary,
as seen here, are composed of a fine brown grit, very loose, but filled
with irregular hard masses of rocks, sometimes in layers extending for
a short distance, but usually in the form of concretions. These conere-
tions have concentric coats, or they are composed of thin laminz which
separate very readily.
Underneath the coal there is a bed of drab clay varying in thickness
from three to five feet. When the coal is exposed to the atmosphere or
the waters are permitted to permeate the overlying strata it has a rusty,
dull-brown appearance, but on penetrating the earth it soon reveals its
bright color and compact structure. Above the coal there is another
bed of drab, indurated clay, and then over this a loose grit with layers
of hard sandstone.
The clay bed above the coal is full of nodules of iron, also rusty sandy
concretions. The dip is above 10° to the northeast from the mountains.
About a mile west of the opening described above there is another out-
cropping of coal which has been wrought to some extent. This bed is
divided by about two and a half feet of drab arenaceous clay. The upper
portion measures about five feet, the lower six to eight feet, so that we
have ten to twelve feet of solid coal; some portions look like dull bitu-
minous coal, others resembling anthracite very much in appearance.
Over the coal is the usual drab, indurated clay, filled with vegetable
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. om
matter in thin, shaly layers, as if composed of the broken stems and
leaves of plants. Above this, also, is a bed of loose, rusty-brown sand,
with sandstone and rusty iron-stone, and still higher up is a bed of very
hard siliceous rock, compact, of a lighter brown color. The inclina-
tion of these beds is not great, not more than from 3° to 5°. At the
immediate entrance of this mine the dip is not more than 5°. The
coal can be easily worked and the mine well drained. The roof is simply
indurated clay, but this can be made firm with wooden supports.
The coal is of the best quality, close, compact, and moderately heavy,
but, like most of the Tertiary coals, crumbles on exposure to the atmos-
phere, as is shown by the great quantities which have fallen to pieces
at the mouth of the mine. Even when the masses of coal have crumbled
in pieces some of the fragments retain the shining black color, though
most of it becomes a dull brown. Iam inclined to regard this bed as
the most important one in this region, and as holding the lowest position
geologically. It is probably the same one that is wrought so success-
fully at Carbon, on the line of the Union Pacific Railroad.
Nearly all the land between Cooper’s Creek and Kock Creek has been
taken possession of as coal-lands, in claims of 160 acres each.
So far as I could determine, Rock Creek Valley is about three to five
miles wide, and is evidently a valley of erosion.
On the west side there is a high ridge, plainly Tertiary, and at least
500 feet high, which slopes down to the creek.
In some places the strata dip 10° or 12°, but the average dip is not
more than 5°. West of Rock Creek there seems to be an unusual
thickness of sandstone, or loose fine sand. For ten miles or more to the
westward there is a large area, on both sides of the stage-road, covered
‘with massive piles of sandstone, most of it comeretions of a rusty-brown
color.
In these sandstones are thin layers, with a small amount of calcareous
matter, which have preserved great quantities of deciduous leaves.
They indicate the Tertiary age of these rocks, and also show that they
jut far up close to the foot-hills of the mountains.
These massive sandstones give a very rugged aspect to the surface
of this region.
The Tertiary strata are very heavy, varying from 1,500 to 2,000 feet in
thickness in the aggregate, and composed mostly of alternate beds of
rusty-yellow sandstone, and greenish-gray indurated sands and clays.
All the beds incline slightly from the mountains about northeast.
From Laramie River to the Medicine Bow we see no indication of the
red beds, though they must exist higher up in the mountains.
On the south side of our road the slopes are very gentle, the hills
rising up gradually like steps, and all the elevations, and even the
gorges through which the little streams flow down from the mountains,
are so covered with débris that all their rough points are smoothed off,
and so covered with grass that it is difficult to find the basis rocks.
Bven Elk Mountain, which must rise at least 1,500 feet above the bed
of the medicine Bow at the stage-station, has been so smoothed down by
drift action, and now covered with grass, that the rocks cannot well be
seen.
North of the road the Tertiary rocks made very ragged “ bad lands,”
and the bare surface and conical hills give to this district the same
gloomy bareness but picturesque appearance of the country occupied by
the same formations on the Upper Missouri.
On the night of September 4 we camped on Medicine Bow River,
@
92 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
near the foot of Elk Mountain. This is quite a large stream, with clear
pure water, fringed with a wide belt of bitter cotton- wood.
Hilk Mountain forms a short range, with the highest point facing the
river, and resembles the short range with abrupt front east of the Little
Laramie River.
The metamorphic rocks have been elevated, while the unchanged Ter-
tiary beds jut up against the base without the usual appearance of a
series of upheaved ridges, as we find in approaching the nucleus of the
mountains. This range is only 10 or 20 miles long. It forms what I
have called an abrupt anticlinal—that is, on one side all the rocks seem
to have been dropped down at the base and the mountain-side, present-
ing an almost vertical escarpment, while the opposite side slopes gently
down, revealing the upturned edges of all the unchanged rocks in the
region, reposing upon, or inclining at, moderate angles from the meta-
morphic rocks.
The numerous branches which constitute the sources of the Medicine
Bow River form a broad valley scooped out, evidently, from the yielding
rocks, so that Elk Mountain is to a certain extent an isolated range.
The Tertiary beds dip away from the foot of the mountain’ northward,
and passing across the ridge we find them composed of a series of brown
and dark-brown indurated clays and sands, with layers of more or less
laminated rusty sandstone, very fine, but with a little lime and a strong
tendency to a concretionary structu ne varying in thickness from 2 feet
to 10 or 12.
Sometimes these rocky layers swell out to a considerable thickness,
then again diminish until they are lost in the leams, sands, and clays.
They usually protect the ridges from wearing down and show more dis-
tinctly the dip of the beds, which here is 30° to 40°, about 20° west of
north. Elk Mountain seems to incline about northwest and to face
southeast, the southeast front being abrupt, while the northwest slopes
gently down so as to show clearly that portion of the anticlinal.
In the Tertiary ridges just described are quite extensive beds of lig-
nite. The first ridge, near the Medicine Bow stage-station, has a bed of
eoal six feet thick, and the harder layers above and below the coal are
filled with indistinct vegetable impressions.
The interval between the first main ridge and the second is about one
and a half miles, and in that interval are shown several beds of lignite
and layers of light-gray fine-grained siliceous rocks.
The second main ridge inclines three to five degrees, and this is com-
posed of a variety of beds, the general color being brown or light-drab,
while the harder layers are rusty sandstone.
One bed, perhaps 50 feet in thickness, is composed of fine gray indu-
rated sand with a greenish tinge. At the summit of this ridge is a layer
of melted or baked rocks, caused by the burning out of the coal-beds
beneath. Impressions of deciduous leaves are found here in consider-
able numbers. Some of the harder layers are composed of an agere-
gate of the crystals of feldspar and quartz, as if the sediments were
derived directly from the disintegration of the metamorphic rocks.
The concretionary rocks break in pleces ina variety. of ways; Some of
them exfoliate, as it were—that is, they are formed of concentric coats
whieh fall off from the nucleus ; others seem to split in thin lamine like
cutting an apple into thin slices; others break into irregular fragments. ©
All exhibit the same rusty-yellow color on exposure. This is doubtless
due to the decomposition of the sulphuret of iron, which seems to be to —
a greater or less extent in all the rocks. On coming in contact with
the atmosphere or moisture this sulphuret of iron becomes the oxide of
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 98
iron, giving to all the rocks of this region a more or less rusty-yellow
color.
In the vicinity of the coal-beds are found considerable quantities of
brown iron-ore. Large masses were found scattered over the top of one
of the ridges which had been melted by the ignition of the coal. The
mean trend of the upheaved ridges is about northeast and southwest.
West of the Medicine Bow the aspect of the country is that of utter
barrenness and gloom; scarcely any vegetation growing except sage and
greasewood. Now and then a little lake is seen, but from the alkaline
character of the water and the absence of any vegetation around their
borders they only add to the dreariness of the scene. The dearth of
animal life is equal to that of the vegetable. Now and then the small
sage-rabbit, Lepus artemesia ; the little rock-squirrel, Tamias quadrivit-
tatus ; and the sage-hen, or the cock of the plains, are seen.
A few miles west of Fort Halleck there is a very conspicuous hill on
the south side of the road, the strata of which incline 25°, though some
beds near the summit dip 352. This is called Sheep Mountain. The most
conspicuous bed in this hill is a yellow-gray sandstone, 300 to 500 feet
thick, the age of which I could not determine.
From Medicine Bow to Pass Creek, a distance of 27 miles, the road
passes through a wide valley, between two upheaved ridges, and nearly
on a line between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary beds.
About five miles before reaching Pass Creek the Cretaceous beds show
themselves clearly on both sides-of the road. Therusty sands and sand-
stones of No. 5 are seen on the right side, while dipping from the flank of
Sheep Mountain, on the left, are well shown the clays of No. 2, and the
lighter chalky slates of No. 3.
All along Elk Mountain the red beds appear high up on the flanks,
visible, but not conspicuous, and they do not, as usual, color the débris
at the foot of the hills. There is an unusual accumulation of Cretaceous
and Tertiary in this region, at least 5,000 feet in thickness of each.
Very nearly north of Pass Creek we have an uplift of yellow, rather
fine-grained sandstone, which presents a front like a wall, built up with
- vertical columns of every form left after erosion.
The sandstone must have been 150 feet thick. It inclines nearly north
at an angle of 19°. As we emerge from the hills near Pass Creek, we
come into a broad open plain, and the ridges of upheaval seem to extend
off ‘“‘en échelon,” as it were, gently bending from the west northward,
forming one side or rim of the plain. These ridges of upheaval extend oft
for miles like waves. They are composed of large numbers of alternate
hills of loose yellow sand and indurated clay and yellow sandstone, the
whole readily yielding to atmospheric influences, and then the hills as well
as the valleys are covered with a great depth of fine sand, from which
the harder beds of sandstone preject in long lines or walls. These ridges
vary in distance from 100 to 1,000 yards apart, a valley always interven-
ing, a slope on one side and an abrupt front on the other; that is, they
form monoclinals. The broad plain into which we emerge west of Elk
Mountain must be one of depression, or a large area not elevated with
the surrounding country, for the ridges of elevation which make so
marked a feature all around it die out gradually in the plain. On the
east side the ends of the ridges fade out in the level plain, but on the
north border they lie along nearly parallel.
As far as the eye can reach.this plain is perfectly level; no cuts or
valleys of erosion to show the underlying rocks. There is a thick de-
posit of drift over the whole surface. This vast barren sage-plain
94 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
stretches far westward to Bitter Creek and Green River, with very little
grass or water for the traveler.
From our camp of September 4, on Pass Creek, we traveled nearly
north or northwest to the railroad. The long ridges seemed to dip away
from the open plain. The trend of alone ridge of greenstone was nearly
east and west.
The main trend of these ridges is a little north of west, and the dip,
of course, east of north.
Looking at the east or southeast side of the plain the mountains seem
to rise in long ridges, step by step, and to trend about northeast and
southwest, the southwest end sloping gently down into the plain. When
we look at details it is almost impossible to discover any system in the
trend or inclination of the beds, except in a general way. The aggre-
gate of the mountain-ranges will be found to have a definite trend, as
is Shown on our topographical maps. The general trend of mountain-
chains is nearly northwest and southeast; butif we examine the smaller
ridges in detail, we shall find that the forces operated from beneath the
crust in almost every direction.
Tt becomes, therefore, quite important to describe the geology of every
locality with minuteness, even at the risk of repetition and tediousness.
From all these detailed descriptions may be derived some important
generalizations.
The rusty caleareous sandstones which compose the inner lower ridges
facing the plain are undoubtedly Upper Cretaceous, and incline 30° to
45°, "These rusty sandstones form a belt about one and a half mile
wide, the intercalated beds being composed of loose yellow arenaceous
material, which is covered with grass, the harder layers merely project-
ing above the surface in patches here and there. Very few fossils can
be. detected in these beds. I found an Jnoceramus, a Baculite, and a
species of Ostrea, sufficient to indicate their age. One of these ridges
of Cretaceous sandstone is very conspicuous, and forms a long wall on
the north side of the plains, extending about five miles, and then dies
out.
We have here also several synelinal and anticlinal valleys, trending
nearly east and west, but there is an anticlinal valley which commences
at the foot of Elk Mountain, and strikes northwestward to the Sweet-
water Mountains. This anticlinal valley may be seen along the Union
Pacific Railroad as far as Rawling’s Springs Station, when it begins to
fade out in that direction. It forms the chain of connection, however,
of the elevating forces which raised those mountain-ranges, linking the
main ranges south of the plains with those of the north.
Having given in the preceding pages the details of the geological
character of the country along the line of the overland stage-route, as.
far west as Green River, we will return to Fort Sanders, and follow the
line of the Union Pacific Railroad to the same point. And I would here
remark that so little is known even of the outline of the great formations
along this route, that any information, however brief, will be of interest.
The facilities ‘afforded by this road ‘are bringing into this region emi-
nent men from all portions of the world, and the singular unique geolog-
ical and geographical features which meet the eye on every side excite
marked attention and inquiry.
From Laramie City to Cooper’s Lake Station, a distance of 25.6 miles,
there is a good degree of uniformity in the character of the country as
we proceed westward,
On our right the Laramie range appears like a wall bending outward
to the northwest and west, and finally ceases to be seen.
\
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 95
Near the crossing of the Big Laramie River, we see on our right the
red beds, which are somewhat marked; we can follow these up to the
foot of the by their peculiar brick- red color. Here come the
Cretaceous rocks, espevially the upper members of the group. Very
soon after crossing the Laramie River they continue to a point about
five miles east of Como, where the Tertiary beds overlap. Isolated
patches of Tertiary appear before reaching Rock Creek. At the quarry
the black slates of No. 2 are quite conspicuous, but the sandstones which
-are transported to Laramie and to Cheyenne are most probably Lower
Tertiary. They are filled with fragments of stems and leaves, some of
which are distinct enough to determine.
The surface of the country for the first 25 miles after leaving Laramie
westward presents a cheerful appearance. The basis rocks are com-
posed of the arenaceous mar!s and clays of the Upper Cretaceous period,
and these, yielding readily to atmospheric agencies, are worn down so
that all the hills and ridges are smoothed off and rounded, and covered
with a good growth of grass. Indeed, the county is in striking con-
trast with that farther to the west.
After leaving Cooper’s Lake Station, we begin to approach the black
clays of No. 2, and then beyond the Tertiary beds; and from thence to
Bitter Creek we pass over one of the most barren, desolate, forbidding
regions I have ever seen west of the Mississippi.
From Cooper’s Lake Station toa point about 35 miles, the black
plastic clays of the Lower Cretaceous prevail, giving to the surface of the
country the usual dark, gloomy, sterile appearance.
Very little vegetation is to be seen; no timber; and the prevailing
shrubs are the greasewood and sage.
The waters of all the streams are full of alkali, and the standing
pools have the color of lye.
Between Lookout Station and Rock Creek are some cuts through the
rocks, which revealed many beautiful Cretaceous fossils, as Ammonites,
Baculites, Inoceramus, Belemites, &c., all of which are characteristic of
the chalk period in the West.
From a point about 10 miles east of Como to Saint Mary’s Station, a
distance of about 50 miles, the Tertiary formations occupy the country
with the peculiar sands and sandstone and clays, and numerous coal-
beds. The most marked development of the coal-beds is at the Carbon
Station, about 80 miles west of Laramie Station. The rocks incline
nearly southeast, or south and east. Three entrances have been made to
the mine, and the bed is nine feet thick. The openings follow the dip,
and consequently descend. The mines are about 3,000 yards from the
railroad, but a side track has already been laid to them. More than 1 000
tons of coal have already been taken, and the Union Pacific Railroad
Company are ready to contract for any amount that can be supplied to
them. The coal at Carbon is of the best quality of Tertiary splint, very
compact and pure. It is not as hard as anthracite, but the miners in-
formed me that it was more difficult to work than the bituminous coals
of Pennsylvania. There are many old miners here who have spent their
lives in the mines of Pennsy yivania and England, andinform me that this
coal is superior to any of the bituminous coals, and ranksnext to anthra-
cite. It is used to a great extent on the locomotives, and the engineers
speak in high terms of it, while for domestic purposes the universal
testimony is that it ranks next to anthracite. Over the coal there is
what the miners call slate; this is somewhat earthy, breaking off into
Slabs, showing woody fiber, and much of it looking like charred wood or
soft charcoal. As we pass up fragments of deciduous leaves are seen
96 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
more distinctly, and finally the whole graduates into a dark-drab clay.
At the bottom of the coal there is also a kind of mud shale. In the beds
above and below the coal are thousands of impressions of deciduous
leaves, as Populus, Platanus, Tilia, &c. Some of the layers of rocks, two
to four inches in thickness, are wholly composed of these leaves in a
good state of preservation, and so perfect are they that they could not
have been transported any great distance.
This western country will eventually be one of the most important
coal-mining regions in America.
The Union Pacific Railroad Company has placed its coal interests in
chargeof Mr. Thomas Wardell, anold English miner, and he is constantly
enployed in prospecting and opening mines the whole length of the
road. At Carbon he has erected six pretty cottages as residences for
the miners, and a number more are in process of building at Separation
and Point of Rocks, and other little mining villages will be built up.
All the apparatus for permanent and extended mining operations will
be gradually introduced.
Nearly all the wood now along the line of the road has to be trans-
ported for a distance of 10 to 40 miles, and in two years from this time
most of it within a reasonable distance of the road will have been con-
sumed. The future success of this great thoroughfare is, therefore,
wholly dependent on the supply of this mineral fuel, vand its importance
cannot be too highly estimated.
From Saint Mary? s to Rawling’s Springs, a distance of about 30 miles,
the railroad passes over rocks of Cretaceousage. No coal beds need be
sought for in the immediate vicinity of the railroad, although it is quite
possible that on the north side of the road isolated patches of Tertiary
containing coal may be found. The railroad, from a point about eight
miles east of Benton to Rawling’s Springs, passes through one of the
most beautiful anticlinal valleys I have seen in the West. On either side
the rusty-gray sands and sandstones dip away from the line of the road
at an angle of 10 to 15 degrees. This anticlinal valley is most marked
near Fort Steele, at the crossing of the North Platte. About five miles
east of Fort Steele I made a careful examination ofa railroad-cut through
a ridge of upheaval, which inclined about south or a little east of south.
We have exposed here, commencing at the bottom, Ist, gray fine-
grained sandstone, rather massive, and good for building purposes, and
easily worked, 80 feet thick, dip 25° ; Od, : a seam two feet thick, irregular,
black, indurated slaty clay, with layers of gypsum all through it; then
two feet of arenaceous clay; 5d, 10 feet of rusty-gray compact sand-
stone; 4th, eight feet clay and hard arenaceous layers, very dark color,
passing up into harder layers, which split into thin lamine, the surfaces
of which are covered with bits of vegetable matter; 5th, about 50 feet
of rusty yellowish-gray sandstone; all these sandstones contain bits of
vegetable matter scattered through them; 6th, 100 to 150 feet of steel-
brown indurated clay, with some iron concretions ; ; the clay is mostly
nodular in form; 7th, a dark-brown arenaceous mud rock, quite hard,
three feet. From bed fifth [ obtained numerous species of marine shells,
among them a species of Ostrea and Inoceramus in great numbers. The
upper surfaces of the hard clay layers appeared as though crowded with
impressions of sea-weeds or mud markings.
In another railroad cutting, about four miles east of Rawling’s Springs,
I obtained the same Inoceramus and_.a large species of Ammonite. These
fossils are quite important as establishing the age of these rocks.
At Rawling’s Springs are some very interesting geological features.
At this locality the elevatory forces were exerted more powerfully than
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. Od
atany other point along the railroad from Laramie Station to Green
River. The entire series of rocks are exposed here, from the syenites to
the Cretaceous, inclusive. The railroad passes through an anticlinal
opening. :
On the south side of the road are a series of variegated gray, brown,
and reddish siliceous rocks inclining southwest about 3° to 10°. Rest-
ing upon them isa very hard bluish limestone which is undoubtedly Car-
boniferous, though I was unable to find any fossils in this region.
On the north side of the road the ridges of upheaval strike off toward
the northwest, rising to a height of 1,200 to 1,500 feet above the road.
If we examine these ridges with care we shall find that the red syenite
is exposed in a number of places, and we have the opportunity here of
- studying the relations which the unchanged rock sustains to the meta-
morphic. ;
The syenitic beds dip 70° about southeast, while the unchanged beds
rest upon them in nearly a horizontal position. The layers which rest
directly on. the syenite are a beautiful pudding-stone made up of rounded
quartz pebbles and feldspar; above are layers of fine siliceous rock with
thin intercalations of clay. The whole series have the position and
appearance of Potsdam sandstone, and I am inclined to believe that we
have here a representation of the Lower Silurian period. In all cases
these rocks repose on the upturned edges of the syenite; sometimes
nearly horizontal, again inclining 5° to 10°. In one or two localities
these Lower Silurian beds are lifted up 1,000 feet or more, nearly horizon-
tally, while on the sides of the mountain the beds are broken off so as to
incline 50° to 60°, or nearly vertical.
The siliceous rocks make most excellent building-stone, and are much
used by the railroad company. They reach a thickness of 500 to 800
feet. There is every variety of tidal stratification, mud workings, wave
and ripple marks, &c. On these siliceous beds rests the blue limestone,
30 to 40 feet thick, and above are variegated sandstones and the red beds
in the distance.
From the tops of these ridges one can see numbers of synclinal and
monoclinal valleys; I mean by monoclinal valleys the intervals between
upheaved ridges where the beds in each ridge dip in the same direction.
There is one here’ which stretches far to the northwest, three to five
miles in width, and so smoothed by erosion that it forms a level grassy
prairie.
In all these upheaved ridges the rocks afford wonderful proofs of ero-
sion. The Silurian (?) beds exhibit the combined action of water and ice
in amore powerful manner than the more recent beds, even.
Everywhere, however, the evidences of erosion during the Drift period
are on a gigantic scale. Some of the beds are smoothed off as if they
had been planed; others are furrowed.
There is a fine sulphur spring here which gives the name to the station.
The water issues from under the bed of blue limestone. The water is
clear and possesses medicinal properties.
About four miles west of Rawling’s Springs the Tertiary beds begin to
overlap; but in the distance, on either side, are lofty ridges which are
composed of Cretaceous, and perhaps rocks of even older date.
South of Separation, 15 miles, there is a ridge that is at least 1,000
feet high, which is certainly formed of Lower Cretaceous, and probably
also of that great thickness of sandstones and clays which holds a posi-
tion between the transition beds No. 1 (?) and the brick-red beds.
Near Separation, about ten miles west of Rawling’s Springs, a coal
mine has been opened with a bed of coal 11 feet in thickness. I am in-
7 H
98 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
clined to believe that it is really the same bed as the one opened at Car-
bon, and also near Rock Creek and Cooper’s Creek. The strata dip
nearly west about 10°. The mine has been opened from the summit of
the hill, and the bed followed down the inclination, so that all the coal
will have to be taken up the grade, and the difficulties in drainage will
be greatly increased. The coal is of most excellent quality. There is,
above and below the coal, the usual drab indurated clay. Below the clay |
is a bed of gray ferruginous sandstone. On the summits of the hills in
the vicinity are layers of fine-grained siliceous rocks with arenaceous
concretions, some of them containing impressions of deciduous leaves.
The Tertiary beds lie in ridges across the country, for the beds are
lifted up in every direction. A more desolate region I have not seen in
the West. Nothing seems to grow here but sage-bushes, and in some of
the valleys they grow very large.
All over the surface, on the hills, in the plains, are great quantities of
water-worn pebbles.
_ Many of these valleys are literally scooped out by the erosive forces,
not by any power now acting, but waters far in excess of the present
day in this region.
Some of the widest and deepest of these valleys do not contain any
running streams at this time.
The layers of fine-grained sandstone on the hills in the vicinity con-
tain more or less impressions of leaves, like those of the Populus and
Platanus, in a good state of preservation.
Continuing our course west of Separation, the dip of the Tertiary beds
diminishes, until, before reaching Creston, about 13 miles west of Sep-
aration, they lie in nearly a horizontal position, and all the surrounding
country presents more the appearance of a plain. At this station the
Union Pacific Railroad Company have dug a well, and at the depth of
83 feet a coal-bed was struck, into which the workmen had penetrated
three feet while I was there. The coal that was brought up was much
of the same quality as that near Separation, and it is probably the same
bed. If this should prove to be the same bed, coal must underlie the
whole country at the depth of about 80 feet, over an area of at least 100
square miles. This would prove a most important discovery to the rail-
road company, inasmuch asit would show the inexhaustibility of a min-
eral upon which the very existence of the road depends in future. In
digging the well, beds of bluish arenaceous clay were passed through,
then black clay with carbonaceous matter all through it. Just over the
coal was some fine bluish indurated clay, with very distinct impressions
of leaves.
The railroad cuts and the wells show very distinctly the character of
the intermediate softer beds.
The erosion has been so great in this country, and all the hills and
canons are so covered with débris, that it is almost impossible to obtain
a Clear idea of the color and composition of the intermediate softer beds.
The harder beds, as sandstones, &c., project, and are accessible to the
eye without much excavation.
The Tertiary formations, both marine and fresh water, occupy the
whole country along the line of the railroad to Green River, and, prob-
ably, to a greater or less extent, to a point within thirty or forty miles
of Salt Lake.
From Creston to Bitter Creek Station, a distance of 45 miles, the beds
are mostly fresh water, and hold nearly a horizontal position. West of
Bitter Creek we return to the marine Tertiary again, and the beds dip 3°
to 6° nearly east. We have, therefore, between Rawling’s Springs and
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. _ we)
Green River, a soft synclinal basin, the marine Tertiary dipping west
about 10° on the east side, and the same marine beds inclining east 3°
to 6° on the west side, while at Table Rock, Red Desert, and Washakie
there is a large thickness of purely fresh-water shells, of the generz Pa-
ludina, Unio, Melania, &c. Table Rock is a square butte, rising up above
the level of the road about 400 feet. This is composed of beds of sand-
stone, which, in many instances, is little more than an aggregate of
fresh-water shells.
After leaving Bitter Creek Station, the hills approach nearer the road
and show the character of the marine Tertiary again.
Seams of coal appear in many places, while yellow arenaceous marls,
light-gray sand with indurated clay beds, and more or less thick layers
of sandstene, occur. The dip of the beds varies from 3° to 6° east or
nearly east.
At Black Butte Station on Bitter Creek, and 15 miles west of Bitter
Creek Station, there is a bed of yellow sandstone, irregular in thickness
and in part concretionary. It is full of rusty concretions of sandstone
of every size from an inch to several feet in diameter. They are mostly
spherical in shape, and when broken open reveal a large cavity filled
with yellow clay or dust of oxide of iron.
This sandstone is 150 to 200 feet in thickness, forms nearly vertical
bluffs, and is now, by the action of atmospheric influences, worn into
the most fantastic shapes. Above this are sands, clays, sandstones of
every texture, coal-beds, &c. One of these coal-beds near the summit
of the hill has been burned, baking and melting the superincumbent
beds.
I found in several layers the greatest abundance of deciduous leaves,
and among them a palni-leaf, probably the same species which occurs in
the coal-beds on the Upper Missouri, and named Sabal campbelli. There
is a seam near one of the coal-beds made up of a small species of Ostrea.
The railroad passes down the Bitter Creek Valley, which has worn
through the Tertiary beds, and on the east side the high wails can be
seen inclining at smallangles. As we pass down the valley toward Green
River, the inclination brings to view lower and lower beds. ‘These are
all plainly marine Tertiaries, while an abundance of impressions of plants
are found everywhere; no strictly fresh-water shells oceur, but seams of
Ostrea of various’ species. There are also extensive beds of hard, flat
table-rocks, which would make the best of flagging-stones. On the sur-
face are most excellent illustrations of wave-ripple marks, and at one
locality what appears to be tracks of a most singular character. One of
the tracks appears to have been made by a soliped, and closely resembles
the tracks of mules in the soft ground on the river-bottom. Others seem
to belong to a huge bird; another to a four-toed pachydermatous ani-
mal. I have obtained careful drawings of these tracks, as well as speci-
mens of them.
In the final report some detailed sections of these Tertiary beds will
be given; yet I am convinced that local sections are not important.
The character of the beds is so changeable that two sections taken ten
miles apart would not be identical, and, in some cases, not very similar.
The more recent the age of formation the less persistent seems to
be their lithological character over extended areas. Although the coal-
beds seem to be abundant everywhere along the line of the road, in
the Lower Tertiary deposits, yet they have been wrought in few locali-
ties as yet.
Near Point of Rocks Station, about 45 miles east of Green River, one
of the best coal mines I have yet seen in the West has been opened. Mr.
100 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
W. Snyder, the able superintendent of the Union Pacific Railroad, has
ordered a side-track to be laid to it, about a quarter of a mile distant.
Within a vertical height of 80 feet five coal-beds have been opened.
‘The lowest is about 100 feet above the bed of the creek. They are re-
spectively five, one, four, three, and six and one-half feet in thickness.
The five-foot bed is most valuable, and as the strata are nearly hori-
zontal, it can be worked with great ease and freedom from water. The |
coal is brought from the mine and thrown down the sides of the hilla
hundred feet fall or more, and yet so hard and compact is the coal that
it is not broken by the fall. It is also purer and heavier than any coal
1 have yet seen west of the Laramie Mountains. The other beds already
opened will yield moderately good coal. There are several other beds
in these hills which have not yet been examined by the miner.
Near the summit of the hills, above the coal-beds, there is a seam
composed entirely of oyster-shells six inches thick. It is about the size
of the common edible oyster, but an extinct and probably undescribed
species.
Another bed of coal has been opened about 28 miles west of Point of
Rocks, at Rock Spring. Itis about four feet thick, with a bed of sand-
stone at the bottom, and a slaty-clay roof. It cannot be worked to ad-
vantage. Scattered all through the coal-bearing strata are seams and
concretions of brown iron ore in great abundance. Sometimes these
seams are quite persistent over extended areas, and vary from four to
twelve inches in thickness. It occurs mostly, however, in a nodular
form, and assumes a great variety of characters. There is much of it
that can be made of economical value where there is a demand for it.
There are also numerous ehalybeate or sulphur springs in that region,
which possess-excellent medicinal properties.
In this brief account of the country lying west of the Laramie Mount-
ains and east of Green River we have shown that vast quantities of coal
exist, of the best quality, and that in intimate connection with it are
valuable deposits of iron-ore. We also believe that within a few years
these deposits of iron and coal will be found to be of infinite value to the
Union Pacific Railroad, and that the future success and value of the
stock of this road is dependent on these minerals, especially the coal.
Mr. Van Lennep, connected with the Union Pacific Railroad as geolo-
gist, described more than fifty localities where the coal crops out to the
surface not far distant from the line of the road. A more careful exami-
nation for practical purposes I am convinced would reveal the existence
of coal and iron in hundreds of localities from Rock Creek to the neigh-
borhood of Salt Lake, and there are indications that they exist even be-
yond this point in different directions.
We have taken the position, also, that the coal-bearing beds of the
Laramie Plains are of Tertiary age, although some marine fossils are
found in strata connected with the coal. There may possibly be some
thin seams of impure coal in the Upper Cretaceous beds, as if the great
period of vegetation and the storing up of coal in the West was fore-
shadowed in the Cretaceous. At any rate, the Upper Cretaceous beds
contain a great amount of vegetable matter, but mostly too obscure for
determination.
So far as I can determine, the growth of the continent forward in
time from the Cretaceous period seems to have been constant. I can find
no break in time; no want of conformity between the Tertiary and Cre-
taceous beds ; and, indeed, so gradually and imperceptibly do the Cre-
taceous beds pass up into those of the Tertiary, that Ihave not been able
to determine the line of separation.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 101
The lower portions of the Tertiary period of the West seem to be ma-
rine in their character, as shown by an abundance of fossil remains of
the genus Ostrea; but the physical conditions do not seem to have
been favorable for the development of a great variety of marine life.
The impressions of deciduous leaves similar to those belonging to our
present fruit and forest trees are very numerous throughout the Tertiary
_ beds of marine character, and they may be found in almost all localities
where the character of the rocky beds is such as to favor their preser-
vation. The marine beds gradually pass up into those of purely fresh-
water character.
All these facts are very important, inasmuch as they fulfill all the
conditions of the growth of the continent, showing clearly all the steps
of progress onward even to the present time.
There is another point of interest connected with these modern de-
posits of the West. There seems to have been a vastly increased de-
position of sediments during both Cretaceous and Tertiary times in the
West. The sediments are greatly deficient in calcareous matter, and
show a vast preponderance of arenaceous material. I have estimated
the thickness of the Cretaceous beds, as shown west of the Laramie
Mountains, at 5,000 feet, and the Tertiary the same; so that we have here
10,000 feet of rocks of comparatively modern date.
The next important question is, can all this vast area be made useful for
agricultural or grazing purposes ?
We have shown that the eastern slope of the mountains can be culti-
vated very successfully by irrigation, but west of the Laramie range the
elevation above the sea is greater, and the climate much more severe in
winter. Even at the Laramie River the elevation above the tide-water
is 7,222 feet, nearly 3,000 feet higher than Salt Lake Valley, and more
than 1,000 feet above Cheyenne City, near the eastern base.
The Laramie Plains are also surrounded by lofty ranges of mountains,
the tops of some of which are covered with perpetual snow. The sum-
mer, therefore, in these plains must always be short, and the winter
severe. Itis believed, however, that east of the Medicine Bow River the
principal cereals, as wheat, buckwheat, oats, and barley, can be raised
successfully. Potatoes and turnips, of very good quality, have been
raised this year in the valley of Rock Creek, on sod ground, and with
very little irrigation.
The following valuable notes were furnished me by Major-General
John Gibbon, United States Army, commanding Rocky Mountain de-
partment, with permission to copy them entire. General Gibbon has
given more attention to this subject than any other man in the Territory.
He has cultivated an extensive garden at the military post, Fort
Sanders, for two years past.
Vegetables which can be raised in Laramie Plains:
All seed should be planted as soon after Ist of May as possible.
Potatoes.—Should be planted early in May, in rows three feet apart;
thoroughly irrigated immediately after planting, and the ground be-
tween the rows frequently kept open with a cultivator. It would be
better to plow out the furrows; fill them with manure or straw, and
plant on that.
Peas.—Very fine; soak the seed before planting in rows three feet
apart, and cultivate as above.
String-beans.—The same.
Radishes.—Very fine; sow either broadcast or in rows three feet
apart, thin, and then weed out to four inches apart.
102 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
Turnips.—Of all kinds, very thin in rows three feet apart, and weed
out to twelve inches apart.
Parsnips.— As above, and to next spring for eating.
Carrots.—AS above.
Cabbage.—Should be well and early started in a hot-bed, and planted
out when hard and strong.
Lettuce.—Hither broadcast or in rows, thin.
Cauliflower.rSame as cabbages.
Beets.—In rows three feet apart; sowed thin and weeded out to eight
or ten inches apart.
Onions.—Sowed thin in rows three feet apart; and cultivated seed-
lings planted in rows three feet apart, and four inches from each other.
NotrEe.—Everything needs all the time it can get to growin. The
seed should, therefore, be sowed very thin, watered well until the seed
comes up, and then weeded out early to give it plenty of room to grow.
When the plants are left thick, they all run to heads, and when weeded
out late they do not have time to grow.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
F. V. HAYDEN,
U. S&S. Geologist.
Hon. Jos. S. WILSON,
Commissioner General Land- Office.
THIRD ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
OF THE TERRITORIES,
EMBRACING
COLORADO AND NEW MEXICO.
CONDUCTED
UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
BY
F. V. HAYDEN, U. S. Geologist.
LETTER TO THE SECRETARY.
DENVER, COLORADO TERRITORY,
October 15, 1869.
Sir: In accordance with your instructions dated Washington, April 1,
1869, I have the honor to transmit my preliminary field report of the
United States geological survey of Colorado and New Mexico, con-
ducted by me, under your direction, during the past season. A portion
of your instructions is as follows:
‘You will proceed to the field of your labors as soon as the necessary
arrangements can be made and the season will permit, and your attention
will be especially directed to the geological, mineralogical and agricul-
tural resources of the Territories herein designated ; you will be required
to ascertain the age, order of succession, relative position, dip, and com-
parative thickness of the different strata and geological formations,
and examine with care all the beds, veins, and other deposits, of ores,
coals, clays, marls, peat, and other mineral substances, as well as the
fossil remains of the different formations; and you will also make full
collections in geology, mineralogy, and paleontology, to illustrate your
notes taken in the field.” 2
Tn accordance with the above instructions I proceeded to Cheyenne,
Wyoming Territory, where my preparations and outfit were made.
My assistants were selected as follows :
. James Stevenson, managing director and general assistant.
. Henry W. Elliott, artist.
. Rev. Cyrus Thomas, entomologist and botanist.
. Persifer Frazer, jr., mining engineer and metallurgist.
. HK. C. Carrington, jr., zoologist.
B. H. Cheever, jr., general assistant.
Five men were also employed, three of them as teamsters, one as
laborer, and the other one as cook.
As soon aS my preparations were completed, my field labors com-
menced, June 29, at Cheyenne. Limited somewhat as to time and means,
Tarranged my plans so as to cover as much ground as possible and secure
the greatest amount of geological information. On the plains the
geological structure is very simple, and frequently over large areas the
basis rocks are concealed by superficial deposits. It seemed best, there-
fore, to make my examinations southward along the eastern base of the
Rocky Mountains for the purpose of studying the upheaved ridges, or
“hog backs,” as they are called in this country. These ridges aftord
peculiar facilities for working out the geological structure of the country.
Indeed, they are like the pages of an open book upon which the geolo-
gist can read what the Creator has written upon each formation known
in the country from the granite mass that forms the nucleus of the
loftiest mountain range to the most recent tertiary formation inclusive.
Often in a little belt, from half a mile to four or five in width, one may
travel over the upturned edges of nearly all the formations in the geolo-
gical scale, and the opportunity was presented, in this way, for tracing
D> OUP 9 DoH
106 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
out their relations by studying the junction of the changed with the
unchanged rocks.
From Cheyenne to Denver we examined with some care the mines about
the sources of the Cache a la Poudre River and the coal mines at South
Boulder. From Denver we visited the silver mines at Georgetown, and
the gold mines of Central City, thence to the Middle Park, where we
found much of interest geologically. We then returned to Denver and
pursued our way southward, passed the “divide” to Colorado City, Soda
Springs, Cafion City, Spanish Peaks, Raton Hills, Fort Union, Mora
Valley, Santa Fé, Placiere Mountains, &c. Along this route the
scenery was grand beyond description. At Colorado City there is an
area of about ten miles square that contains more material of geological
interest than any other area of equal extent that I have seen in the
west.
The coal formation along the base of the mountains was studied with
ereat interest. With these coal beds are associated valuable deposits
of brown iron ore. The coal and iron deposits of the Raton Hills extend
from the Spanish Peaks to Maxwell’s, and the supply of both is quite
inexhaustible and of excellent quality. The future influence of these
two important minerals at this locality, on the success of a Pacific rail-
road, cannot be over-estimated. It is believed that the coal and iron
mines of tke Raton Hills will be of far more value to the country than
all the mines of precious metals in that district.
The next locality for coal was at the Placiere Mountains. In one
locality here, the coal has been changed into anthracite by the eruption
of a basaltic dike, theigneous material of which had poured over the coal
strata. Vast quantities of brown iron ore are associated with this coal,
and magnetic iron ore is found in the gneissoid rocks of the mountain.
The gold mines here are very rich and are now wrought upon a true
scientific plan.
From Santa Fé we proceeded up the Rio Grande through the San
Luis Valley, Poncho Pass, Arkansas Valley, through the South Park to
Denver again. We could only give a glance at the salt springs and
gold mines of the South Park, but we gathered much valuable informa-
tion in regard to this interesting region. To the geologist Colorado is
almost encyclopedic in its character, containing within its borders
nearly every variety of geological formation. The portion of the
country examined by me this summer, comprises a belt about five hun-
dred and fifty miles in length from north to south, and almost two
hundred in width from east to west.
The collections in all departments are very extensive and valuable,
comprising geological specimens, fossils, minerals, plants, birds, quadru-
peds, reptiles, and insects, all of which are to be arranged and classified
in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution according to a law of Con-
gress.
My report, herewith transmitted, has been written under circum-
stances of great pressure at odd moments, in traveling from point to
point, or in camp after the labors of the day were completed, far away
from books or any opportunities for careful elaboration. It may there-
fore be regarded as little more than a transcript of my field-notes.
Accompanying my own report will be found those of my assistants.
Mr. Persifer Frazer, jr., on the mining resources of the route passed over,
and Mr. Cyrus Thomas on the agricultural resources. I regard these
reports as of great practical value to the country.
I take this opportunity of tendering my thanks to all of my assistants
for their cordial co-operation throughout the entire survey. The reports
of Messrs. Thomas and Frazer will speak for themselves. Mr. Elliott,
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 107
the artist, has labored with untiring zeal, and has made more than four
hundred outlines of sketches, and about seventy finished ones for the
final reports. Hach one of these sketches illustrates some thought or
principle in geology, and, if properly engraved, will be invaluable. My
principal assistant, Mr. James Stevenson, who has been associated with
me in my western explorations for many years, has rendered me indis-
pensable services throughout the entire trip.
I beg permission to state here that my appropriation was so limited
that had it not been for the kindness and generosity of the military
authorities of the country, I could have accomplished but a small
portion of the work that I have performed during the present season,
and I take this opportunity to say that the West is very largely indebted
to them for whatever benefit my labors have been or may be to the
country.
Before leaving Washington, I made application by letter to General
Sherman, commanding the armies of the United States, for such assist-
ance from the military authorities of the West as could be afforded to
me without manifest injury to the public service. On my letter of appli-
cation, General Sherman placed the following indorsement :
“This application is referred to the commanding officers of the depart-
ments, districts, and posts, who will extend to Professor Hayden’s party
the usual courtesies, and the privilege of purchasing a limited quantity of
provisions on the same terms as officers.”
Similar indorsements were made by Generals Sheridan, Schofield, and
Augur. The greater part of my outfit was supplied to me by Colonel EH.
B. Carling, United States army, depot quartermaster at Fort D. A. Rus-
sell, Wyoming Territory ; and I cannot express too cordially my grateful
acknowledgments to him for his generous aid, not only for this season,
but also for two previous campaigns. Iam also under equal obligation
to General William Myers, United States Army, chief quartermaster
department of the Platte, at Omaha, for invaluable aid in several past
years. When we came in the vicinity of a military post, at Fort Union,
Santa Fé, or Fort Garland, we received all the aid we needed.
I would also extend my grateful acknowledgments to the press and the
citizens of Colorado and New Mexico, but more especially to Colorado
for their cordial aid and sympathy in all my explorations.
If my labors have added anything to the sum of human knowledge and
the honor of our country, I shall be content.
I remain very respectfully, your obedient servant,
F. V. HAYDEN,
United States Geologist.
Hon. J. D. Cox,
Secretary of the Interior.
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GEOLOGICAL REPORT.
INTRODUCTION.
In order that the relation of the different geological formations re-
ferred to in this report may be more clearly understood, I have thought
it best to commence with the upper coal measures as exposed along the
Missouri River near Omaha and the mouth of the Platte.
Omaha, which is well known to be the eastern terminus of the Union
Pacific railroad, is built upon the northwestern rim of the coal meas-
ures as seen along the Lower Missouri. These rocks occupy a consid-
erable portion of the State south of the Platte River, but north of that
point they cover only a small portion of Sarpy and Douglas Counties.
The last exposure of any importance is near the point decided upon as
the location for the railroad bridge across the Missouri. The limestones
at this point have been quarried for many years, but the amount of
labor required to remove the vast thickness of marl and drift above it,
will diminish greatly the importance of this quarry. Near Florence
these limestones are seen in the bottom of the river at very low water,
and near De Soto, obscure exposures have been detected. From that
point to the foot of the mountains these rocks are not again seen. Along
the Platte River for about eight miles there are extensive quarries of
limestone that are very useful for building purposes. Scattered over
the surface of the country in the two counties of Douglas and Sarpy, are
exposures of the rusty sandstone of the Dakota group; and at the mouth
of the Elkhorn River all traces of the coal measure rocks have disap-
peared, and do not reappear again until we reach the very margin of
the mountains, over five hundred miles to the westward. After leaving
the mouth of the Elkhorn very few exposures of rocks are seen for the
next hundred miles, but there are enough to show that the underlying
rocks are of cretaceous age. Near the mouth of Elkhorn River the
sandstones of the Dakota group are seen, while on the distant hills
traces of the yellow, chalky limestone, No. 3, occur. After reaching a
point along the Platte about one hundred miles west of Omaha, the light,
yellowish marls and sands of the White River group overlap the older
rocks and occupy thecountry to the very margins of the Rocky Mountains.
But the most important formation, and one that has a more favorable
influence on the State of Nebraska than any other, is of very recent date
in geological history. In the valley of the Missouri River, extending
up nearly to Fort Pierre, and also to the mouth of the Missouri, and
probably southward to the valley of Mexico, is a deposit of yellow marl
varying in thickness from a few feet toseveral hundred. It has been called
“ the bluff formation,” for it constitutes the picturesque bluffs or high hills
which form the most conspicuous features in the scenery along the Mis-
souri River. This yellow marl also enters largely into the composition
of the soil of the vast bottom lands of the river which are so justly cel-
ebrated for their fertility. It is, however, in the immediate proximity
to the water-courses that this yellow marl deposit is the thickest, and it
eradually diminishes in depth as we recede from them; still, it is to this
110 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
deposit that a very large portion of the West is indebted for its unsur-
passed fertility and productiveness. It covers the country with such
uniformity that it conceals almost entirely the basis rocks from view.
Underlying this marl is a considerable deposit of drift material, as
rounded pebbles or boulders and coarse sand, often presenting the most
singular illustrations of oblique layers of deposit. The marl is usually
quite homogeneous in its composition, and almost or entirely destitute
of stratification, and the materials seemed to have been deposited in
very quiet waters, and to have settled to the bottom of a fresh-water
lake like gently-falling snow. The drift materials, as a rule, exhibit the
irregular lamine as if they had been deposited by currents of water.
The exceedingly great importance of this yellow marl deposit is not yet
well understood or appreciated, but it seems to me that the wonderful
fertility of the soil of the western States and Territories, and its perma-
nent productiveness for all time to come, is due to it.
The eastern portion of Nebraska is already quite thickly settled, and
is susceptible of cultivation, but the western part must be inhabited, if
settled at all, by a pastoral people.
These broad, level prairies are covered with a thick growth of short,
nutritious grass, but the scarcity of water for the purpose of irrigation,
and the almost entire absence of forest trees, must ever prevent settle-
ments to any great extent. In the autumn nearly all the smallerstreams
dry up entirely, and several seasons the Platte has been known to. be-
come so lowas to have no continuous current. It is a peculiar feature
of these western streams, at times to be larger toward their sources than
at their mouths. The Platte in its various branches always has an
abundant supply of water, as their heads issue from the mountain sides,
but in traversing the plains there are few or no springs or branches en-
tering into it, or the water is entirely absorbed by the arid earth or thirsty
air, until the bed becomes as dry as the dusty road. Hence all over the
Rocky Mountain regions in the autumn are what are called dry creeks,
with beds which, when full in the spring time, form large rivers.
. The Platte River flows, for a distance of over four hundred miles,
through the southern portion of what I have termed the White River
tertiary basin, in contradistinetion to the great lignite tertiary basin.
The former has been separated into two formations, the White River
group and the Loup River beds, on account of the organic remains char-
acterizing each. The two former are entirely distinct, not a species pass-
ing from one to the ether. I have supposed hitherto that the Platte
River flowed through strata belonging to the Loup River group. They
are certainly of quite recent age, but the pliocene remains that I col-
lected on the Niobrara River came from loose gray sands which rested
with a certain kind of unconformability on the eroded surface of the
White River group. It is plain also that the valleys of the more import-
ant streams have been worn out, to some extent, prior to the deposition
of the pliocene sands.
In the valley of the Niobrara and Loup Fork the phocene sands are
quite thick, and the line of separation between them and the White River
group is very irregular, while on the hills the sands occur in many places,
on and in, isolated hills.
The details of the geology of this most interesting region still remain
to be worked out, and its geographical extent will be found to be much
larger than has hitherto been supposed. The soil composed of the ero-
ded materials of this basin is of moderate fertility, but owing to a want
of water cannot be cultivated to any great extent. The greater portion
of the surface underlaid by these beds is covered with a fine growth of
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TIE TERRITORIES. Nolet
grass which is especially adapted to the raising of sheep, and [am glad
to see that some enterprising persons are making the experiment. The
healthfulness of the climate, the nutritious character of the short grass,
and the dryness of the ground, not unfrequently covered with small
pebbles, must act favorably on sheep.
That portion of Wyoming east of the Laramie range, and south of the
line of the Union Pacific railroad, is entirely covered with the upper
beds of the White River tertiary basin. The valley of Lodge Pole, Crow
Creek, and Chugwater, show the formations of this basin very distinetly
from mouth to source. The Union Pacific railroad ascends the eastern
slope of the Laramie range on a sort of bench of this formation, which
seems to be unusually developed, and to extend without much interrup-
tion up to the very margin of the mountains, sometimes concealing all
the rocks of intermediate age and resting on the syenites.
About twenty miles south of Cheyenne these beds disappear entirely
along the eastern flanks of the mountains, and the lignite tertiary beds
are exposed to view.
CHAPTER f.
FROM CHEYENNE TO DENVER.
I commenced my labors at Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, and pro-
ceeded southward along the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountains.
My preliminary report will be little more than a transcript of my journal
from day to day. It willbe, therefore, impossible to systematize it as I
would wish, or avoid in many cases repetition. There is great uniformity
in the geology of the country, and when one has become familiar with the
different geological formations over a small area, he can trace them with
' ereat rapidity over long distances. This will account, in part, for the
large extent of country which I have been able to examine in a single
season.. The geological formations immediately underlying Cheyenne
are of tertiary age, probably pliocene or very late miocene. The beds
have been slightly disturbed by the upheaval of the mountain range, but
their position in relation to the older tertiary beds shows their deposition
to have been of late date. They are found deposited in the valleys and
sometimes high on the mountain sides, and itis very seldom that they dip
at an angle of more than five degrees. These beds can be traced far north-
ward to the Black Hills of Dakota, a distance of three hundred and fifty
miles, and they are thus shown probably to be the upper beds or most re-
cent formation of the White River tertiary. Alongthe base of the moun-
tains the rocks are mostly pudding-stone, or an aggregate of small water-
worn pebbles, mostly very small, but sometimes several inches in diame-
ter. These pebbles grow smaller and fewer in quantity as we recede
from the mountains until they entirely disappear, and fine sand or marl
takes their place. Near Cheyenne there is a bed of fresh-water lime-
stone which is much used as lime, and seems to answer an excellent pur-
pose in mason work and for whitewashivg, and I have no doubt that
such beds or layers occur in this basin everywhere. Along the line of
the Union Pacific railroad, just before reaching Granite Cation, a bed
of the most excellent limestone crops out, on the margin of the range, of
carboniferous age. This is burned into lime of snowy whiteness and is
a great favorite with masons. It contains some fossils of well known
carboniferous forms, as Athyris subtilita, Productus pratteniana, and
crinoidal fragments. The red sandstones are exposed in a narrow belt
112 ' GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
along the margins of the mountains, but all rocks of more recent date
are concealed by the tertiary deposits. In order that I may make my
description of the different formations in their southern extension more
clearly understood, Iwill describe them in as brief a manner as pos-
sible, as they have been studied in the regions to the northward.
The granites and metamorphic rocks do not differ in many respects from
those which form the nucleus of the mountain ranges generally. Reddish
and gray granites form the central portions, and on the sides is a series of
stratified metamorphic rocks of a great variety of structure and com-
position. At the north the igneous rocks do not seem to predominate
in the eastern ranges, but as we proceed southward toward New Mexico
they increase in extent and force.
The Potsdam sandstone is the only member of the silurian that I have
ever observed along the margins of the mountains. It was first dis-
covered west of the Missouri River in the summer of 1857, during the
exploration of the Black Hills of Dakota, by a United States expedi-
tion under the command of General G. K. Warren, United States Army,
and it has been observed in several other localities since that time.
The following section of the Potsdam sandstone in its relation to the
carboniferous beds, as observed by me around the margins of the Black
Hills, shows the typical characters of each, where they are well exposed
and have been clearly identified by organic remains:
1. Hard, compact, fine-grained, yellowish limestone of an excellent
quality; passing down into a yellow calcareous sandstone, quite friable.
Fossils: Rhynconella rocky-montana, Athyris subtilita, Cyrtoceras, &c.—
00 feet.
2. Loose layers of very hard yellow arenaceoys limestone with a red-
dish tinge, underlaid by a bed, six or eight feet in thickness, of a very hard
blue limestone. The whole contains great quantities of broken crinoi-
dal remains with cyathopylloid corals and several species of brachio-
poda—40 feet.
3. Variegated sandstone of a gray and ferruginous reddish color, com-
posed chiefly of grains of quartz and particles of mica, cemented with
calcareous matter. Some portions of the bed are very hard, compact,
siliceous; others a coarse friable grit; others conglomerate. Fossils:
Lingula prima, L. antiqua, Obolella nana, and Arionellus oweni—os0 feet.
4, Stratified metamorphic rocks in a vertical position for the most part.
Rocks about the same as those above described, sometimes very much
thicker and sometimes thinner, have been seen, more or less, all along the
margin of the Rocky Mountains, on both sides the main axis from the
north line to Cheyenne.
About the sources of the Missouri River, along the flanks of the Big
Horn and Wind River Mountains, these rocks are particularly devel-
oped. Now and then they all disappear for a considerable distance, and
then, at the first favorable opportunity, reappear from beneath beds of
more recent date. A series of arenaceous beds, which we have called
the “red arenaceous deposits, or triassic,” form one of the most con-
spicuous features of the geology along the flanks of both sides of the
principle ranges of mountains and are almost always present. They
were first observed by me, forming a narrow belt or girdle around the
granite nucleus of the Black Hills of Dakota, in the summer of 1807.
These rocks are sometimes called saliferous or gypsum-bearing beds, from
the fact that they contain both salt and gypsum, the latter mineral
oftentimes in great quantities. There are also mingled with these beds
several layers of bluish siliceous limestone, which at the far north at-
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 113
tain a considerable thickness, but southward thin out to a few feet, or
are entirely concealed by the debris which everywhere prevails.
These red beds, when they make their appearance, often give the most
unique and remarkable features to the scenery, and any development of
them, however small, never fails to attract even the commonest observer
on account of their brick-red appearance. No well-authenticated fossils
have ever been found in them, yet they are regarded as of triassic age
by the common consent of geologists. Iam inclined to believe that a
portion of the upper light-red beds, with the included layers of flinty
limestone, are jurassic, but I have never been able to find any well de-
fined line of separation between what are well known to be jurassic and
the supposed triassic beds.
Resting above these red beds isa series of marls and arenaceous marls
of a light or ashen gray color, with harder layers of limestone or fine
sandstone, which were also first discovered around the margin of the
Biack Hills of Dakota in 1857. Since the discovery in the Black Hills,
jurassic fossils have been found over a very wide geographical area, and
yet I have never seen them so well developed, or the peculiar fossils so
abundant, as at the locality where they were first observed. Although
I have traced this jurassic belt by its organic remains over many hun-
dreds of miles, I have been able to discover scarcely a well-defined
jurassic fossil south of Deer Creek, a point one hundred miles north of
Fort Laramie, or south of the Lake Como, on the Union Pacific railroad.
I believe that a thin remnant of this belt extends far south to New
Mexico, but itis often so obscured, or so easily concealed, that I have been
continually in doubt in regard to its existence. Coextensive with all
the mountain ranges is a large series of beds above the jurassic belt
which belong to the cretaceous period, the upper and middle portions of
which are everywhere indicated by characteristic fossil remains, as seen
on the Missouri River, where they were first studied by Mr. F. B. Meek
and the writer. The cretaceous rocks present five well-marked divisions,
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, or Dakota group, Fort Benton group, Niobrara
division, Fort Pierre group, and Fox Hill beds. On the Lower Missouri
No. 1, or Dakota group, is characterized by several species of marine
shelis and a profusion of impressions of deciduous leaves; but along the
margins of the mountain elevations I have never been able to discover
a single specimen of organic remains that would establish the age of the
rocks. I only know that there is a series of beds of remarkable persist-
ency all along the margin of the mountain ranges, holding a position
between well-defined cretaceous No. 2 and jurassic beds, and in my pre-
vious reports I have called them transition beds, or No. 1. They consist
of a series of layers of yellow and gray, more or less fine-grained sand-
stones and pudding-stones, with some intercalated layers of arenaceous
clays. Inalmost all cases there is associated with these beds a thin series
of carbonaceous clays, which sometimes becomes impure coal, and con-
tains masses of silicified wood, &e. On the west side of the Black Hills
they assume a singularly massive appearance, nearly horizontal, two
hundred to two hundred and fifty feet thick, and are called Fortification
Rocks. Here also occurs a thin bed of carbonaceous clay. On the east-
ern slope of the Big Horn Mountains I observed this same series of beds
in the summer of 1859, holding a position between cretaceous No. 2 and
the jurassic maris, with a considerable thickness of earthy lignite, large
quantities of petrified wood, and numerous large uncharacteristic bones,
which Dr. Leidy regarded as belonging to some huge saurian.
There are very few points of resemblance between these beds and
those which form the Dakota group, as seen in Kansas and Nebraska.
8 H
114 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
All the evidence therefore that I have had to guide me in regard to
these beds along the margin of the mountain pee has been their
position.
No. 2, on the Missouri River, is composed of very black plastic clays,
with some thin layers of limestone and sandstone, and is quite well sepa-
rated from No. 1 below and No. 3 above. No. 3 is composed of massive
layers of chalky limestone, always containing Inoceramus problematicus
and Ostrea congesta.
Along the Kansas Pacifie railroad, at Hayes City and Fort Wallace,
No. 3 occurs in such massive layers that it is Sawed into building blocks
with acommon saw. No. 4isa dark ashen stecl-colored laminated clay,
with bluish calcareous concretions filled with shells. No. 5 is a yellow-
ish ferruginous arenaceous clay, with the greatest abundance of mollus-
cous fossils. At various localities all along the margin of the mountain
ranges these divisions of the cretaceous are far less distinctly separated,
and vary more or less in their structure and composition, and yet in
tracing them carefully and continuously from the Missouri River they
always retain enough of their typical character, so that I have never
been at a loss to detect their presence at once, although after leaving
the Missouri River we do not find any well-defined lines of separation,
either lithologically or paleontologically.
With the commencement of the tertiary was ushered in the dawn of
the great lake period of the West. The evidence seems to point to the
conclusion that from the dawn of the tertiary period, even up to the
commencement of the present, there was a continuous series of fresh-
water lakes all over the continent west of the Mississippi River. As-
suming the position that all the physical changes were slow, progressive,
and long-continued, and that the earlier sediments of the tertiary were
marine, then brackish, then purely fresh water, we have through them
a portion of the consecutive history of the growth of the western conti-
nent, step by step, up to the present time. The earliest of these great
lakes marked the commencement of the tertiary period, and seems to
have covered a very large portion of the American continent west of
the Mississippi, from the Arctic Sea.to the Isthmus of Darien.
As [have before stated, the first sediments were marine, then came
brackish water, and soon purely fresh water, as is plainly indicated by
the organic remains. The lower beds of the great lignite basin every-
where contain layers, varying from afew inches to two feet in thick-
ness, made up almost entirely of oyster shells, with a few other species
of marine or estuary types. No exclusively marine forms have as yet
been found to my knowledge, but as we ascend in the beds all traces of
the salt sea disappear, and a great profusion of fresh-water and land shelis
appear, with vast quantities of the impressions of leaves of deciduous
trees» Numerous beds of coal, varying in thickness from a few inches
to fifteen or twenty feet, characterize this deposit.
About the middle of the tertiary period the second extensive lake
commenced in the West, which we have called the White River tertiary
basin. We believe that it commenced its growth near the southeastern
base of the Black Hills, and gradually enlarged its borders. I am in-
clined to think that this lake has continued on, almost or quite up to the
commencement of the present period ; that the light-colored arenaceous
and marly deposits in the Park of the Upper Arkansas, in the Middle
Park, among the mountains at the source of the Missouri River, in Texas
and Oalifornia, and Utah, are all later portions of this great lake. The
upper miocene or pliocene deposits in the Wind River Valley, near Fort
Bridger, and on the divide between the Platte and the Arkansas River 8,
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 115
were undoubtedly synchronous, though perhaps not connected with this
great basin. Every year, as the limits of my explorations are extended
in any direction, I find evidences of what appear to be separate lake
basins, covering greater or less areas, and bearing intrinsic proof, more
or less conclusive, of the time of their existence. I have given in this
place the above brief description of the various geological formations
as 1 have studied them in the West, in order that my subsequent remarks
on these formations in their southern extension may be more clearly
understood. Constant reference will be made to rocks as they have
been seen in the far North and West, in order that the story of their
geological extension may be linked together.
June 29, 1869.—Left Fort D. A. Russell about 10 o’clock in the morn-
ing with my entire party, consisting of twelve persons and eighteen
mules and horses, with two large covered wagons and an ambulance.
By the kindness of Colonel E. B. Carling, the depot quartermaster, at
Fort D. A. Russell, 1 was provided with everything needful for inde-
pendent camp life, and I at once commenced my explorations in earnest.
We traveled to-day thirteen miles southward trom Fort Russell. Our
entire route was over the more recent beds of the White River tertiary
basin. The lowest bed exposed by the cuts in the streams, is a thick layer
of flesh-colored indurated marl, much like that containing so many ver-
tebrate fossils on White River, Dakota. It contains some thin layers of
very fine gritty rock. Overlying this is a thick bed which appears more
recent, yet apparently conforms to the marl beds below. It is composed
of water-worn pebbles of various sizes, forming a real pudding-stone.
Near the margins of the mountains this bed gives the characteristic
features to the scenery, as it is cut through by the myriad small streams
that issue from the mountain side. Itis at least three or four feet in thick-
ness. Most.of the pebbles are from the granite rocks that form the cen-
tral portions of the Laramie range. The beds all dip from the mountains
eastward at a moderate angle, and it is evident that this entire forma-
tion was deposited after the mountain ranges had nearly reached their
present height. The strata seldom dip at an angle of over 5° and rest
unconformably on the older beds when they are seen in apposition.
Near the junction of the metamorphic rocks with these modern pud-
ding-stones the pebbles or bowlders are not much worn, and of mode-
rate size, six to twelve inches in diameter, but the sediments grow finer
and finer as we recede from the foot of the mountains until the pudding-
stones pass into a fine-grained whitish sandstone. We can see, therefore,
that these deposits formed the proper rim of the fresh-water lake, that
the sediments were derived from the erosion of the feldspathic granites,
and that the forces that were in operation acted from the direction of
the mountain ranges.
There are also vast quantities of drift material which I regard as loeal.
It seems to me that the evidence is clear that all this modern drift-action
had its origin in the mountain ranges in the immediate vicinity ; that in
earlier times the snow and ice gathered on the summits in vastly greater
quantities, and that in melting, from year to year, in the form of water
and ice, they brought along vast quantities of rocks from the mountains
and distributed them over the surface.
The waters, with the masses of ice, would naturally follow the chan-
nels of the streams if they had been marked out, or they would mark out
_ new channels, for nearly or quite all the valleys that extend down from
the mountains become shallower, the further they extend eastward from
the flanks of the,range. This superficial deposit at the very margins of
the mountains is composed of very coarse materials, sometimes immense
116 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
masses of granite of all kinds, but slightly worn; but proceeding from
the base of the mountains, the rocks become smaller and more rounded,
until they pass into small pebbles, mingled with loose sand.
The phenomena of erosion, as seen at the present time, all along the
flanks of the mountains, in the plains, in the channels of streams, point
clearly to a vastly greater quantity and force of water than exist any-
where at the present time. .
The surface of the country along the base of the mountains is ex-
tremely undulating—worn into hill, valley, ridge, or rounded buttes.
The strata in these ridges and hills show that the entire surface was
much higher than it is at present, and that these ridges and buttes are
enly remnants of beds left after the erosion, and how great a thickness of
strata was originally deposited above these remnants, and is now en-
tirely swept away, it is impossible to determine, though we believe it
was very great.
Now, on these hills are the greatest numbers of large, rounded stones,
of all kinds, granite and sedimentary, as if they had been left there by
the melting masses of ice which had lodged on the hills. These stones
are also accumulated in long lines or belts, as if they had been driven by
currents so as to form shore lines, or lodged-in eddies. The evidence is
clear that great bodies of water, in which were probably mingled masses
of ice, swept over the plain country within a comparatively recent
geological period.
Opposite Camp Carling, in the bluffs of Crow Creek, a good thickness
of drift is seen filling up the irregular surface of the modern tertiary
beds, so that we have evidence of quite extensive erosion of the surface
prior to the deposition of this drift.
Along all the main water-courses are high ridges showing the rocky
strata perfectly. met with in the
mine, the ores from which have given remarkably high results. Red and
white varieties of fluorspar occur largely as gangue rock of the lode.
The Burleigh tunnel_—This is about half a mile distant from the Brown
Jode toward Georgetown. The object had in view by the proprietors of
ithis tunnel is to intersect all the lodes whose strike is with the trend of
the mountain in which it is being driven. The rock is quite hard, and
only one hundred feet had been bored when it was inspected. The boring
* The average assay value of brittle silver is five thousand ounces per ton.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE. TERRITORIES. 2th
is done by means of steel drills worked by compressed air, the machine
for driving them being mounted on a car running on rails. A steam
engine outside compresses the air and forces it through pipes to the
machine in the interior. It is expected that a lode will be intersected
about one hundred feet further in.
The Snowdrift mine—This mine is three quarters of a mile below the
Brown lode, on the same side of the creek, and is five hundred feet higher
up the mountain than the same. The ores are chiefly sulphuret, (silv er
glance,) and galena. Very little iron or copper pyrites or zincblende i is
met with. The vein is five feet in thickness, and the pay streak, (one-
half of which is said to be composed of silver glance,) six inches in
width. The cost of getting out five tons (including wages, We.) was
seventy dollars, and the ore averages one hundred ounces per ton.
The Griffith lode.—This lode, like the Gregory, near Central City, is
the oldest as well as one of the richest in the vicinity of Georgetown.
It is situated in a high bill or mountain on the right bank of Clear
Creek. The shaft opening is about half way up this “hill. The shaft is
one hundred and twenty-seven feet deep, from which a drift has been
struck fifty feet east, and ten feet west. The dip of the vein is a trifle
south, though it is nearly vertical. The crevice averages perhaps four
to five feet, and its north wall-rock is a syenite, while the south wall
rock appears to be a weathered granite. Assays show values of from one
hundred to seven hundred ounces per ton. The ore will average per-
haps one hundred and fifty ounces per ton. The expectation was, when
the improvements in progress had been made, to take out fifty tons of ore
per diem. Some little trouble was experienced from water in the early
spring, but not enough to hamper the efficient working of the mine.
This company owns twenty-five feet each side of the lode and three.
hundred on the lode each side of the discovery shaft.* The upper part
of the north wall-rock eonsists of a decomposed, yellowish coarse-grained
mixture of gneiss and quartz porphyry, but below it is a hard, compact
syenite. The south wall-rock appears to be, above, a reddish ferruginous
weathered granite, and, below, a white, compact quartz porphyry.
The following is as accurate a list as could be obtained of the princi-
pal lodes worked at the present time in the vicinity of Georgetown:
Baker, (worked for three years;) Brown and Coin, Terrible, Lily, Men-
dota, Snowdr ift, White, Elijah ‘Hise, Wn. B. Astor, Cliff, New Boston,
B. Nuckles, Belmont, Continental, "Hquator, Gilpin, Griffith, Comet,
Magnet, Anglo-Saxon, 4 Young America, and Wall Street.
There are seven mills and dressing works in the vicinity.
From the Equator and Terrible the first-class ores are hand-dressed,
(from the former simply broken and boxed, from the latter crushed and
sacked,) and sent to the Hastfor further treatment. The lead is notpaid
for. Iam informed that in the New Boston mine there is in one place
fifteen feet of solid galena. ‘The same authority states that a shaft was
sunk on the vein one hundred and seventy-five feet before it was dis-
covered that the crevice, instead of five, was fifteen feet in breadth.
J. O. Stuar?’s mill.—This mill stands on the left bank of Clear Creek,
just below Georgetown, and is built for custom ores. The greater part
of the business of this mill is derived from the Equator and Terrible
second-class ores. The average amount of ore put through the mill is
about three tons a day, or one thousand tons a year. The process is
*See Mining Laws of Colorado.
t In the Anelo- Saxon, lam informed that native silver predominates over all other
metals, but the pay streak is very narrow.
212 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
the same used in California and Nevada. Ores are never sent here for
treatment which assay less than $60 per ton, and the average is about
$100 per ton. These ores are roasted with salt in a reverberatory fur-
nace and amalgamated in pans. They consist chiefly of silver glance,
zinc blende, and copper (and iron) pyrites. They are first dried in an iron
pan and then crushed dry ina six-stamp mill. After this they are sub-
mnitted to a chloridizing roasting in areverberatory furnace with salt. The
pyrites contained in the ore is sufficient in amount to react on the cloride
of sodium and set free ti e chlorine without the necessity of adding sul-
phate of iron, which is usually done. The material is then amalga-
mated in iron pans and filtered through cloths, after which it is retorted,
assayed, melted, run into bricks, and stamped. The ore from the Whale
lode contains about equal values of silver and gold, and will be run into
_bars as auriferous silver and sent Hast for separation.
EMPIRE CITY.
The principal mines in the neighborhood of Empire City are the
Conqueror, Silver Mountain, Tenth Legion, Empire, Livingstone, At-
lantic, Gold Dirt, Roseneranz, Rupp and Cross, Tom Benton, and Star,
he Curtis, and Ellsworth, (the former close to Mr. Ball’s mill, and the
latter almost in the town,) and the Bay State. Many others look favor-
ably, but are not mentioned, because the shafts are not yet sunk deep
enough to render an intelligent opinion of their capacity possible.
The Conqueror lode-—This lode is located a mile or two above the
settlement of Upper Empire. The shaft is two hundred and seventy
feet deep, and the ore is all pyrites in a fine state of division. There
are, as yet, no drifts commenced, but the ore is shoveled out into buck-
ets and dumped out as a mass, resembling moist sandy clay, inter-
spersed with fine crystals of iron pyrites. The engine, which is of twen-
ty-two horse power, hoists out in forty seconds. They get out two cords
of ore, at from eight to ten tons per cord, in a day. This Conqueror ore
assays very well, but the data of its yield Iam unable to find in my
notes. ~
The Rosencranz ore resembles that of the Conqueror. The crevice of
the Silver Mountain lode is five and one-half feet thick. It had Jain
idle fer some months previous to the date of my visit, (July,) and there
were ten feet of drift snow in the bottom of the shaft when I descended
it. The roof and walls of the mine were covered with fine crystals of
Green Vitrol.
All these lodes were recorded as striking northeast and southwest.
Mr. Ball assures me that the general character of the gangue rock in
all this, district is granitic.
There are nine amalgamation mills in this (the Union) district.
CENTRAL CITY.
The Gregory lode-—This crops out near the lower end of Central
City, was the first discovered in Colorado, and has been worked ever
since with profit, in spite of the disturbances which have checked the
development of so many other mines. At present there are seventeen
shafts sunk in the lode, only three of which are being worked. The first
class ore of this vein is an iron pyrites in which a tolerably constant per-
centage of gold is found mechanically diffused, (or as some think chein-
ically combined, with sulphur,) but at all events in a state of very fire
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. alts
division. The ore assays from three to six ounces gold per ton, and is
sold to Professor Hill for treatment in his smelting works.
A somewhat singular phenomenon is the occurrence, at No. 4 Gregory
Lode, (Bruce’s claim ,) of three separate veins in a breadth of fifteen feet.
These veins are named the Dead Broke, Gregory, and Foote and Sim- |
mons. They are divided from each other by thin walls of country |
rock, in some places two inches and less in thickness, but were virtually
regarded and wrought as one vein. A little higher up on Gregory hill
these veins diverge i in three different directions, and at a depth of two
hundred and sixty feet in the Smith and Parmelee shaft the latter two
are seventy feet apart.
Smith and Parmelee mine —This claim was wrought for the first
forty feet as one vein. It there divides over a mass of country rock,
and, as above stated, the veins diverge continually at lower depths. At
the surface in many places, the lode in which this claim is situated ap-
pears to dip with the country rock, but deeper the latter becomes. almost
horizontal, while the vein continues its course downward as a true fis-
sure vein. Ata depth of two hundred and sixty feet work was con-
ducted on the north vein, and a cross-cut was run out to the Gregory
lode in which there are one hundred and sixty feet of good ore which
has not yet been stoped out. The level in the Gregory vein has been
run east and west eighty feet.
The breadth of the vein is, on the average, two feet, and of the iron or
pay streak, ten inches. The average assay value of the ore is one hun-
dred and tiwenty- -five dollars per ton. It is sold to Professor Hill. At
a depth of four hundred and fifty feet there is another level run, and
this is as deep as the Gregory vein proper has been wrought. In this
level the appearance of the ore is unchanged. The mill and mere eben
had been overhauled and put into better condition than ever befor e, and
the management having fallen into new hands everything seemed to be
conducted with an energy and attention to details which cannot fail to
make the enterprise a success. Twenty-five five-hundred-pound stamps
were at work, the hoisting machinery was in good order, ventilation
perfect, and the stulls in good condition. The cost of these large tim-
bers is enormous, and out of all proportion to the other appointments of
the mine. One of them, eight to ten feet long, will cost ten dollars
before it is in its place.
Briggs’s nine.—This claim adjoins the Smith and Parmelee, and is
owned and superintended by the brothers Briggs. Everything about
the mine and mill indicated that work was being conducted with intel-
ligence and care. The condition of ladders and “cribbing was good. I
will venture to make one suggestion of an improvement which will
apply to the majority of all the mines here, as well as to this one. In
some cases, where deep shafts or other dangerous places must be passed
by the miners in their passage to and from their work, a proper regard
for their safety should induce the company to see to it that every acci-
dent which could endanger life is guarded against.* In some few cases
this has been overlooked. The Gregory and Briggs veins, together at °
the surface, are fifty feet apart at a depth of four hundred and fifty feet.
The distance between the wall rocks varies from four to eighteen feet.
The appearance of the ore improves, the lower the vein has been fol-
lowed.
At the bottom of the shaft, the Gregory vein widens out to eight feet,
* An accident has since occurred in this mine by which three men were killed.
214 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
and besides the fine look of the iron pyrites, native gold is found, in very
small particles, scattered over quite an extent of the pay streak.
In the mill are fifty eight-hundred-and-eighty-pound stamps.
NEVADA CITY.
The Prize and Copeland lodes—The town of Nevada adjoins Central
City and stretches away some two miles up the gulch in which it is
built. The Prize vein strikes about north 10° west, and the Copeland
nearly west.
The two veins come together in the shaft at a depth of one hundred
and twenty feet from the surface. The drift on the Copeland has been
run seventy feet west and sixty-five feet east from the shaft. At the
extremity of the western outstope the vein is ten feet in width, and the
ore occurs throughout the whole of it. The ore is principally zine-
blende, and assays one hundred dollars per ton. The second-class ore
averages Six ounces per cord. Mine in excellent condition, and timbers
good. Seventeen men and two horses are employed in and outside the
_taine. Back and forward stoping are being carried on at the same time
from the extremities of the drift. At the bottom of the shaft the vein
is six feet in thickness, and contains an eighteen-inch pay streak close
to each wall. The average yield per diem is three cords (about twenty-
one tons. Twenty-four stamps are run night and day.
North Star lode-—The ore from this lode contains a fahlerz which
will prove very rich. The machinery and appointments of the mine are
the best that I saw around Central City. The hoisting apparatus, which
is provided with an automatic dumping arrangement, works beautifully.
Shaft mouth, dressing works, and blacksmith shop are all under the
same roof. There are eight tables for blanket tailings.
Perrin lode.—The shaft house and mill belonging to the Perrin Mining
Company had just been erected under the superintendence of Mr. G. A.
Bradley, but had not been running long enough to enable me to gather
any reliable statistics as to the amount of work which could be done
per diem.
The shaft is situated in Russell Gulch. The ores of this mine com-
prise copper and iron pyrites, copper glance, and fahlerz. The first-
class ore averages $150 per ton, and the second-class three and one-half
ounces per cord. The shaft is one hundred and forty feet deep; dip of
vein, seventy-eight degrees; strike north five degrees east at the shaft
mouth, but the strike varies with the distance from the shaft, and the
vein appears to conform to the shape of the hill. No good hanging
wall has yet been reached.
The mill owned by this company is located about a quarter of a mile
from the shaft house in Russell Gulch, and is forty feet square. .
There are four companies running mills in the gulch above this one,
which purchase their water from the Consolidated Ditch Company. Mr.
Bradley, however, has a drain to Graham Gulch, two hundred and fifty
feet distant, and leads the water which he obtains from it to a tank of
twelve hundred cubic feet capacity. A large cistern of five barrels
capacity, attached to the rafters of the mill, keeps the stamps supplied
with water, through pipes suitably attached, and derives its supply from
the large tank previously mentioned.
In the event of the water supply failing, there is a second tank, of
two hundred and eighty-eight cubic feet capacity, which is placed at the
opposite end of the mill, and into which the water from the tail sluices
runs. This tank is divided into a smaller and a larger part by a parti-
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 215
tion not quite as high as its sides, over which the water pours from the
former into the latter division, thereby clearing itself. An elevator
conveys it from here to the cistern. By this arrangement the same
water can be used two or three times.
One engine of thirty-five horse-power drives two six-stamp and two
five-stamp batteries. The stamps of the former weigh six hundred
pounds each, and those of the latter four hundred and fifty pounds
each.
There is a separate bin opposite each battery for sorting the custom
ores. The four-hundred-and-fifty-pound stamps are intended to drop
thirty-five, and the six hundred pounders twenty-five times per minute.
There are in this mill eight feet of coppers and four feet of blankets;
but besides this the water runs over four and one-half feet of small
blankets to the tail-sluice. Two pumps keep the water constantly
supplied to the cistern. The blankets are washed, according to cireum-
stances, every fifteen to thirty minutes.
These tailings are brought into the Bartola pans and polished by
arastras, nitrate of mercury and cyanide of potassium being added in
small quantities to assist the process.
From this they are brought to the dolly-tub for amalgamation. These
three pans save $15 of the gold, which would otherwise run out and be
thrown away, per day; and Mr. Bradley hopes to be able, by the use of
three additional pans, which he contemplates adding, to pay the daily
wages of the whole mill personal.
The two five-stamp batteries are always worked together, but the six-
Stamp batteries are provided with a clotch, by disconnecting which
fastening they can be worked separately.
Cleveland mine.—Excelsior lead.
Trail Creck, a few miles from Idaho City.—I visited the mill belonging
to this company for the purpose of witnessing the trial of a new two-
stamp steam stamp, the invention of Mr. Wilson, of Philadelphia. Two
steam cylinders are mounted on heavy framework, the piston-rods pro-
longed below are shod, thus forming the two stamp-rods. The weight
of each stamp is 500 pounds, the impinging force of thesteam 1,700
pounds; which, deducting the necessary amount for friction and other
losses, leaves an available blow of over 1,700 pounds. These stamps
can be run 170 to 212 per minute. This velocity was not attained
during the trial, but the working was so satisfactory as to leave the
impression on all who witnessed it that this kind of stamp mill, with
certain modifications, bids fair to supersede all others. Great attention
must, of course, be paid to the feeding, to avoid throwing upon the
table imperfectly crushed quartz, because from twice to twelve times as
much ore as in an ordinary mill passes in a given time under each one of
these stamps.
The smelting works of Professor Hill—_These works are favorably sit-
uated on Clear Creek, half a mile below the western extremity of the
town of Black Hawk. There are two reverberatory furnaces, a set of
rollers for crushing, and attached to the works is an assay office for
valuing the ore bought.
This ore is of all “kinds and comprises the richest produced by the
mines. Seven tons are matted in one day, and this matt is then sent by
Professor Hill to Swansea and sold. The lump ore is roasted in heaps
six to eight weeks, to get rid of the greater part of the sulphur; it is
then crushed in the rolling-mill and mixed with the other ores.
The tailings, consisting mainly of pyrites, are roasted in the reverbe-
ratory furnaces.
216 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.
All the ores are mixed together after roasting, in such a manner as to
produce a slag of the requisite fusibility. The greater part of the zine,
lead and arsenic is volatilized, a small portion only uniting with the
matt and slag. The matt contains forty per cent. copper, and is the
product obtained by smelting the roastéd ores. How rich this matt is
in silver, and how much of it is annually shipped abroad, is known only
to Professor Hill and his assistant.
It is stated that Professor Hill contemplates erecting additional
works for the reduction of this matt on the ground where it is produced,
and the enterprise is generally regarded with satisfaction by the mining
population, among whom the belief is common that the profit which
Professor Hill can realize in treating these ores ought to be sufficient to
enable him to spare himself this great transportation, and at the same
time stop one of the many channels through which bullion flows out of
the country.
COLORADO CITY, AUGUST 9.
About three miles from Colorado City, in a ravine through which
flows the Fontaine-qui-bouille, are the famous soda springs, which
have been from time immemorial regarded with superstitious awe by
the Indians, and which are now attracting persons from all parts of the
country by their beauty and supposed medicinal virtues. Three of
these springs are situated on the right bank of the creek, not more than
fifteen feet from the edge, and one of them (the smailest, and that giving
the strongest water) on the left bank.
The first of these which one meets in gomg from Colorado City bub-
bles up through the rock into a large basin of seven or eight feet in
diameter, which it has formed partly by wearing away the sides which
confine it, and partly by continual deposits of its salts. This spring is
eailed the “ Beast Spring,” because it is the only one of the four con-
veniently accessible to large quadrupeds, which drink greedily of its
waters.
The next (and largest) spring on the same side of the creek is the
bathing spring, and is distant from the other but a few rods. aud EHesoS dosabes ceed beoecese
IPOs dog boarae bocn BHO OCUOS REE SORE EAe CHD OBOE DAtra see 78, 122, 127, 129, 168, 171, 198
Jenrensom, Comin, (INGORE) so566q seco cccoed Debno> codd boos S600 de00 caocqo Ke 28
Jolancamn Comming (NG oe) as ceocronbeeoicagu coeccs cessed codons sooo saaeee 30
UL CUT MME CI CD AG UIs Seta cera carat a cies ciaiciavecaic\m ola iainreleteterela valve raichertala| ea erete a sie ratolare 56
256 INDEX.
Page.
Kenosho Basim-sin)-- secsciet aa set satan etn as ROR er ar ee pS aN 9
Kiowa: Creeks 4.2 nat masetg asain ntis nee tsoa oa Spe alae ole ode AO te Se A ee 139
Hancaster Countyar@Nebrasisa)) er-2) see ee eee eee ereee eee oes 8, 38
IVAN QOS 655555556 bad pdbode Beso Bodo pene eaoS5on Sood soaded bobo 0neeG! abace 116, 121, 206
Laramie Mountains ...0.-..v cle Se tesie as WT tat vy aes na 70, 89
Binns eee ee BAM UAE LEIS DENT TE PARR E yals co Sie eye eee oh Nee ees 83, 89
RIVET MSGS S272 Subs Ne Ee eRe Berean aie egy nee ee an = eee 84
iE Cle 1st, VLAN ae a a eas 985 Sl ah 8 81
asp Viecasiss sees S 3 TSA SMS AN Ws WA DS Ss ys seas Ee Alten yap aye asa "160, 162, 219
LeConte, Drie. on coal andaronidepositse sss ssesa4 eee ao see eeeeoee eos 193
Hee strani chy 22 6804 ee AA AS ESE ee cen wae enue ES ener oe 22
ihettishanck@re eke hen Spoink Re A ee SSO Se Oi eae Se ET ie ea ae * 128
Lesquereux, Professor, L., list of fossil plants./......-.-..---.-------------- 195
Wetter of haw. Hay dens Saxsa so assesses ooeioe aecieae one hearse a) Sees e ee ee 76, 88, ae
KER OON CDR ot Bh oct ais Aa ean P Se kota ia a fei ena webs Wenn bo oe
basins theioreatys Ake Sea ie Seine eee eis seein Seg erenine, Seren eetareneeres a
Tincolin ee szk aeA eee ee AA eR RAR Se tp ee a ow Sele Some ae) eee eee 38
BittlesBlwe River... 282 ckee eae sae eS ee eee hee ea ee Nee ae ee ee 23
Chompson) Creeks crocs ok corks R Reet ee eh ete see ee eee eee 126
Lode, Anglo-Saxon ...... S35500 SS AIG OS HOS OSU ASU SuTORUESA Guse eae eso 211
Baleeii tee cwaqace~ sue rersew ase eS Se Se ARO Sa RRS SEE Se at a ee 187, 209
Belmoub ee akeenee ken teeee Peek AERA R ee ee een mean sek Cee hele el eter Ramiele 211
Brehimesscecs ice pberea tect ess ceo vase e eee a whee Ld ate ole eA 168. 220
Brow eels cece nee eetee ee eden eee eee eats REED ee Oye ees 187, 209
CUR ee a vehiera venned carers Bee ects eA eae OR RETR IR SR a ee 211
ORME Bete Geek othr NS ath yes AE eT MOEN 5 SO 9 Nes GS Ale oa 187, 211
Come bese aee eee ease’ Aes Mahi RONDE IE SAIC aN OU Eee vey es Fa 211
Conqueror et ecneeceee tee sec eee eRe Ree cea e eet A NaN eee eee eae 212
Wontimempbal s cececren tere eters ee Ria rere RE ls NO la Ae A oe a 211
Copeland) ceceec steeds ceeededis eee e dee See tee eae ee ee eee 214
Eli ah VE Se) cence eet cient See SS Sas Lae Sia eS a 211
Equator ...--- oUsen Pine eeserds eee ese ee eee eee ek eee ee ee eee 211
Gilpin eeewueetse ets ade eee ee eee tesa Seat a ee te ert es en eee 211
Gregotyaceeks (inkce te tane cise sees eee eae aN CRE S eR een es Sha ee 212
Griltith es cece donee Reese eee seek eel ede eae ea ae al eee a a Ee 211
NDCT Uy eee Be wee heece Hato va Mere tare ee Oe ie OR ay win ol se nla oY) Ce 211
Ma cone tina ares cee ease ak ORME S Ree Se Ee ee Sa Se ee eRe RS ee 211
Mendotatescaccacaa sca daeaea wes sas ce Saas SASS Se ASO ec ne EES 211
INGWoBOSTO Nps odessa ERE she Re Oe UE Re ee ee ne ae ae 211
INOGthyS tas Jee seers eee ee Ee ey aoa een era Cees, Bk Ae CLS 214
INT CONS atic e Sica a ete eek oe AL Seer aes et ea 241
Ob eS Ges eee ab aaah a Wie Baylies pare UN BAR Chcta kt bya die lee hee aia 168
RG RETIN: Bees ooo Solel A eee Pte USGA MISE Ree, UII Nei ete 214
JETER eae eens Ea POS CAS Abt Ae TET MMS) ome UMN Ge Tava eb hte ee OY 214
STO WOU aah oe SE ey RN ee ea LU Sh A ee eae Re erg 211
BAST ONS See ee en eee ne eae eater WLM ey ae Mia Ue Le nooks 187, 211
AWVENIIN GH RGYE Oi ere een teeters amt Sune ere Ce nanan IEE TS aN oS 211
WilliampB Astor oi). oS nchnaaae Webs beh sae sa el OS Se One Se ee ea 211
SWalnite eee eet ee sa ak a Se yet ear Sie chs aS wo ae eC 211
Vous Ammer ais cesses isp va) sy aysler essay ste ats pual ears See ered ee es 211
Logan CTS RUE: / SRA OTE Sa OE Nine. SS sey Met seis = ease 63
Won eis Peaks S355 cers pete a eensisere teal 35060 dosncadesu Sodcn0 soso 05bes A Ra eae ee oe i We
POMC OO Ee lta eee leet sede ie Falster te tale STe te REIS ee telrare (eleiete lott ta ieree cel ennt nie eerere Payette 17
LER YS Weill MUG 2 OU ae a Ley ee Me oe oee as le ee ee Cada Gabo 176
Boma tO ity epee ea iate ele lett folie et tiia nt ats te ee fee tereleare tolrnrape ene tetera eat 48
Zopulationeesseereeee see cece. Beet eis aS i ll ACA a ere ee et 238
(POttOIS Clay, Gece lene eles ae eee wetem = cies He eee area elowiee ee ere are elteintelala stati 24
RO W.CLET RAV CI yee eae eet fod ee ea AS Rcu cle at ct Se eet Pte ate et ee Peerage ewaleverclatape 73
IBA UIOY WOU So doo sau bddosu Goance GHOUkG OSauoh sooedo Cob ebe Dooberscadacomac 3
Rueblo Mow bas: Bee ae ee Wee rereer sees tee Eee ieee pee tuned foe ie ee Soaescs 170
TEU UPH KO Aye eM Cere uy NS ait oe de a naigaoera cond sono bso odsdooua Good 54
Re ESOT Cp este) ee eR ee ES OOo COGS a MAbE SS aoe 134
IRAN MOMENT) -S554aos500Gc00 o6coos eae kas gales Re, aM cs 22 Bt nape aR 1538, 156
Peale Ola NII TO a OVS a tes a oe Un ESTED, 2 he eo 155
Rawling’s Springs, (Station)..---..---- ELE SS AS Ot FICE itis 96
Rayada Creek..-......-- Bi (LEAS yay UN ala SAU ARP LOE ec ef fH le ne 157
TRY eveL OR REY) re STM ne ta at ene eRe hb al bons hon oem mee DO GOLOOnOoae 151
ANA Tara seats a a ae a SL Ug Bete ye oe ore cae ave 81
Reportiotfet. avy. Hayden, frstiannualeepse-seeeeeese sie s- == eerie eer 5
ReoonG! AINE, 6556 cage co04 dons Sooods bo0000 S460 bose 65
TavUROL AROMA Gaod cages Seonoo ase soo sadded sodoseeS 109
JERS HSTT (oy Ginl thn Bs 2) Deve anaes MEELIS Bink A 5 Rene eR See SisicbSe 199
INDE) 1 259
fl Page
InepoOr OF Comms INOS 6665 Seba qeaocuseeods o6n5 Gheu Gbbe cons cede cond cpa ne 229
inielmanelson Commiy, (NG WISI) S55 6s58e6bcde no46ed docosdeuce6s coeceocneese 16
1G Color tee eee Nea ee Se teoo See O beer Ee Gaba orn Giaee Paes uae a ake 174
NM TCON BING ATA GS) Pgs a ASE oP a MU 170
CO) eaves CGV) i hs a A eS eee pn ae ee 172
CERES BN STON cy ee ENE Ey RY IE 172,175
AV aU ee veee Sete asl Neva tersh Sisco aiere teeny a ctu Vee er eleNete eye) sta a5 eae 169
PIT ENING pee eee Nee el elaysrapae ony siieiots ets ale io iene eermts (a ea meeeerner le ace SEA ea ate 170
_ Rivers and larger creeks—
IN vovSTBT Oe asd nA N Og uk ip ERD NaN act tu een ~ 153
FAUT KUT S ELS Reape ates eat pratt te Sy hae eset Acs 20h ae 126, 140, 150, 177
IS TOMES MOY Nae Serer te arersiap ye) era atu aM siars solace aay lias Seat ees ian a a SE 27
Big TEIOIBN 6645 oog660 Secu doadou oS4a5d cosa geod BORO OnE One a Seria ee 71
IBIOW | assnsesoac oo4sde pe Sauondobo5 cbodeo HoeSSonabone walt SN STN a 139
HES ull LT, siesaeat east Meals eet iw sales nev p rete care ree arte ae Ua 123, 129
@Wache=ala sR Oude) es cete nese oy train ayeichale arevatay sta ais te eee eye es oe rae 116, 118, 121
Camadiameseeoc i sata aereoraaemisls\aeceemiersells navn ss auui Beet NS aes Cee 156,
Claeweimme, OIG) .c4s50 50505000 basc00 Saud boon HESs Gado bobSHe oun OdoeSs 69)
inmate rave eet) ese SVE REIN SUIS lees ie ba atc vetoy NN ct en 157
Colorado, (i@)) 455 s66 e665 csonco nosoooedeoEo oS SSe SSeS EEE eae 174
COOKE) ie ea eS a ae as NE ean RL SG ar A Rae pl 152
nal Cae aee ta ey ars cte clave atone ceeisteiars epee a arey wlaaie teratiayaeerel etn o teeter aietayal avatope aoa 174
BE ahr O eave ys haere a oheararc areca iar a UL OL as eis arthaiayctaise eee 48, 62, 109
Fountain, (Fontaine qui Bouillé)..---.-. Syn Se aos Sacer eran ain ghee 143, 147
CaM UTNE 505 ral a i te Oe pee a a eg My UROL SL 164
Gailliisteomees = Pye See is EY Las cr eR a ea Par Rca aS 165
CERN Us get aN RS Oa I Ley A RN mt eH ya at SU 183
PUGLECIMOLME Us ee ac voce ciate catia: paler Me berets aay iat amore aeistelcicisrneciaine 151
HNOTSC) CLEC Kees yen nsisiarlajatancters ol skaters ores eiaiayes oaiaiel wleraretereieay ose orcieicia eRe ove beavers 80
Judith, (basin) ..--- Dace o600 doba69 nab0 DdS0050 Seno noSadS COG sodeO SSS 56
IRS O WARM Seis Geer rane s nnetaalcelmiat ca crajeie ral een erase yee ciara crete ate ye Sosa 139
Lemon, Cone Eyal Iii) cease bash coaoss Gace cesuoSobeasées Gacdo4eds 81, 84
HB ast tel ep MTS Trae eae es eee a he gayest taney 0S el gel parapet ts eran Maajey eat ae ete a tae ape 28
Mie ANI Cy BO Wir cvervarseretee ist aceha tote aoe aici tc telereree otal saya nine rac opatal erin 21 eee oat Gil, Milr/
MASS OUTS SAS eee laps ccc ae oe cite ea ciay Se rere ela ars cimreitcrey eee re et A CaN eed eee
MOMUIME MLE sey sto ae le secsieacieneie cin eietal siejcrefersreieiatel ai neierenreto nist aarae eee eye 140, 142
IVI eee veces este ase Ss ase st astal See re en RE ae cs AL Ia Ta ee RN CE ep 159
Muscle-shell.--..----. a ee atta a tetera alopecia ah cle ny ora atone a) Oia ese 76
ING 11 att ey er ee eee eee ee eee classe shelters ce tpay Walrad 17, 35
ING OMOEA Bai spre Soe Rare eh re ON Sra) WS Deo eae Ue tan aie eb aataietape 73, 110
North Hornsoft South Platte saaeaseeeeee sae Sate ela ieee ae te orale Sean 180
OGate res semper Sake eters eee oe ay ae ies ea neers WIS cnet a ae ener naan ars eae 158
1 EEX EX OFS a Cae 8 yg nat HU ER EN Re AN ene) Ses ME re 165
A] {ENSUES SVX) seu tale rage ete ate PES Ve poe ce RS as VG eee 170
Blabtecee sti ee ae oats ce seamismebesseeree Rote meee aeiemion Siecluerts hs C5, 7/2
IEE SONU CHCE Se oeho Doha Hobe bb ooeooDEead OaboooosHaEs UboseoogEoe 138
SEAT 0 oar pes Pagel n A eee Ok ur ga aa EM ES A eg 34, 138
RO WiGE Ten ste aa SUED ary au MA LY a Srv: Serel stake ratchet a Sisysatsiny olejcieral ae ete 73
Bur gatoryie se ras sence Saas ey ne ole Jalota siaiscare stl aiaicialais sare sea aleraid: