THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF Neil C. Heedham DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Franklin K. Lane, Secretary United States Geological Survey George Otis Smith, Director Bulletin 612 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES Part B. THE OVERLAND ROUTE WITH A SIDE TRIP TO YELLOWSTONE PARK WILLIS T. LEE, RALPH W. STONE, HOYT S. GALE AND OTHERS Reprinted with minor correctiona WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1916 ADDITIONAL COPIES OF THIS PUBLICAWON MAY BE PEOCURED FEOM THE St^'EEINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINQTON, D. C. PAPER-BOUND COPIES, 50 CENTS EACH CLOTH-BOUND COPIES, 75 CENTS EACH DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Franklin K. Lane, Secretary United States Geological Survey George Otis Smith, Director Bulletin 612 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES Part B. THE OVERLAND ROUTE WITH A SIDE TRIP TO YELLOWSTONE PAKK WILLIS T. LEE, RALPH W. STONE, HOYT S. GALE AND OTHERS Reprinted with minor corrections WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1916 Principal Divisions of Geologic Time.« [A glossary of geologic terms is given on pp. 182-185.1 Era. Period. Epoch. Characteristic life. Duration, accord- ing to various estimates. Ceiiozoic (re- Quaternary. Recent. Pleistoce n e (Great Ice Age). "Age of man." Animals and plants of modern types. Millions of years. 1 to 5 cent life). Tertiary. Pliocene. Miocene. Oligocene. Eocene. " Age of mammals." Possible first appear- ance of man. Rise and development of highest orders of plants. Cretaceous. (&) "Age of reptiles." Rise and culmination of hugekmd reptiles (dinosams), of shell- fish with complexly partitioned coiled shells (ammonites), and of great Hying reptiles. First appearance (in Jurassic) of birds and nuiinmals; of cycads, an order of pahnlike jilants (in'Triassic); and of angiosjiermous plants, among which are palms and hardwood trees (in Cretaceous). Mesozoic (in- termediate life). Jiuassic. (b) 4 to 10. Triftssic. (b) Carbonifer- ous. Permian. "Age of amphibians." Dominance of club mosses (lycopods) and plants of horsetail and fern types. Primitive flowering plants and earliest cone-bearing trees. Beginnings of backboned land animals (land vertebrates). Insects. Animals with nautilus-like coiled shells (ammon- ites) and sharks abundant. I'ennsylva- nian. Mississip- pian. Devonian. (b) "Age of fishes." Shellfish (mollusks) also abundant. Rise of amphibians and land plants. Paleozoic (old life). Siluiinn. (b) SheU-forming sea animals dominant, espe- cially those related to the nautilus (ceph- alopbds). Rise and culmination of the marine animals sometimes known as sea lilies (crinoids) and of giant scon^ion- like crustaceans (eurjTjterids). Rise of fishes and of reef-building corals. 17 to 25. • irdovician. (6) Shell-forming sea animals, especially ceph- alopods and moUusk-like brachlopods, abundant. Culmination of the buglike marine crustaceans known as trilobites. First trace of insect life. Cambrian. (b) Trilobites and brachiopods most charac- teristic animals. Seaweeds (algse) abun- dant. No trace of land animals found. Proterozoic (primordial life). Algonkian. (b) First life that has left distinct record. Crustaceans, brachiopods, and seaweeds. Archean. Crystalline rocks. No fossils foimd. 50-1- a The geologic record consists mainly of sedimentary beds— beds deposited in water. Over large areas long i)eri.)ils of uplift and erosion intervened between periods of deposition. Every such interruption in deposition in any are^i produces there what geologists term an unconformity. Many of the time divisions shown above are separated by sucli iiuconforinitios -that is, the dividing lines in the table renresent local or wi.lesprc.Kl uplifts or depressions of the earth's surface. b Epoch names omitted; In less common use than those given. 2 PREFACE. By George Otis Smith. E The United States of America comprise an area so vast in extent and so diverse in natural features as well as in characters due to human agency that the American citizen who knows thoroughly his own comitry must have traveled widely and observed wisely. To ''know America first" is a patriotic obligation, but to meet this obligation the raih-oad traveler needs to have his eyes directed toward the more important or essential things within his field of vision and then to have much that he sees explained by what is unseen in the swift passage of the train. Indeed, many things that attract his attention are inexplicable except as the story of the past is available to enable him to interpret the present. Herein lie the value and the charm of history, whether human or geologic. The present stimulus given to travel in the home country -wall encourage many thousands of Americans to study geography at first hand. To make this study most profital)le the traveler needs a hand- book that will answer the questions that come to his mind so readily along the way. Furthermore, the aim of such a guide should be to stimidate the eye in the selection of the essentials in the scene that so rapidly unfolds itself in the crossing of the continent. In recog- nition of the opportunity afforded in 1915 to render service of this kind to an unusually large nmnber of American citizens as well as to visitors from other countries, the United States Geological Survey has prepared a series of guidebooks ^ covering four of the older railroad routes west of the Mississippi. These books are educational in purpose, but the method adopted is to entertain the traveler by making more interesting what he sees from the car window. The plan of the series is to present authori- tative information that may enable the reader to realize adequately the scenic and material resources of the region he is traversing, to comprehend correctly the basis of its development, and above all to ^ Guidebook of the western United States: Part A, Northern Pacific Route, with a side trip to Yellowstone Park (Bulletin 611); Part B, Overland Route, with a side trip to Yellowstone Park (Bulletin 612); Part C, Santa Fe Route, with a side trip to Grand Canyon of the Colorado (Bulletin 613); Part D, Shasta Route and Coast Line (Bulle- tin 614). 4 PEEFACE. appreciate keenly the real value of tlie country he looks out upon, not as so many square miles of tenitory represented on the map in a railroad folder by meanmgless spaces, but rather as land — real estate, if you please — varying widely in present appearance because differing largely in its history and characterized by even gi'eater variation in values because possessing diversified natural resources. One region may be such as to afford a livelihood for only a pastoral people; another may present opportunity for intensive agriculture; stiU another may contain hidden stores of mineral wealth that may attract large industrial development; and taken together these varied resources afford the promise of long-continued prosperity for this or that State. Items of interest in civic development or references to significant epochs in the record of discovery and settlement may be interspersed with explanations of mountain and valley or statements of geologic history. In a broad way, the story of the West is a unit, and every chapter should be told in order to meet fully the needs of the tourist who aims to understand aU that he sees. To such a traveler-reader this series of guidebooks is addressed. To this interpretation of our own country the United States Geo- logical Survey brings the accumulated data of decades of pioneering investigation, and the present contribution is only one type of return to the public which has supported this scientific work under the Fed- eral Government. In preparing the description of the country traversed by the Over- land Route the geographic and geologic information already pub- lished as well as unpublished material in the possession of the Geo- logical Survey has been utihzed, but to supplement this material Messrs. Lee, Stone, and Gale made a field examination of the entire route in 1914, Mr. Lee working between Omaha and Ogden, Mi\ Stone between Ogden and Yellowstone, and Mr. Gale between Ogden and San Francisco. Information has been furnished by Profs. J. C. Merriam and G. H. Louderback, as well as by others to whom credit is given in the text. Cooperation has been rendered by the United States Reclamation Service and by bureaus of the Department of Agriculture. Railroad officials and other citizens have also gen- erously given their aid, and other members of the Survey have freely cooperated in the work. For the purpose of furnishing the traveler with a graphic presenta- tion of each part of his route, the accompanying maps, 29 sheets in aU, have been prepared, with a degree of accuracy probably never before attained in a guidebook, and their arrangement has been planned to meet the convenience of the reader. The special topo- graphic surveys necessary to complete these maps of the route were made by C. H. Birdseye and J. L, Lewis. Guidebook of the Western United States. PART B. the overland ROUTE, WITH A SIDE TRIP TO YELLOWSTONE PARK. By Willis T. Lee, Ralph W. Stone, Hoyt S. Gale, and others. INTRODUCTION. The westbound traveler over the Union Pacific Railroad will view in the course of his journey some of the most conspicuous geographic features of the North American Continent. These are shown in the accompanying illustration (PI. I). The east end of the route lies in the broad, well-watered Mississippi Valley, where an abundance of rainfall is indicated by the numerous branching streams. On leaving Omaha the traveler crosses the Great Plains, which rise gradually to the west and become progressively drier, merging into the relatively barren region formerly called the Great American Desert. This change in character is not very apparent to the traveler, because the raih'oad foUows a vaUey whose bottom lands in the arid part of the Great Plains are irrigated and do not differ in general appearance from those farther east, where the rainfall supplies sufficient moisture for growing crops. On both sides of this valley in western Nebraska the land is utilized for grazing and for dry farming. The cultivation of the Great Plains by dry farming is rapidly spreading as new meth- ods become more widely understood, and the region can no longer be called a desert. In eastern Wyommg the route is in a belt of grazing country. West of the Great Plains lies a general mountainous country, known as the Cordilleran region, which extends westward to the Pacific coast. At Granite Canyon, Wyo., tlie railroad reaches the eastern margin of the Cordilleran region, marked by a spur of the southern Rocky Mountams — the Laramie Range — and thence westward it winds around detached mountain groups and through the intervening basins. The traveler may not realize that he is in a mountainous region, for most of the lofty mountains of southern Wyoming stand at considerable distances from the railroad. The mountainous part of the route is not well populated. Many of the stations are little more than section houses, and some consist only of a post on which is painted the name, to indicate tlie location of a sidetrack. This 5 6 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTEEN UNITED STATES. part of Wyoming is used mainly for stock raising, but in the irrigated valleys farther west, in Utah, there are orchards and well-tilled fields. Soon after entering Utah the traveler crosses the Wasatch Moun- tains, one of the great ranges of the continent, through the canyon cut by Weber River, and then enters the valley of Great Salt Lake. Leaving Ogden on the westward journey the traveler is fairly within the Great Basin, one of the major natural divisions or physio- graphic provinces of the United States, and he will be passing through it for more than 16 hours. The Great Basin is called a desert and as a whole gives an impression of dreariness and desolation, but it has a peculiar interest not possessed by any other part of the transconti- nental route. It is one of the most productive mining regions of the world. That it is not all a desert is shown by the fact that large num- bers of cattle and sheep are raised within its limits. It is developing, moreover, to an increasing extent in agriculture. Beyond the Great Basin lies the Sierra Nevada, which on this route marks approximately the boundary between Nevada and California. Thi'ouo:h the forest zone of the Sierra the traveler descends into the Great VaUey of California and, crossing its broad plains, passes, by way of the one tidal outlet through the Coast Ranges, to the metropo- lis of the Pacific coast. Note. — For the convenience of the traveler the sheets of the route map in this bul- letin are so arranged that he can unfold them one by one and keep each one in view while he is reading the text relating to it. A reference is made in the text to each map at the place where it should be so unfolded. The areas covered by these sheets are indicated on Plate I, and a list of the sheets and the other illustrations is given on pages 237-240. A glossary of geologic terms is given on pages 232-236, and an index of stations on pages 241-244. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE I .Vf l yy^ ■:. ^,- SanJV. - -^ ^ SHOWING SUR RES OF THE WESTERN PART OF THE UNITED STATES. c- ITINERARY. COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA, TO OGDEN, UTAH. Abraham Lincoln established the eastern terminus ^ of the Union Pacific Railroad on the east side of Missouri River, so that the Over- land Route begins at Council Blufls, Iowa (see Council Bluffs, Iowa. gj^^^^^ j^ p^ 18)^ although the offices, shops, and Eiovat ion 9S0 feel. general terminal facilities of the road are west Population 29,292. c j i • ^ r\ ^ n ^^ ~n^ xy • of the river, at Omaha. Councu iiluns is on the broad flood plain of Missouri River, at the foot of high bluffs ' President Lincoln's Executive order of November 17, 1863, and a supple- mental order of March 7, 1864, were issued under the law of July 1, 1862, which created the Union Pacific Railroad Co. and which authorized the Pre.sident of the United States to establish its east- ern terminus on the western boundary of Iowa. This required the company to provide for the difficult crossing of Missouri River. The passage of this law authorizing the building of a road to the Pacific coast was preceded by a long debate. The north- western region acquired by the Louisiana purchase of 1803 had been explored by Lewis and Clark, whose expedition started in 1804. Their report aroused great interest and stimulated many military, trading, and exploring expeditions, but there was great opposition to the holding of the "western wilderness" in the Union. This was voiced in 1825 by Senator Dickerson, of New Jersey, who said, in debate: "But is this Territory of Oregon ever to become a State, a member of this Union? Never. * * * The distance * * * that a Member of Congress of this State of Oregon would be obliged to travel in coming to the seat of government and returning home would be 9,300 miles. * * * If he should travel at the rate of 30 miles per day, it would reqiiire 306 days. Allow for Simdays, 44, it would amount to 350 days. This would allow the Member a fortnight to rest himself at Washington before he should commence his journey home. This traveling would be hard, as a greater part of the way is exceedingly bad, and a portion of it over rugged mountains, where Lewis and Clark found several feet of snow in the latter part of June. Yet a young, able-bodied Senator might travel from Oregon to Washington and back once a year; but he coidd do nothing else. It would be more expeditious, however, to come by water round Cape Horn, or to pass through Bering Strait, round the north coast of this continent to Baffin Bay, thence through Davis Strait to the Atlantic, and so on to Washington. It is true, this passage is not yet discovered, except upon our majis, but it will be as soon as Oregon shall be a State." But when California was acquired by the United States, and especially after the discovery of gold, the Pacific coast be- came of great importance to the citizens of the East, and routes leading to it were carried across what had been a trackless wilderness. The western migration, which received its greatest impetus in the gold rush of 1849, developed some famous trails, one of which, the "Overland Trail," was the forerunner of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. The convincing arguments in favor of its construction seem to have been military and political rather than commercial. President Lincoln advocated it not only as a military necessity but also as a means of keeping the Pacific coast in the LTnion. The name Union Pacific probably resulted from the belief that the road would bind the Union together. 7 8 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. composed mainlj of a claylike material known as loess. According to tradition these bluffs were used for centuries by the Indians as a common meetmg ground; here the several tribes held their pow- wows, smoked their pipes of peace, or declared hostilities, as their inclmations moved them. The name Council Bluffs was originally appUed to a locahty about 20 miles north of Omaha, where Lewis and Clark held council with the Indians. Later it was transferred to the site of the present city. The loess * north of Council Bluffs lies above loose sand and gravel known as the Aftonian gravels (fig. 1). The outcrop of these gravels is marked by a line of springs, for the underground water passes through them more readily than it passes through the less porous ma- ABOl/e SEA LEI/EL Figure 1.— Sketch profile of river bluffs near Omaha, Nebr., showing the Aftonian gravels lying between two beds of glacial till and covered with thick deposits of loess. terial above and below. From these gravels in some parts of Iowa have been collected the bones of mastodons, camels, and many other annuals no longer found in North America.- (See PI. II, p. 10.) ' Loess is a peculiar silt, claylike loam, or fine-grained sand, wliich strongly re- sists weathering. The name is supposed to be derived from the German word losen (to loosen), because of the tendency of the material to split off in vertical columns. In color loess is generally buff or yellowish brown. It covers large areas in North America, where its beds were probably formed after the ice of the glacial period had disappeared. Its mode of origin is not certain h/ known. Some beds of it consist of material lifted by the wind from the valleys where it had been deposited by streams. Others probably were deposited in water along stream courses or in temporaiy lakes. In places it contains bones and teeth of animals and shells of snails. If properly watered it makes good soil. ^ The animals of the Pleistocene (plice'- toe-seen) epoch (see table on p. 2) are in- teresting because they are nearer to us in time than others of the past and therefore most nearly like some animals now living; yet those that lived in North America dur- ing this epoch were very different from those living here to-day. To find the de- scendants or near relatives of the Pleisto- cene animals of North America we must go to other continents, for some of them as far away as India. The North Ameri- can animals were doubtless scattered by the changes in climate that resulted in the advances and retreats of the continental ice sheet during the Great Ice Age. The fauna, or assemblage of animals, of early Pleistocene time was varied in char- acter. The animals were adapted to the mild climate that then prevailed and re- mained luitil after the southward advance of the i(^e sheet, but were driven away or exterminated before the close of the ice age, and their place was taken by animals such as are now found only in the frozen areas of the North. When the ice melted away and a climate as mild as that of the present day was established, these THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN, The Aftonian gravels separate two glacial deposits known as till, consisting of sandy clay in which are fragments of rock ranging from grains of sand to bowlders 2 feet or more in diameter. These frag- ments are of limestone, sandstone, quartz, and other rocks, but the largest and most conspicuous are of quartzite and granite, inclucUng arctic species followed the retreating ice front northward, and their place was taken by animals adapted to life in a temperate climate. One of the effects of the climatic changes and the resulting migration of animals was a radical change of fauna. Could one of the Pleistocene men return and view the present-day animals they would seem as strange to him as those of an African jungle are to an inhabitant of the Great Plains. Prof. W. B. Scott, in his history of land mammals, says of the Pleistocene fauna: " It is probable that the Pleistocene fos- sils already obtained give us a fairly ade- quate conception of the larger and more conspicuous mammals of the time but no doubt represent very incompletely the small and fragile forms. With all its gaps, however, the record is very impressive. * * * The fossils have been gathered over a very large area, extending from ocean to ocean and from Alaska to Central America. Thus their wide geographical range represents nearly all parts of the continent and gives us information con- cerning the mammals of the forests as well as of the j^lains. "Those divisions of the early and mid- dle Pleistocene which enjoyed milder climatic conditions had an assemblage of mammals, which from one point of view seems very modern, for most of the genera and even many of the species which now inhabit North America date back to that time. From the geographical standpoint, however, this is a very strange fauna, for it contains so many animals now utterly foreign to North America, to find near rela- tives of which we should have to go to Asia or South America. Some of these animals which now seem so exotic, such as the llamas, camels, and horses, were yet truly indigenous and were derived from a long line of ancestors which dwelt in this continent but are now scattered abroad and are extinct in their original home, while others were migrants that for some unknown reason failed to maintain them- selves. Others again are everywhere ex- tinct. "Most surprising, perhaps, in a North American landscape is the presence of the Proboscidea, of which two very distinct kinds, the mastodons and the true ele- phants, are found together. Over nearly the whole of the United States and south- ern Canada, and even with spcjradic occiir- rence in Alaska, ranged the American mastodon {Mastodon ainericanus), which was rare in the plains but very abundant in the forested regions, where it persisted till a very late period and was probably known to the early Indians. This ani- mal, while nearly related to the true ele- phants, was yet quite different from them in appearance. * * * The tusks were elephant-like, except that in the male there was a single small tusk in the lower jaw, which can not have been visible ex- ternally; this is a remnant of an earlier stage of development, when there were two large tusks in the lower as well as the upper jaw. The creature was covered with long, coarse dun-colored hair; such hair has been found with some of the skeletons. "Of true elephants, the North Ameri- can Pleistocene had three species. Most interesting of these is the northern or Siberian mammoth {Elephas primigenius) , a late immigrant from northern Asia, which came in by way of Alaska, where Bering Land (as we may call the raised bed of Bering Sea) connected it mth Asia. The mammoth was abundant in Alaska, British Columbia, and all across the northern United States to the Atlantic coast. Hardly any fossil mammal is eo well known as this, for the carcasses en- tombed in the frozen gravels of northern Siberia have preserved every detail of structure. It is thus definitely known 10 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. blocks of a pink rock known as Sioux quartzite, because the rock mass from which they came is exposed near Sioux Falls, S. Dak. Many of the granite bowlders were carried by the glaciers hundreds of miles, for the nearest native rock of this kind occurs far to the north. (For description of glacial deposits see note on pp. 21-23.) that the mammoth was well adapted to a cold climate and was covered with a dense coat of wool beneath an outer coating of long, coarse hair, while the contents of the stomach and the partly masticated food found in the mouth showed that the ani- mal fed Tipon the same vegetation that oc- curs in northern Siberia to-day. * * * This is the smallest of the three Pleisto- cene species — 9 feet [high] at the shoul- der. The mammoth was not peculiar to Siberia and North America, but extended also into Europe, where it was familiar to paleolithic man, as is attested by the spirited and lifelike car\dngs and cave paintings of that date. Thus, during some part of the Pleistocene, this species ranged around the entire northern hemi- sphere." Two notable contemporaries of the mammoth were the Oolumljian elepliant, Elephascohimbi[P]. II, B], which attained a height of a1)out 11 feet, the size of the largest African elephants, and the impe- rial elepliant, Elephas itnpcrator, the larg- est of the American forms, which attained a lieiglit of 13 feet 6 inches. "This great creature [the imperial ele- phant] was characterized not only by its enormous stature but also by the propor- tionately very large size of its grinding teeth and was a survivor from the preced- ing Pliocene epoch; it is not known to have passed Ijeyond the middle Pleisto- cene and was thus the first of tlie species to become extinct. In geographical range the imperial elephant was a western form, extending from the Pacific coast almost to the Mississippi River, east of which it has never been found, and from Nebraska southward to the ( 'ity of Mexico. The meaning of this distribution is prob- ably that this elei)hant shunned the forests and was especially adapted to a life on the open plains. * * * "Many hoofed animals, far more than iioNS' inhabit North America, are found in this Pleistocene fauna. The Perisso- dactyla were represented by horses and tapirs, but not by rhinoceroses; it might seem superfluous to say that there were not rhinoceroses, but, as a matter of fact, that family had a long and varied Ameri- can liistory and became extinct only dm'ing or at the end of the Pliocene epoch. The horses were extremely numerous, both individually and specifically, and ranged, apparently in great herds, all over Mexico and tlie United States and even into Alaska. All the known species (at least 10 in number) belong to the genus Equiis, but the true horse {Equas caballus) to which all the domestic breeds are re- ferred, is not represented. The smallest known member of the genus is the pygmy Equus tan, of Mexico. [These ranged in size from ponies as large as a Shetland to horses that exceeded in size the heaviest modern draft horses.] * * * The Great Plains must have been fairly covered with enormous herds of horses, the countless bones and teeth of wliich, entombed in the Sheridan formation, have given to it the name of 'Equus beds.' * * * ' ' To one who knows nothing of the geo- logical history of North America it would be natural to suppose that the Pleistocene horses must have been immigrants from the Old A\'orld wliich failed to establish themselves permanently here, since they completely disappeared before the dis- covery of the continent by Europeans. This would, however, be a mistaken infer- ence, for North America was for long ages the chief area of development of the equine family, which may here be traced in almost unbroken continuity from the lower Eocene to the Pliocene. On the other hand, it is quite pos,sible that some of the species were immigrants." Tapirs, which are now confined to southern Asia, Central America, and South America, were abundant east of the Missis- sippi but are not known west of that river U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEy Ul.LETIN fil.' PLATE II .Jd-.-^^J^'iSI^ ':k. '^att 1). K. ANIMALS THAT LIVED IN CENTRAL NORTH AMERICA DURING PLIO- CENE AND PLEISTOCENE TIME. A, SABER-TOOTHED TIGER AND GIANT WOLVES ON THE CARCASS OF A PLEISTOCENE ELE- PHANT; B, PLEISTOCENE ELEPHANTS (ELEPHAS COLUMBI), MUCH LARGER THAN THE MODERN ELEPHANTS; C, GLYPTODONTS, PLEISTOCENE ARMADILLO-LIKE ANIMALS (SOUTH AMERICAN FORMS); D, PLEISTOCENE MUSK OX, AN ANIMAL AS BIG AS A SMALL COW; E, PLIOCENE HORNED GOPHERS, ANIMALS ABOUT THE SIZE OF WOODCHUCKS. After Scott. Published by permission of The Macmillan Co. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE I D. SUPPORTING HERDS OF DOMESTIC CATTLE. THE PLAINS OF NEBRASKA. Photographs furnished by Union Pacific Railroad Co. THE OVEELAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 11 On leaving Council Bluffs the train gradually rises on a fiUed incline, about 2 miles long, to the bridge, which is about 60 feet above the ordinary water level of Missouri River. Missouri River. From this incline a good view may be obtained of the broad flood plain over which the river winds in a constantly changing course and upon which at times of flood it deposits the rich loam gathered from the vast areas it drains. The productive fields that present so pleasing an aspect during the grow- ing season and give the api")earance of opulence at harvest time are the direct result of this constant activity of the river. But neither these fields nor anything else on the bottom lands can be regarded as permanent, for the great river is continually eating away the plain in some places and building it up in others. This action causes the stream to assume a winding course — that is, to meander in loops and bends that are called oxbows. In this process of shifting its course, when these bends become very sharp the river tends to straighten itself by cutting across the narrow necks, and it thus abandons parts Wild hogs, camels, and llamas were abim- dant. The hoofed animals, such as deer and })ison, were numerous, and also the carnivores or flesh eaters. Conspicuous among these were the saber-tootlied tigers (see PI. II, ^4), which were contemporane- ous Avith primitive man and doubtless were his formidable enemies. They have appealed so strongly to the imagination and ha\'e been referred to so often in literature that they are among the best known of the extinct animals. The Pleistocene fauna was not \vithout its grotesque features. Among the most curious animals of the time may be men- tioned the ground sloths and the giant armadillos (PI. II, C),of wMchProf. Scott says: "The ground sloths were great, un- wieldy herbivorous animals covered with long hair, and in one family there was a close-set armor of pebble-like ossicles in the skin, not visible externally. They walked upon the outer edges of the feet, somewhat as the ant bear uses his fore paws, and must have been very slow moving creatures. Their enormous claws may have served partly as weapons of defense and were doubtless used also to drag down branches of trees and to dig roots and tubers. Apparently, the latest of these curious animals to survive was the very large Wegalouyx, which it is interesting to note was first discovered and named by Thomas Jefferson. The animals of this genus were very abundant in the forests east of the Mississippi River and on the Pacific coast, but much less common in the plains region, where they would seem to have been confined to the wooded river valleys. The still more gigantic Megatherium, wliich had a body as large as that of an elephant and much shorter though more massive legs, was a southern animal and has not been found above South Carolina. Mylodon, smaller and lighter tlian the preceding genera, would seem to have entered the continent earlier and to have become extinct sooner. It ranged across the con- tinent but was much commoner in the plains region and less so in the forested areas than Megalonyx, being no doubt better adapted to subsisting upon the vegetation of the plains and less depend- ent upon trees for food. "The glyptodonts [armadillos, see PI. II, C] were undoubtedly present in the North American Pleistocene, but the remnants which have been collected so far are very fragmentary and quite insuf- ficient to give us a definite conception of the numl)er and A'ariety of them. ' ' They were abundant, however, in the South American Pleistocene and heuce are well kuowu. 12 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. of its former channel, which become bayous, or oxbow lakes. Cutoff Lake, wliich can be seen to the right,* 3 miles north of the bridge, is one of these abandoned oxbows. At the time the river was agreed upon as the boundary between Iowa and Nebraska Cutoff Lake was a part of its channel, but in 1870 it straightened its course, so that the land partly inclosed by Cutoff Lake, although a part of Iowa, now lies west of the river and is almost surrounded by territory belonging to the State of Nebraska. This shifting of the river's course can be prevented to some extent by building levees, or embankments. North of Council Bluffs an embankment has been thrown up and faced with a hard quartz rock (Sioux quartzite) which was shipped for this purpose from Sioux Falls, S. Dak., 160 miles away. The necessity for this protection is obvious, for some of the lowland near Council Bluffs lies below river level. The building of the bridge ^ was regarded as a notable feat of engi- neering, and its present importance is hidicated by the fact that the traffic of seven railroads passes over it. It spans one of tlie longest rivers in the world, the Missouri and Mississippi combined, 3,820 miles long. The bridge crosses this great river 669 miles above the junction with the Mississippi, and the drainage from 323,000 square miles, including large parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, passes under it. The water surface has a known range of level of 25 feet at this point; the lowest water recorded was in 1867, and the highest in 1881. The discharge at Omaha averages about 50,000 second-feet; that is to say, on the average, 50,000 cubic feet (374,000 gallons) of water passes under the bridge every second. ' The terms right and left as employed throughout this book apply to the west- bound joiirney. 2 The first bridge built at Council Bluffs was begun by the railroad company in 1869 and completed in 1872 at a cost of $1,750,000. It carried a single track, con- sisted of 11 spans, each 250 feet long, and was about 60 feet above ordinary flood level, or 50 feet above the highest re- corded level. This height served two useful purposes— it brought the track to the le\el of the bluffs west of the river and allowed boats which were formerly used on the river to pass under it, thus ob\'iating the necessity of a drawljridge. The two eastern spans of this bridge were wrecked by a tornado in 1877, but the bridgo was used with temporary repairs until 1880, wlien it was replaced by the present douljle-track structure. The river here during low water is about 900 feet wide. The bridge over the main channel rests on five piers, 250 feet apart, that extend to bedrock at a maxi- mum depth of 76 feet below the level of the flood plain. These were built midway between those of the old bridge. (See diagram on sheet 1, p. 18.) They cany the four main spans, and on each end are three additional deck spans, mak- ing the total length of the bridge 1,750 feet. Although the records give no inti- mation of the kind of rock on which the piers rest, it is supposed to consist of limestone and sandstone of Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) age, which are known from well borings to underlie the glacial drift in the vicinity of Omaha. These rocks are exposed in the river bluffs near South Omaha but can not be seen from the train. THE OVEELAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 13 Although designed to accommodate foot passengers and wagons, the bridge has never been so used. Local traffic passes over the bridge of the Omaha & Council Bluffs Street Railway Co., half a mile farther north, and beyond this is a drawbridge of the Omaha Bridge & Terminal Co., over which pass the trains of the Illinois Central Raih'oad. The Missouri is the muddiest river in the Mississippi Valley; it carries more silt than any other large river in the United States except possibly the Rio Grande and the Colorado. For every square mile of country drained it carries downstream 381 tons of dissolved and suspended matter each year. In other words, the river gathers annually from the country that it drains more than 123,000,000 tons of silt and soluble matter, some of which it distributes over the flood plains below to form productive agricultural lands but most of which finds its way at last to the Gulf of Mexico. It is by means of data of this kind that geologists compute the rate at which the lands are being eroded away. It has been shown that Missouri River is lowering the surface of the land drained by it at the rate of 1 foot in 6,036 years. The surface of the United States as a whole is now being worn down at the rate of 1 foot in 9,120 years. It has been estimated that if this erosive action of the streams of the United States could have been concentrated on the Isthmus of Panama it would have dug in 73 days the canal which has just been completed, after 10 years' work, with the most powerful appliances yet devised by man. Nebraska hes mainly in the Great Plains province of the western United States, in altitudes ranging from 842 to 4,849 feet above sea level, and is drained to the Missouri through the Nebraska. Niobrara, the Platte, and many minor streams. The annual rainfall in the State ranges from 13.30 to 31.65 inches and averages 23.84 inches. Dry farming is general and large crops of corn, wheat, and oats are raised. Nebraska claims a greater variety of native grasses than any other State in the Union, their number amounting to more than 200, of which 150 are valu- able for forage. In the western part of the State some irrigation is practiced. Nebraska is primarily an agricultural State and has been called "a State without a mine," but it does contribute to the country's mineral production by some utilization of its clay resources, by a considerable output of sand, gravel, and building stone, and by a practical monopoly of the country's production of volcanic ash, or pumice. The packing industry is large. The State includes 77,520 square miles and in 1910 had a popula- tion of 1,192,214. 14 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. The name Omaha is derived from that of a tribe of Indians that once inhabited this region. The first white settlement was made in 1854, but not mitil raiboad construction began, about Omaha, Nebr. -^q years later, did it become a town of importance. Elevation, 1,024 feet, jj grouud was broken December 1, 1863, for the Population, 124,096. ' ° . „ , i i , i i t . , i i construction of the road, altliough little real construc- tion work was done before the spring of 1865; here the first trans- continental train started for San Francisco on September 13, 1870; here occurred on November 1, 1897, ''the world's greatest auction," when tlie Union Pacific, which had cost $115,214,587.79 to construct, was sold for $57,564,932.76; and here are situated the offices, shops, and general terminal facilities of the Union Pacific system. The station at Omaha is built in a depression eroded in loess (see p. 8), and good exposures of this pecuhar material may be seen on the left as the train leaves the station. Thence westward to Elkhorn it hes on either side of the track, through the entire length of the Lane cut-off, which Figure 2.— Sketch profile showing relation of loess to underlying beds of clay and glacial till in railroad cuts west of Omaha, Nebr. is one of the notable engi- neering fea- tures on the Union Pacific route. Prior to 1908 the trains passed through Soutli Omaha and thence up Papillion Creek to Elkhorn. To avoid this circuitous route a Ime was built nearly due west from Omaha, cutting to a maximum depth of 85 feet straight through the numerous hills and building across the broad valleys, making, at a cost of $3,000,000, a level road- bed nearly 12 miles long, which shortened the line by about 9 miles.^ The city of Omaha is built on loess, and wherever grading has been done or excavations have been made the characteristic steep walls of this material may be seen. The loess is fine grained, massive, and compact and carries numerous small light-colored limy concretions. ' The figures given for population throughout this book are those of the United States Census for 1910. For unin- corporated places the census figures give the population of the election precinct, township, or oLher similar unit; such fig- ures are marked with an asterisk (*). ^ The material visible in these cuts is mainly loess and clay. In some places the glacial till under the clay is exposed, but the two can not be distinguished from the train. In nearly all the cuts, however, the division between the loess and the clay is readily discernible. The up^jer part of the bank in each cut consists of buff-colored loess 30 to 50 feet thick and is rather sharjily separated from the lower part, which consists of brick-red clay. A somewhat singular relation may be ob- served in these cuts. The red material is exposed only in the center of each cut, and its sarface in cross section has practically the same outline as the surface at the top. (See fig. 2.) The overlying loess is of nearly the same thickness in all places, as if it were a uniform blanket spread over an older surface that had the same shape as the present surface. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 15 Neprly vertical walls of it have stood practically unchanged for 30 years, and other equally precipitous walls have the appearance of being much older. The blanket of glacial debris and loess (see fig. 2) overlies limestone and sandstone of Carboniferous age/ which have been penetrated by ^ The only Paleozoic rocks which come to the surface iu eastern Nebraska belong to the Carboniferous system, deposited at a time when most of the coal beds in the easterji part of the United States were in process of formation from vegetal deposits. (For tyj)es of Carboniferous vegetation see PI. IV, C, p. 20.) They are economically the most important rocks in the State. Most of the building stone, clay, and lime produced in Nebraska come from them. Their relations to other rock for- mations exposed in eastern Nebraska are shown in the following table: Geologic column showing relations of rocks exposed in eastern A^chraska. Age. Fonnation. Character. Loess. Kansan drift. Glacial till. Quaternary. Aftonian gravels. Sand and gravel; locally conglomerate. Pre-Kansan or Nebras- kan drift. Glacial till. Tertiary. Sand and clay. Niobrara limestone. Chalky limestone and shale. Benton shale. Blue shale with limestone concretions. .(Carlile shale.) Cretaceous. Hard slaty limestone and blue chalky clay. (Greenhorn limestone.) Dark sandy shale. (Graneros shale.) Dakota sandstone. Soft massive yellow sandstone. Carboniferous. Limestone, sandstone, and shale of Per- mian and Pennsylvanian age. In eastern Nebraska the Carboniferous beds that appear at the surface comprise 200 feet of Permian and 1,200 feet of Penn- sylvanian rocks. The lowest series of the Carboniferous, the Mississijipian, does not outcrop here. The Pennsylvanian rocks consist of alternating limestones and shales. The rock formations below the Pennsylvanian in eastern Nebraska are of interest because they include certain strata that supply water to artesian wells. Several of these wells drilled in and near Omaha found water at dejjths of 1,200 to 1,800 feet under pressure sufficient to flow at the surface. The lowest stratum yields the strongest flow. 16 GUroEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. numerous wells bored for artesian water, but which can not be seen from the train. The Carboniferous period was so named because in many parts of the world its rocks contain an abundance of carbon in the form of coal. In the central and eastern parts of the United States much coal is interlayered with rocks of this age, but only one coal bed has been found m the Carboniferous rocks of Nebraska, and that one is not of much economic value under present conditions. Attempts to mine it have not proved successful. Elkhorn is the first station west of the Lane cut-off and is located on one of the branches of PapiUion Creek. East of this station the railroad crosses the eastern margin of the widespread Dakota sandstone, but the rock is. so completely covered by glacial drift and loess that in no place can it be seen from the train and, indeed, its exact position is not known. Elkhorn. Elevation 1,164 feet. Population 291. Omaha 28 miles. Figure 3. — Cross section of the rock formations from the Rocky Mountains to Omaha, Nebr., showing how some of the older rocks that crop out near Omaha extend westward underneath the yoimger formations and crop out again in the moimtains, where all the stratified rocks have been upturned and eroded. (After N. H. Darton.) Waterloo. Elevation 1,124 feet. Population 402. Omaha 31 miles. At Waterloo the railroad crosses Elkhorn River, which, unhke most other streams, does not here flow in a valley of its own making but for 25 miles or more meanders over the bottom lands of the Platte. Between Elkhorn and Waterloo great differences are noticeable both in the character of the surface and in the soil. To the east the surface is diversified by low rolling hills and broad shallow valleys completely mantled with loess. The loess forms a fahly good soil, but its inferiority to the dark-colored loam of the bottom lands is obvious to the most casual observer of the vegetation. West of the hills, in Platte Valley, the surface is flat and unbroken and the soil is more productive. (See PI. Ill, p. 11.) Valley is the center of an agricultural district in the rich bottom lands of Platte Valley. Large quantities of garden seeds are grown here. About 3 miles west of Val- ley the traveler will obtain his first good view of Platte River. The railroad follows this river as far upstream as Julesburg, in northeastern Colorado, a distance of about 350 miles. Valley. Elevation 1,139 feet. Population 810. Omaha 3.5 miles. THE OVERLAND KOUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 17 Fremont. Elevation 1,196 feet Population 8,718. Omaha 46 miles. Although Fremont, the seat of Dodge County, is on the flood plain of Platte Valley, where few exposures of rock can be seen, it stands near the contact of the Dakota sandstone and the overlying Benton shale, a fact determined by obser- vations made both north and south of the valley. The sandstone * may be seen in the bluffs at the south end of the wagon bridge south of the city, but the shale is not exposed. These bluffs consist mainly of glacial till man- tled by loess. Fremont is on the main line of the old trail from Missouri River to California and Oregon, which before the Union Pacific was built was known as the Overland Trail.- In front of the station stands a rough- ' The rocks in eastern Nebraska referred to the Dakota or basal sandstone of the Upper Cretaceous series are about 300 feet thick and consist of sand with clay and local beds of conglomerate. The sand- stone was named for Dakota City, S. Dak., where collections were made of fossil plants that were described by Profs. Heer and Lesquereux and later became known as the characteristic Dakota flora, for many years the oldest deciduous-leaved flora known in North America. This flora comprises large and well-preserved leaves of poplars, willows, oaks, alders, birches, beeches, sycamores, persimmons, tulip trees, magnolias, and sassafras and shows that many of the familiar and still domi- nant types of plants had already been firmly established at this remote time. However, none of the particular species of Dakota plants here discovered are known to have survived in this region beyond the close of the Dakota epoch. The Dakota is exposed in places in the bluffs of Platte River from Fremont to Plattsmouth. It is one of the greatest water-bearing formations in America. It rises gently toward the west, although covered by younger rocks, and crops out again in the foothills of the Rocky Moun- tains (see fig. 3), where the surface waters enter it. These waters slowly percolate through its sands for about 450 miles to supply the numerous wells in the Platte Valley and elsewhere. The Dakota sand- stone extends 400 miles or more north of the Union Pacific Railroad and an equal distance to the south and underlies the 38088°— -Bull. 612—16 2 surface of the country from the Rock\- Mountains eastward to a maximum dis- tance of 1,000 miles or more. It furnishes excellent water to the citizens of 11 States. ^ Although four transcontinental rail- road routes were surveyed by the Govern- ment, the results being published in 11 large volumes, the first line built, the Union Pacific, was explored and located by private enterprise. The Overland Trail seemed to offer the best advantages for railroad construction, inasmuch as it utilized the most feasible passage over the mountains. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, the chief engineer of the Union Pacific during the period of construction, says of it: "This route was made by the buffalo, next used by the Indians, then by the fur traders, next by the Mormons, and then by the overland immigrants to California and Oregon. It was known as the great Platte Valley route. On this trail, or close to it, were built the Union and Cen- tral Pacific railroads to California and the Oregon Short Line branch of the Union Pacific to Oregon." Its history as a defi- nite route seems to have begun in 1804, when Lewis and Clark visited and de- scribed the locality that became its east- ern terminus. A fur-trading company sent out by John Jacob Astor in 1810. which founded Astoria, Oreg., at the mouth of Columbia River, the following year, returned by a route which had never before been traversed, but which corre- sponded essentially with that later known as the Oregon Trail. Astor had planned 18 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. hewii monument of red granite with the inscription: "This boulder marks the overland emigrant trails through Fremont to Oregon, Cali- fornia, Utah, and Colorado. Erected September 23, 1912, by Lewis- Clark Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution." Similar monuments have been placed at many other railroad stations on the line of the old trail. From Ames may be seen a gap in the line of bluffs south of Platte Uiver that marks the course of an old valley occupied by the river ' at an early stage of its development, when its bed was about 100 feet higher than at present. The river then flowed southeastward past Wahoo and thence eastward to the valley which it now occupies south J'his old channel is 5 or 6 miles mde and consists of a valley floor covered with loam and sand like the floor of the present valley. Also like the present vaUey it is bordered along most of its course by steep banks of loess. Ames. Elevation 1,230 feet. Omaha 53 miles. of Waterloo. a line of trading posts extending from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, the Sandwich Islands, and China, but the War of 1812 put a stop to tliis scheme. About 1824 William H. Ashley and Etienne Provost, of the Bocky Mountain Fur Trading Co., discovered South Pass, which made per- manent the mountain-crossing route of the Oregon Trail and later attracted the Union Pacific locating parties. Gen. Dodge says further: "In 1843 the pathfinder, Gen. John C. Fremont, began to spy out the military ways across the West, and the same year the Oregon pioneers took the first wagons westward to the Pacific. The trail that began with the journey of these early' pioneers was widened and deepened by the wheels of the Mormons in 1847, and when the herald of the first California Golden Age sent forth a trumpet call in 1849, heard around the world, the trail was finished from Great Salt Lake across the mountains to the sea. "That era had its great men, for great men make eras. Ben llolladay, William N. Kussell, and Edward Creighton gave to tlie trail the overland stage line, the pony express, and the telegraph. "Dating the beginning of transconti- nental wagon travel from the days of forty- nine, it was 20 years before the railroad reached California. The period was one of great out of door men and women — the last of American pioneers. When the old trail was in full tide of life it was filled with gold seekers from the Missouri to the Pacific; 100,000 travelers passed over it yearly. Towns stiiTing and turbulent, some now gone from the map and some grown to be cities, flourished as the green bay tree. Omaha, Salt Lake, San Fran- cisco and such lesser places as Julesburg, Cheyenne, Laramie, Carson, Elko, and Virginia City were picturesquely lively. ' ' The traffic of the old trail was of long wagon trains of immigrants; the great out- fits laden with freight for the mines; of HoUaday's coaches, six teams in full gal- lop; of the first riders of the pony express;, and of all other manner of moving men and beasts. The protesting savages have no place upon it but, perceiving in it an instrument to alienate their domain, burned its wagon trains and destroyed its stages as opportunity offered. At times great herds of buffalo obliterated great sections of the trail, yet it held its own until the golden spike was driven and passed away as a wagon road only when the need for it had passed. But the rail- road lines that took up the burden of stage coach and pony express and ox team have marked the way of the trail upon the map of the West so that it shall endure as long as the West endures. ' ' SHEET No. 1 )e seen from the train. ) or by material (loess ). Infonnation abour oni well boriiiprs GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OVEKLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY c EXPLANATION md till) dcro«it«d dviing I r THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 19 North Bend. Elevation 1,274 feet Population 1,105. Omaha (U miles. The town of North Bend (see sheet 2, p. 22) takes its name from the northward bend of Platte River at this point, west of whic^h the railroad follows the river in a southwesterly direction for a long distance. South of the river, opposite North Bend, the bluffs are conspicuous, especially west of Morse Bluff, and consist of loess and glacial drift overlying shale of Benton (Cretaceous) age.' This shale was formed as a mud deposit at a time when Nebraska was at the bottom of a sea. It contains many fossil shells of extinct species of marine mollusks, such as oysters (see PI. IV, A, B, p. 20), clams, and snails, as well as many fossils of types not represented by living forms, such as ammonites and scaphites. It underlies the superficial glacial deposits between Fremont and a point a few miles west of Schuyler. In the vicinity of Schuyler, the seat of Colfax County, little other than the cultivated fields on the alluvial plain can be seen from the train. The Dakota sandstone, which here lies a little below the surface (see fig. 3, p. 16), is of economic importance because of the artesian water it contains, and this water is held in confinement by the overlymg shale. About 6 miles west of the town, between Lambert and RiohJand, the traveler passes from the Benton shale to the Niobrara limestone,^ although he would not suspect the change from anything he can see. The westbound traveler is here passing directly toward the center of the ancient sea in which the sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous age were formed. He has crossed in the order of their deposition or age two formations of the Upper Cretaceous series — the Dakota sandstone and the Benton shale — and now enters upon the third, the Niobrara, Schuyler. Elevation 1,348 feet Population 2,152. Omaha 75 miles. ' The Benton shale lies conformably on the Dakota sandstone, that is, the beds of the Dakota were not affected by erosion before those of the Benton were laid down upon them. In Nebraska and some other areas a tliin limestone (Greenhorn) near the middle of the Benton separates a lower shale (Graneros) from an upper shale (Carlile). The lowest beds crop out near Fremont, where the Dakota passes under- neath it not to reappear at the surface again toward the west for a distance of about 450 miles. It is a marine shale representmg the first deposits formed after the sea invaded the interior of North America in the Upper Cretaceous epoch. ^ The Niobrara limestone, so named be- cause of its good exposures on Niobrara River in northeastern Nebraska, appears to extend across the eastern part of the State in a broad band under Tertiary and later deposits. It is exposed for 125 miles along the valley of Republican River, but to the north is seen only in Loup Valley near Genoa until Missouri and Niobrara rivers are reached, in Holt, Knox, Cedar, and Dixon counties, where it can be seen in large exposures. The material is mainly a soft limestone, chalk rock, or limy clay, presenting considerable variation in com- position from place to place. The geologic age of this formation is shown in the table presented on p. 15. It is the youngest Cretaceous formation that is exposed near the Union Pacific Railroad in eastern Nebraska. 20 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. which differs from the others in that it contains chalk similar to that of the well-knowni chalk cliffs of England. Some of the deep wells of this region encounter salt water in the shale and chalk rock. This is excluded from the wells by the casing, so that it does not mingle with the fresh water from the underlying Dakota sandstone. Other evidence of the former presence here of sea water are fossil shells of oysters and other animals that live in salt water and the bones of sea monsters such as Mosasaurus. (See PI. V, B, and map on stub of sheet 2, p. 22.) A comparison of these ancient conditions with those of the present day indicates the slow, continuous change that is now and always has been in progress. Where the tourist now travels comfortably over a dry plain, these monsters sported in the water of the sea long ages ago. On the shores of this ancient sea lived equally strange beasts and birds of types that have long been extinct, and over its water sailed great flying dragons — the pterodactyls. The animals of that day were strikingly different from those of the present. The birds, unlike any now living, had jaws armed with teeth. The monarchs of the air then were not birds but flying reptiles, whose fore limbs had been modified into wings by the enormous elongation of fingers between which stretched thin membranes hke the wings of a bat. (See PI. V, 0.) These flying dragons, some of which had a stretch of wing of 18 feet, were carnivorous; they were animated engines of destruction that somewhat forcibly suggest the modern war airplanes, of which they were in a sense the prototypes. Columbus, the seat of Platte County, stands in the center of a fertile agricultural district. In 1864 it was a frontier town consisting of a few scattered shacks; but, with total disregard for Columbus. things as they are and with true western confidence Elevation 1,444 feet, in thiiigs as they should be, George Francis Train, one ornlia oi'^iMies. of its citizciis, thcu aiuiounced that Columbus was the geographic center of the United States and therefore the proper place for the national capital. Half a century has elapsed, however, and the seat of government is still at Washington. Columbus is on Loup River, or Loup Fork, as it is usually called, near its junction with the Platte. The Loup is a stream of consid- erable volume and nearly constant flow, draining 13,540 square miles of the sand-hill region of northwestern Nebraska. West of the mouth of the Loup the Platte usually consists of small irregular streams among the sand bars, forming a lacework of small channels, whose pattern changes with every flood. Although the Platte is normally a large river, draining 56,900 square miles and having a maximum discharge near Columbus of 51,000 cubic feet a second, there is little or no water in it above the Loup during the dry season, the water being diverted for irrigation farther upstream. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE IV MARINE FOSSILS OF CRETACEOUS AGE. A, Oysters (Ostrea congesta); B, Inoceramus labiatus. C. CARBONIFEROUS FOREST. From vegetation of this sort the great deposits of coal were formed. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE V J. SKELETON OF THE HEAD OF HESPERORNIS. A large diving bird having teeth, which were probably used in catching and holding fish on which it fed. ];. RESTORATION OF A MOSASAUR (TYLOSAURUS). A sea monster about 30 feet long. (After Hutchinson.) C. RESTORATION OF A PTERODACTYL (ORNITHOSTOMA). A flying dragon measuring 1 8 feet from tip to tip of wings. (After Lucas.) ANIMALS THAT LIVED IN CENTRAL NORTH AMERICA IN CRETACEOUS TIME. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 21 Here and elsewhere in central and eastern Nebraska largo quantities of grain are raised. Much of it, especially the corn, is fed to live stock. Animals raised on the western ranges are shipped here for fattening before they are sent to the market. In the river bluffs along Platte Valley southeast of Columbus are the westernmost deposits made by the continental glaciers. East of a north-south line passing a little east of Columbus the superficial deposits consist of loess and of glacial tiU containing bowlders and fragments of rock brought from the north by the glaciers during one of their first southward advances in the Great Ice Age, some features of wliich are described below by W. C. Alden.^ These deposits make relatively high rolUng plains. West of this line the surface of the ' Many of the physical features of east- ern Nebraska were produced by sheets of ice that invaded the region during and after the earlier stages of the Great Ice Age. The deposit best exposed, in the street cuts and river bluffs in and near Omaha and along the line of the Union Pacific to the west, is a dustlike clay or loess. Beneath this lies the glacial drift. Another feature is the great Missouri River, which swings majestically back and forth across its broad valley bottom as it gathers in the waters of the Great Plains on their way to the sea. In late Tertiary time, before the advent of the earliest continental ice sheet, Missouri River as now known was not in existence. The Dakotas were drained to Hudson Bay, and northeastern Nebraska was probably drained southeastward across Iowa. Platte River may have joined Grand River in Missomi. The bedrock east and west of the i)resent lines of bluffs lies relatively low in the Omaha region, so that before the coming of the glaciers there was probably only a valley of moderate size with low slopes instead of bluffs. The close of Tertiary time and the be- ginning of Quaternary time was marked in the northern part of the United States by the formation and spreading of vast sheets of ice similar to the great ice cap that now envelops all but the marginal parts of Greenland. From the mild and equable climate of the Tertiary period there was a change, not necessarily sudden or violent — perhaps only the lowering of the average annual temperature a few degrees — so that a large part of the precipi- tation came in the form of snow, which was not all melted away in the summer. As this snow remained from season to season a vast amount finally accumulated and formed great glaciers. There »were three main centers of accumulation and dispersion of this glacial ice, one on the Labrador Peninsula, a second west of Hudson Bay in the district of Keewatin, and a third in the mountains of western Canada. (See fig. 4, p. 22.) At the opening of the glacial epoch the great Keewatin glacier spread southward and covered large parts of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Iowa and extended thence into eastern Nebraska, where it was probably several hundred feet thick. The dark-blue clay containing pebbles and small bowlders which is exposed near the base of the river bluffs in South Omaha and near Florence, several miles north of Omaha, is a part of the deposit made by this earliest ice sheet. It is known as pre-Kansan, sub-Aftonian, or Nebraskan glacial till. As the front of the great ice sheet invaded the Dakotas and Nebraska the eastward-flowing streams were blocked and their water was tiu^ned southward. This water must have formed a stream somewhere west of Omaha. This first stage of glaciation was brought to a close by the melting of the ice in a warmer interglacial time or stage — the Aftonian. During this stage the streams of the region swept great quantities of sand and gravel down their valleys. Remnants of these sand and aravel 22 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTEKN UNITED STATES. plains is less uneven and slightly lower, and the superficial deposits consist of fragments of rock brought from the Rocky Mountains. These differ from the glacial drift in containing rounded pebbles, none of which bear evidence of glacial origin. They seem to have been brought from the mountains by streams which through long ages were engaged in leveling the Great Plains, much as Platte River is now grading its broad bottom lands, cutting away the higher places and building up the lower ones. deposits, deeply weathered and iu places cemented to hard conglomerate by lime or iron oxide, overlie the pre-Kansan glacial till at several places in the river The late Prof. Samuel Calvin identified the remains of horses, camels, stags, ele- phants, mastodons, mammoths, and sloths. When these animals lived in western Iowa FiGXTRE 4. — Map of North America showing the area covered by the Pleistocene ice sheet at its maximum extension and the three main centers of ice accumulation. bluffs. A remarkable assemblage of ani- mals invaded the region after the ice had disappeared, and the bones and .teeth of many of these animals have been found in the Aftonian deposits of western Iowa. the climate there must have been com- paratively mild and vegetation very abun- dant. Prof. Calvin says: "To supply these great herbivores with food required an abundance of vegetation such as could SHEET No. 2 'k... ^^( h'/'i T-x—^ o • c THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 23 West of Columbus the railroad is close to Platte River, whose bed is only a few feet below the track level. The flood plain is here 10 to 12 miles wide and is confined between bluffs 100 feet or more in height. It thus hes about 100 feet below the level of the Great Plains, which extend far to the north and to the south. The small towns of Duncan, Gardiner, Silver Creek, Clarks, and Thummel are passed before the next city is reached. Near Central City (see sheet 3, p. 26), the traveler passes from the Niobrara limestone, of Cretaceous age, to the formations of Tertiary age.^ (See table on p. 15.) If the younger Cretaceous formations, the Pierre shale. Fox Hills sandstone, and Laramie formation, were ever depos- ited here, they were eroded away before the Tertiary beds were laid down. The contact therefore denotes a very long period of time during which the older sedimentary formations were beine; eroded. Central City. Elevation 1,699 feet Population 2,428. Omaha 132 mUes. not be developed until some time after the pre-Kansan ice and all its climatic effects had disappeared from southwestern Iowa." The character of the shells of the fresh- water and land mollusks found in the Aftonian beds shows that the climate was similar to that of the present time. After this mild stage the Keewatin glacier again spread southward and in- ■ vaded the region. The ice reached at this stage its greatest extension in northern Missouri and northeastern Kansas, whence this is known as the Kansan stage of gla- ciation. As shown on the accompany- ing map (sheet 2) the western limit of the glacial drift crosses Platte River near Columbus, Nebr. The Kansan glacial drift that was uncovered in the cuts made in South Omaha for the Lane cut-off is bluish-gray clay containing red- dish and ijurplish bowlders of quartzite, popularly known as "Sioux Falls gran- ite," brought by the glacier from the ledges exposed near Sioux Falls, S. Dak. This drift is not now well exposed in these cuts, but it may be seen at a place IJ miles west of Pa pill ion Creek, where it forms the lower 10 feet of the section ex- posed. Long exjjosure after the melting of the Kansan ice has changed the original blue-gray color of the upper part of this drift to rusty red, dissolved out the solu- ble calcareous ingredients for a depth of 8 feet, and caused many of the granitic pebbles to decay. After the melting of the Kansan glacier the continental ice sheets did not again reach as far as the line of the Union Pacific Railroad. At the last or Wiscon- sin stage one lobe of the Keewatin glacier invaded north-central Iowa, extending to Des Moines, nearly as far south as the latitude of Omaha, and another lobe covered the northern and eastern parts of the Dakotas southward to a point about 90 miles north of Omaha, but Nebraska was not again invaded . An interesting deposit overljing the gla- cial drift is exposed about 7h miles north of Omaha and at several places farther west. It consists of volcanic ash which must have accumulated after the melting of the Kansan glacier, at a time when the air was filled with volcanic; dust from eruptions, possibly those of the Quater- nary volcanoes of northeastern New Mexico. 1 In marked contrast with the Cre- taceous formations, which were laid down in shallow marine water and which are regular in thickness and character over vast areas, the Tertiary deposits of this region are irregular in thickness and character, are nonmarine, and were deposited along streams or in shallow lakes. During the Cretaceous period Nebraska and certain other parte 24 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN" UNITED STATES. Grand Island. Elevation 1,861 feet. Population 10,326. Omaha 153 mUes. Grand Island, the seat of Hall County, is a railroad center, a division station of the Union Pacific, where extensive shops are maintained, and a city of considerable com- mercial importance, having numerous factories and mills. It is in an agricultural district where the raising of sugar beets is one of the principal industries. About 7,000,000 pounds of granulated sugar is produced here every year. The first known reference to Grand Island is contained in the account of Robert Stuart, an employee of John Jacob Astor, who left Astoria in 1812 and traveled eastward over what was later known as the Or egoni Trail. The greater part of this journey was made through a country then wholly unknown. ^'Le Grande Isle" was the first place he was able to recognize on his way east. Grand Island, a strip of land about 42 miles long, included between two channels of the Platte River, had previously been visited by trappers, most of whom were French Canadians, but white people did not settle here until 1857. In 1866 the Union Pacific was built north of the north channel and the site of the city of Grand Island thus determined. of central North America lay beneath the sea, but with the Tertiary period began a new order of things. The sea, which had extended from Iowa to Utah, was expelled by uplift from the interior of North America, and in the midst of the region the sea formerly covered the Rocky Mountains began to rise. It is this change from a quiescent sea to mountainous uplands, with all the dis- turbances attending it, that marks the diAdsion in geologic time between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary period. If at the present time the waters were expelled from the Gulf of Mexico and high mountains raised in their place, the resulting changes in climate, geography, etc., would be less conspicuous than those which marked the change from Cretaceous to Tertiary in the interior of North America. The earth movements that formed the Rocky Mountains also brought the Great Plains and the intermontane basins above sea level, so that the region now traversed by the Union Pacific from Omaha to the Wasatch Mountains, which had formerly lain under the water of the sea, was changed to dry land and, so far as is known, has never since been covered with sea water. The plains were doubtless very low — not much above sea level at first. Rivers heading in the newly upheaved mountains washed sedi- ment out upon low-lying plains, where it accumulated because the streams were too sluggish to carry it away. This newly emerged land became inhabited by animals, some of which were doubt- less developed from ancestors that lived in North America during Cretaceous time, though others immigrated from other continents. The skeletons of these animals were buried in the sands and muds deposited by the streams, and from the fossil remains of their bones the paleon- tologist is able to determine to some extent their forms, appearance, and habits. Great changes took place also in the climate, a fact indicated by the charac- ter of the plants, a (.-ritical study of which shows that although the same general types of vegetation that had flourished throughout the Cretaceous continued into the Tertiary the species were nearly all different. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 25 Grand Island is in the midst of wliat was formerly known as the great buffalo range. Gen. Dodge says: WTien the railroad reached this point, in 1866, Imffalo were numerous. In the spring these animals were wont to cross the Platte from the Arkansas and Republican valleys, where they had wintered, to the northern country, returning again, sleek and fat, late in the fall. Gradually their numbers decreased on this range until 1873, when they disappeared. But at Julesburg, 219 miles farther west, a small band was seen to cross the river as late as 1876. In 1860 immense bands were on these plains. On the south side of the Platte, on the old emigrant road, the number was so large that emigrant teams often had to stop while they were crossing the road. At Fort Kearney, on the south side of the river, in 1860, an order was issued by the post commander, forbidding the soldiers to shoot the buffalo on the parade ground. Some attempts have been made in the region of Grand Island to sink wells to the Dakota sandstone to obtain artesian water. A well put down for the city some years ago penetrated 220 feet of sand, gravel, and clay, consisting of river deposits and probably also of some Tertiary material, and then went through shale to a depth of 935 feet without finding the sandstone. The artesian stratum there- fore lies at some greater depth. At Hastings, about 25 miles farther south, a well 1,145 feet deep entered sandstone that may be the Dakota. On leaving Grand Island the train passes through the middle of the valley, which is here 22 miles wide. From anything the traveler can see from the train he might imagine himself to be passing over a boundless plain, for the bluffs on either side of the valley are too far away to be dis- tinguished. The surface looks level, but as a matter of fact it rises toward the west about 10 feet to the mile. No surface depression, such as the term '' valley" might lead one to expect, can be seen. The river flows in many interlacing channels that frequently shift their position. Over this part of the route there are long stretches of straight track. West of Silver Creek the train runs for 40 miles in a nearly straight line. The roadbed is remarkably smooth and free from dust, being ballasted with Sherman granite. (For description see p. 43.) This part of the route is on the typical Great Plains, ^ which Wood River. Elevation 1,963 feet Population 796. Omaha 169 miles. ^ The Great Plains constitute that part of the continental slope which extends from the Rocky Mountains eastward to the prairies of the Mississippi Valley. Smooth surfaces characterize most of this area, but in some parts of it there are buttes or flat-topped hills and long bluffs or escarpments. In other places there are large ai-eas of bad lands and sand hills. The origin and development of the Great Plains are difficult to determine. From Omaha westward to the Laramie Range, a distance of more than 500 miles, the surface rises with a regular inclina- tion that is imperceptible to the eye but amounts to more than 5,000 feet. The rocks of this area, aside from the thin Tertiary formations and the superficial 26 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Kearney. Elevation 2,146 feet Population 6,202. Omaha 196 miles. rise gradually but regularlj- from the prairies of Mississippi Valley to the Rocky Mountains. West of Wood River are Shelton and Gibbon, agricultural and stock-feeding centers. Two small towns, Optic and Buda, are next passed by the train before it enters Kearney. Kearney (see sheet 4, p. 28) takes its name from old Fort Kearney, which stood south of the river, a few miles east of the city, at the juncfion of the emigrant trail from Kansas City and the Platte Valley trail. It was a center of turbulence during the time of Indian warfare. Here during the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, accordmg to Gen. Dodge, there were more des- perate fights and literally hair-raising adventures than James Feni- more Cooper ever dreamed of, and here Maj. Frank J. North, with his four companies of Pawnee Indians, made history defend- ing the Overland Route against hostile Indians. The Plum Creek, Ogalalla, and Summit vSprings campaigns under Maj. North's direc- tion did much to prove conclusively to the Sioux and Cheyenne that he was their absolute master. The same writer says that every mile of the railroad had to be surveyed and built within range of the rifle and under military protection, and much of the success of the enterprise he attributes to the active support of Gen. Grant and Gen. Sherman. The bottom land, which farther east is about 22 miles wide, here narrows to a width of 6 miles. The river bed is very wide and shallow and the wagon bridge over it south of Kearney is nearly a mile long. Except at times of high water broad stretches of sand in this bed are exposed to the strong northwest winds, which pile it up south of the deposits, are of marine origin; they were formed below sea level. Later they were tilted, but without notable warping, through this great distance and beveled by erosion, so that the surface of the plains region extended across the eroded edges of the Cretaceous formations from oldest to youngest. On this surface were later spread out the stream deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age, and at the extreme east the glacial deposits. A good illustration of this grading proc- ess is furnished by Platte River, which flows in a shallow valley cut slightly below the surface of the plains and has the same gradient or slope as the plains themselves. This gradient is in nice adjustment to the load of sediment that the river carries, so that although during past ages the Platte sometimes cut its channel deeper than it is at present and sometimes built it up, as it seems to be doing now, it has on the whole spent its energy in widening its valley and form- ing remarkably even bottom lands. If this process goes on long enough the Platte and its neighboring streams will form new Great Plains, slightly lower than the present plains but having essentially the same eastward inclination. On the other hand, should sonie condition arise whereby the sediment supplied to these rivers would be increased in volume not only might the present valleys be fdled with sand, gravel, and clay, but the whole surface of the plains might be built up, the conditions thus supposed to exist sim- ulating the conditions that prevailed in this region during middle and late Ter- tiary time. SHEET No. 3 98°NEBRASKA. ■^^ «i,..\.: rf I Don I p ha r. i^lj^^.j fl^ Hansen EXPLANATION rock formations indicated on this map can not be seen from the train. :re covered by recent stream deposits (alluvium). Information adoiii R derived largely from distant expo.sures and from well borings ^& 40 30' 98 BULLETIN 612 GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGKAPHIC MAP OVEELAND EOUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, Ualifoi'nia UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SHEET No. 3 r THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN, 27 river, destroymg much productive lai\d. The sand-dune areas are characterized by irrcguhir, hummocky surfaces, some of the higher mounds rising 100 feet or more above the general surface. The largest bodies of sand extend for 50 miles along the south side of the Platte Valley south and west of Kearney. The width of the wider parts of this sand-dune belt is about 3 miles. Tlie Overland Route here reaches its southernmost point and turns again toward the nortli. On leaving Kearney the traveler may see the buildings of the State Normal School on the lowland north of the road and an industrial scliool on the higldands. West of Kearney the bluffs, consisting of loess overlying rocks of late Tertiary age,^ are about a mile from tlie railroad. Could the traveler restore the landscape of late Tertiary time, he would find himself surrounded by scenes greatly different from those of the present. The swampy lowlands were covered with vegetation similar to that now growing in moist climates farther south. He would recognize few of the animals, for there were camels, masto- dons, rhmoceroses, saber-tooth tigers, and other strange beasts, some like those living now only in far-distant lands. (See PL VI., p. 40.) There were numerous horses, but none of them were like the horses of to-day. In place of the one hoof or modified toe on each foot which the modern horse possesses, his Pliocene ancestor liad three.^ ^ A large part of the central Great Plains is covered, according to N. H. Darton, by deposits of Miocene and Pliocene age, underlain to the west and northwest by formations of the White Ri\'er group, of Oligocene age. All these formations lie mainly on the Pierre shale but overlap other formations to a greater or less extent. The average thickness is 200 to 300 feet in eastern Colorado and western Kansas but increases to nearly 1,000 feet in parts of western Nebraska and southeastern Wyoming. Probably the entire region was originally covered by later Tertiary deposits that extended far up the flanks of the Rocky Mountains, the Bighorn Mountains, and the Black Hills, as indi- cated by the occurrence of outliers at high altitudes. ^ The Pliocene of western North Amer- ica is not well known, but along Snake Creek in western Nebraska there are some deposits referable to this epoch, and from fossils found in them and in rocks of the same age in other parts of the country a considerable number of the animals that lived on the Great Plains during Pliocene time are known. Though these animals form an assemblage very different from that of to-day, they much more closely resemble the living animals than those of former ages. Camels and llamas were abundant (see PI. VI, p. 40) and great ground sloths and glyptodonts (see PI. II, C, p. 10), whose relatives now live in South America, inhabited western Ne- braska during Pliocene time. Mastodons with tusks on both the upper and the lower jaws, much like those of the Miocene epoch, still persisted. Short-legged rhi- noceroses remained abundant, and there was a great variety of wolf-like carni^-ora. Saber-toothed tigers and true cats, some of them considerably larger than the mod- ern tigers, were also abundant. Three- toed horses were still numerous, but the modern genus Equus was not among them. One of the most curious animals of the time in Kansas and Nebraska was a gopher-like rodent that had two large horns on its nose. (See PI. II, E. p. 10.) Its enormous claws indicate good burrow- ing jjowers, and its horns also may have been used in digging. 28 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. After passing the relatively small towns of Odessa, Elm Creaky Overton, and Josselyn, the train reaches the city of Lexington, for- merly known as Plum Creek. This was once noted Lexington. ^g a favorite locality for depredations by the Southern Elevation 2,387 feet. Cheyenne Indians under Chief Turkey Leg, who cap- 0X11^231 mites. tured and burned a freight train here in 1867. It is now more famous for its irrigation system. Farther east the fanners depend on the rainfall to water their crops, but from this point westward the river waters are diverted through large ditches and distributed over the cultivated land. The next station is Darr, beyond which is Cozad, named after a Cincinnati capitalist who purchased a 40,000-acre Cozad. tract of land and laid out the town on it. The vil- Eievation 2,485 feet, lagc of WiUow Island takes its name from one of Population 1,096. j^]^g so-caUcd islauds included between old channels of Omaha 245 miles. n • i • i i i i i • the river that are now occupied by water only durmg floods. It now consists of only a few houses, but has Willow Island. the distinction of being the point from which in 1872 Elevation 2,520 feet. Col. W. F. Cody (''Buffalo Bill") started with Alexis^ 0^11^250 miles. Grand Duke of Russia, Gen. Custer, Gen. Sheridan, and others for a buffalo hunt over the prairies. Just before entering Gothenburg the train crosses a large irrigation canal, and farther west such canals are seen in many places. The bottom lands are devoted to the cultivation of crops, Gothenburg. and tHe higher land or general surface of the Great Elevation 2,561 feet. Plains, at Considerable distances both north and south oXhSiS o^ ^^^ road, is used largely for grazmg. Here, as at almost every other town along the railroad, may be seen elevators, tall buildings used for storing grain. West of the town is a promment ridge of sand hills, which the road skirts for many miles. Their barren aspect is in strong contrast with the appearance of the productive bottom lands. This is a part of the great sand-hill district which covers nearly a fourth of Nebraska. The sand is probably derived by disintegration from the Tertiary beds and was heaped into hills by the wind at a time when the surface was not well protected by vegetation. The movement of the sand is checked by the spread of vegetation, especially the bunch grass that grew here generally before the advent of the white man. Where this protecting cover has been destroyed for any reason, such as overstocking, and the sand is exposed, movement ' begins again and dunes and blow-outs are produced by the winds. South of the river, about 5 miles from the railroad but plainly visible from the train, are steep slopes and bluffs rising abruptly to a plain that lies 200 feet or more above the bottom lands. There is a notable contrast between the lands along the river and these bluffs, which parallel the railroad for many miles. The slope is notched 99°3c SHEET No. 4 NEBRASKA 20Miles ?oKilometeis ' wiles EXPLANATION ;ed on this map can not be seen from the train. :ream deposits (alluvium). Information about distant exposures and from well borings [ GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGKAPHIC MAP OVEKLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 .... o NEBRASKA EXPLANATION c THE OVEETAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 29 deeply by canyons with precipitous walls of loess nearly 200 feet thick, which is underlain by sand and gravel containing pebbles of rock brought by the streams in past ages from the Rocky Mountains. West of- Gothenburg the train passes Vroman, Brady Island, Hindrey, Maxwell, Keith, and Gannett before entering North Platte. The city of North Platte (see sheet 5, p. 30), the seat of Lincoln County and the chief commercial center of western Nebraska, stands at the junction of North Platte and South Platte North Platte. rivers. It is in the middle of an irrigation district, Elevation 2,800 feet, where sugar beets, hay, and other farm products are Omaha m miles. raised. About 1,000,000 tons of hay is shipped annually from this town to the mountain markets. Here are a United States land office and a station of the United States Weather Bureau, and 4 miles south of the city there is a State experi- mental farm. North Platte is a railroad division point. Here the railroad main- tiains extensive shops and an icing plant, said to be one of the largest in the United States, where more than 10,000 cars of fruit and other edibles are iced annually. The plant may be seen to the left by the westbound traveler as he leaves the station. At this station the change is made from central time to mountain time, one hour earlier. Just before entering the city the train crosses North Platte River, waich generally carries a considerable volume of water. The South Platte is dry except during times of floods, because its water is used for irrigation farther upstream. The North Platte is 650 nnles long and drains about 28,500 square miles. At North Platte as a maximum discharge of about 20,000 cubic feet a second and a nimum discharge of 70 cubic feet a second. Its average volume of low during the nine months from March to November is 3,490 cubic leet a second. Southeast of the city are prominent bluffs of loess, rising abruptly 400 feet above the bottoni lands. The loess is about 350 feet thick and lies on the ^'mortar beds" described on page 30. West of North Platte there are many small towns and stations con- cerning which no information need be given except that shown on the accompanying maps. Many of the stations in Wyoming consist only of section houses, and some are nothing more than signposts. Beyond North Platte the valley widens considerably, being the double valley of the two rivers, and the train passes for several miles through an irrigated district, in the center of which Hershey. stands Hershey. The fields in the bottom lands are Elevation 2,901 feet, called farms, but similar fields on the highlands are Omaha 303 miles. Called rauches. This district is in the transition zone between the East, where each plot of rural ground is a farm, and the West, where each plot other than a town lot, regard- less of size or uses, is a ranch. Although the term ''ranch" is too 30 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. dear to the heart of the western man to be easily replaced by the more homely term, the tendency in intensive development under irrigation is to speak of farms." Near Sutherland, between the rivers, about 6 miles west of Hershey, begins a narrow ridge which toward the west gradually develops into a broad table-land. From Dexter to Ogalalla the South Platte and the raihoad are close to the bluffs bordering this table-land. This stretch of the river bed is dry most of the year, all the water being used for irrigation farther upstream. Here and at other places where the bluffs come close to the river many travelers in the days of the Overland Trail suffered from attacks by Indians and white outlaws, who would swoop down unexpectedly from their hiding places in the hills to murder and plunder. It is difficult for the modern traveler surrounded by the luxuries of the railway train to realize the hardships and dangers endured by the men and women of indomitable courage and energy who under such conditions invaded and finally conquered the West. Beyond Dexter the train passes the station called Paxton before reaching the town of Ogalalla. Ogalalla (see sheet 6, p. 34) is a name used by the Brule Sioux, a powerful and warhke tribe which under Chief Spotted Tail is said to have included 10,000 warriors. About 25 miles northwest of the town is Ash PIollow, where Gen. Harney defeated these Indians in 1859. In the early days of the Union Pacific Railroad Ogalalla was noto- rious for its lawlessness and for the pranks of cow- boys. It was the point to which great herds of Texas cattle were driven across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado, to be loaded on the cars for shipment to the eastern markets. The town Hes between the river channel and the rocky bluffs, which are weU exposed for several miles to the east. Although the river bed is dry most of the year water can always be found in the sand just below the surface. This supply has been utilized for irrigation at Ogalalla by means of an underflow channel or underground drain into which the water finds its way, to emerge farther downstream upon the lands to be irrigated. The bluffs consist of beds of sand and gravel cemented together in some places into a relatively hard rock, locally known as "mortar beds." This name is expressive of the appearance and character of the rock, which resembles masses of sand and pebbles mixed with mortar. In these rocks are found fossil bones and teeth of extinct mammals. The rocks constitute the OealaUa formation.^ Ogalalla. Elevation 3,211 feet Population 643. Omaha 341 miles. ^ The Ogalalla formation consists mainly of sand and gravel, cemented in some places by carbonate of lime into a resistant conglomerate. It crops out along the Union Pacific Railroad aa far west as Pine Bluff and occurs in large areas in western Kansas and Nebraska and eastern Colo- rado. Tliis formation is widely distrib- SHEET Nc. ^ I00°30' NEBRASKA EXPLANATION Tertiary rocks covered in valley of the Platte by recent river deposits (alluvium i po.ooo miles to 1 inch 20Miles 3oKilometers al 200 feet 3V£ MEAN SEA LEVEL iska, are shown eveyy 10 miles are spaced I mile apart ^^^ ■""'-Wfl Farnar lOO'so GEOLOGIC AND TOl'OGKAPHIC MAP OVERLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY c THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 31 Brule. Elevation 3,286 feet Population 410. Omaha 352 miles. The village of Brule is named for the Brule Sioux Indians, who once inhabited this region. The French word brule, which means burnt, seems to have been applied by the early French Cana- dian trappers to these Indians because of the burnt appearance of their painted faces. Also, for some reason not now known, the Indians called themselves ''The Burned Thighs." Four miles west of the town is California Hill, where the original California trail left the South Platte and crossed -^'^ the low table-land to North Platte River. Until 1860 the emigrants went up this river around the north end of the Lar- amie Mountains and over the Continental Divide at South Pass. But when the United States soldiers were called east at the beginning of the Civil War the northern Indians became so aggressive that emigrants chose the less dangerous route up the Figure 5. — Sketch profile of the bluffs near Brule, Nebr., show- ing relation of the Ogalalla formation to the overlying beds of coarse sand and gravel, on which rest thick beds of loess. uted over the Great Plains. Along the Union Pacific it lies on the Brule clay , a formation of Oligocene (Tertiary) age, the intervening formations being absent here. Its relations are indicated in the following table: Succession of rocks exposed in central and viestern Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. Period. Epoch. Life. Group and formation. Quaternary. Recent. Age of man. Flood-plain deposits. Pleistocene. (Great Ice Age.) Loess and gravel. Pliocene. Age of mammals. Ogalalla formation. Miocene. Tertiary. Arikaree formation. Gering formation. Oligocene. White River group: Brule clay. Chadron formation. The Ogalalla formation is overlain by coarse sand and gravel similar to that in the river bed at the present time, and this in tiu'n is covered witli the loess that clothes the highlands. The relations are indicated by the sketch profile, figure 5. 32 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Julesburg, Colo. Elevation 3,465 feet. Population 962. Omaha 372 miles. South Platte A'alley and through southern Wyoming. It was this southern fork of the Overland Trail that the Union Pacific followed and that recently has been chosen for the Lincoln Highway.^ Near Big Springs, as the name implies, there are large springs of water, which issue from the bluffs to the right (north) of the station. Here in 1877 there was a bold train robbery, after Big Springs, Nebr. -^'j^ich, by an equally bold movement of the authori* Elevation 3,367 feet. |jgg ^}^p robbcrs wcrc Overtaken and killed in a fisht. Population 665. /-i i • n i i • i- • ^ ■ ^ Omaha 360 miles. (jreologicaily the place IS 01 mterest as markmg the western limit of the thick loess and underlying gravels previously described. North of Big Springs these deposits terminate by abutting against a sharp rise of the Ogalalla formation, and farther west this formation occupies the surface. About 8 miles west of this station the road dips southward into Colorado, in which it runs for 10 miles before returning to Nebraska. At Julesburg, in northeastern Colorado, the Union Pacific Railroad forks, one branch extending up South Platte River to Denver and the other or main line turning northwest- ward up Lodgepole Creek. At this point passengei-s intending to travel by way of the scenic route of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad through the Rocky Mountains take the Denver branch. Gen. Dodge writes: No town on the western plains has had a more checkered or exciting history than has Julesburg. It has been built on four different sites. In the days of the overland emigration a fort was established here and garrisoned with soldiers to protect travelers fi'om the Indians. Old Julesburg, the first, was located about 1 mile east of the fort, on the south bank of the river at the old ford crossing. It was sacked and burned by the Indians February 2, 1865. In July following the great Sioux war broke out, and from that time on till peace was declared there was more Indian fighting in this vicinity than at any other station along the Platte Valley. During these times Maj. O'Brien says buffalo were more plentiful on the plains around Julesburg than the vast herds of native cattle were in later years. * * * A second Julesburg was built 4 miles east of the fort. This was moved to the north side of the river, where the town of Weir now stands, and at one time was the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad and contained 7,000 poeple. Here the desperado ele- ment held sway until the better class of citizens organized themselves into a vigilance committee and by their just but necessarily severe verdicts and punishments rid the town of these lawless frontiermen and established a peaceful government. ^ The Lincoln Highway, designed as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln, is to be an improved thoroughfare extending across the continent from New York to San Francisco by the shortest practicable route. It will be 3.389 miles long and \vill traverse 13 States. The route was laid out and announced by proclamation in 1913 by the Lincoln Highway Associa- tion, whose headquarters are in Detroit, Mich., and the work of improving it is progressing rapidly under the direction of local committees. The distinctive red, white, and blue pole markers now cover about 90 per cent of the route, which is already used by numerous touring parties. Between Omaha and San Francisco it follows the Overland Trail. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 33 At that time an Indian would trade a buffalo robe for a cup of sugar or a yard of red flannel. Buffalo skulls were used as tablets and signposts along the trail. A skull may be seen to-day in the Commer- cial Club in Salt Lake City with the inscription, '^ Pioneers camped here June 3, 1847, making -fifteen miles a day; all well. Brigham Young." Julesburg was an important stage station on the Overland Route in 1865 and as a supply point was the subject of much attention from the Indians. The station was named after one Jules, agent for Ben Holladay's stage line. He was killed by J. A. Slade, a noted des- perado, who fought both for and against law and order and whose career is set forth in Mark Twam's '' K()U2:hino^ it." Figure 6. — Typical sand dune with blow-out in its top, illustrating the depressions formed by the wind in the sand-dune countiy, where the sand is loose enough to be easily shifted. Just beyond Julesburg the main line leaves the South Platte Valley and, turning northward up Lodgepole Creek, reenters Nebraska. At the turn of the road near Weir is a group of sand hills showing characteristic blow-outs ^ or hollows formed by the wind. (See fig. 6.) Lodgepole Creek takes its name from the fact that here the Indians formerly obtained the poles about which they stretched the skins or canvas to form their tents or tepees. Very httle timber can be seen now in any part of the valley that is traversed by the Union Pacific. The train passes several stations and small towns — Weir, Ralton, Chappell, Perdu, Lodgepole, Sunol, and Colton — ^between Julesburg and Sidney. * These blow-outs, some of which occur in the tops of the hills like craters in a vol- cano, are produced by the \vind wherever it gets a chance to lift the sand. The exposed tops of the dunes are especially favorable places. The protecting cover of growing vegetation becomes broken, perhaps by a badger biurowing out a 38088°— Bull. 612—16 3 home for his family or by a coyote digging out a gopher for his breakfast. The wind blows out the loose sand, the sides of the hole cave in and make more loose sand to be blown out, and this process goes on until the blow-out is so deep that the wind can no longer lift the sand over its rim. 34 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Sidney, Nebr. Elevation 4,090 feet. Population 1,185. Omaha 414 miles. Just before entering Sidney (see sheet 7, p. 36) the train passes under the tracks of a branch of the Chicago, Burhngton & Quincy Raih'oad that runs from Denver to AUiance, in west- ern Nebraska. The valley here is confined between bluffs composed at the top of an impure limestone, called "mortar beds." These bluffs are prominent near Sidney, where the rock is used as a building stone. It has furnished material for the depot and for many of the business blocks and public buildings in Sidney and neighboring towns. Were it not for the pebbles of harder rock that are embedded in it and make cutting difficult, it might be a valuable building stone. The "mortar beds" constitute the lower part of the Ogalalla forma- tion and rest with uneven base on the Brule clay. Both these formations contain fossil bones of extinct mammals.^ ^ The fossils found in the Ogalalla formation show that western Nebraska was inhabited in late Miocene time by animals of very different types from those living there now, and also that very dif- ferent physical conditions prevailed at that time. In place of the dry, barren l^lains of to-day there were numerous streams and swampy lowlands. The fos- sils of the Ogalalla and Arikaree forma- tions are not greatly different and will be described together. Both these for- mations were spread out over a great plain, and it is not surprising to find in them the bones of plains or running animals, such as camels, horses, and deer, as well as of those that inhabited rivers, bayous, and marshes. Some of the horses were us large as small ponies and were more modern in appearance than their diminu- tive Oligocene and Eocene ancestors. They were also more numerous than their ancestors, and their fossil forms represent several widely different species. The Arikaree contains great numbers of bones of a peculiar type of animals called chalicotheres. They were larger than a large horse and had a horselike head, long front legs, and shorter hind legs, but every foot had three toes, each of which in place of a hoof bore an enor- mous claw. One of the forms, known as Moropus (see PI. VI, C, p. 40), was strangely grotesque. An equally strange form of Miocene time is a deerlike ani- mal called Syndyoceras (see PI. VI, D), whose headdress equaled or outdid in grotescjueness that of its Oligocene ances- tor Protoceras (see PI. VII, E, p. 41). Its head somewhat resembled that of an antelope but was longer and had four horns, the larger pair, over the eyes, curving inward and the smaller pair, nearer the muzzle, curving outward. Although these are called horns, they were really bony protuberances and were probably not sheathed in real horn. Camels were common in North America during the Miocene epoch, and several forms have been found. Those of one genus (Procamelus) were about the size of sheep and are supposed to be the an- cestors of modern camels and llamas. Others were large and had long necks like the gii-affe (see PL VI, E). All these ancient camels had hoofs like cattle, not cushioned feet like those of the cam- els of the present day. Rhinoceroses were abundant in Mio- cene time. Hundreds of specimens of Teleoceras, a very heavy bodied, short- limbed type (see PI. VI, -4), have been found. The proboscidians, of which the elephant is the best-known type and the only living representative, became promi- nent during the Miocene epoch, when a large mastodon called Trilophodon was common. "" 'V -,'->;>"■*'"" •"'-,'3* uSfliinN " '. '- »3!L ^V^, ^"'^ 500.000 Approximately 8 miles to 1 inch 20Miles 3oKilometers _L_i Contour interval 200 feet ATIONS IN FEET ABOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL ces /rem Omaha, Nebraska, are shown evety 10 miles nssiies on ihe railroads are spaced I mile apart 10130 BULLETIN 612 GEOI OGIC AND TOPOGKAPHIC MAP OVEELAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to Pan Francisco, California ft-om r.nroaJ ollsnment. ana proOies «nppllBd 6y the Onlou Paclflc UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SHEET No 6 NEBRASKA-COLORADO o n THE OVEELAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 35 KimbaU. Elevation 4,704 feet. Population 454. Omaha 451 miles. Sidney came into prominence in 1868, when a military post was established here to protect emigrants and railroad builders from the Sioux and Pawnee Indians, the two powerful tribes of western Nebraska. This post was maintained until 1894. vSidney was the point from which freight was hauled to the Black Hills until that region was supplied from railroads running much nearer to it than the Union Pacific. Beyond Sidney the trains pass several stations and small towns — Margate, Brownson, Herdon, Potter, Jacinto, Dix, and Owasco (all shown on sheet 7) — before reaching Kimball (see sheet 8, p. 38). West of Sidney the "mortar beds" of the Ogalalla formation, which continue to make conspicuous bluffs north of the track in many places, contain the fossil bones of many ani- mals.^ These have been described by Prof. W. B. Scott, Prof. H. F. Osborn, and others. In these bluffs below the cap rock may be seen the Brule clay, the youngest formation of the White River group, ^ of Ohgocene (Tertiary) age. (See table on p. 31.) The exposures in the Lodgepole Valley are not so conspicuous as those in the North Platte Valley, a little farther north, owing to the covering of grass which protects the surface from erosion. In the North Platte Valley badlands are developed at many places on the Brule clay, and curious buttes, remnants of this clay, have been left by erosion, such as those known as The Jail (PI. VII, A, p. 41) and Chimney Rock, which served as a landmark to many emigrants in the early days. After leaving Kimball the train passes Oliver and Bushnell before reaching Smeed. The "mortar beds" which were observed farther east at the top of the bluffs descend to the valley floor west of Kimball and are not con- omaia «8 mUe^^* splcuous, but wcst of Smccd they rise again in bluffs, become more prominent, and terminate in Pine Bluffs. Just west of Oliver, which is only a signpost, may be seen to the left (south of the railroad) a smaU reservoir for the storage of irrigation water, which is used in the valley farther downstream. Just before entering Pine Bluffs the traveler sees to the right, north of the track, a stone monument marking the boundary between Nebraska and Wyoming. Smeed, Nebr. ' See footnote on, p. 34. ^ The White River group, which has been studied mainly in the bad lands southeast of the Black Hills, has long been a favorite collecting ground of the paleontologist. Fossil bones have been found in many parts of the group, and those of certain animals are so abundant as to give their names to the rocks con- taining them, such as Titanotherium beds, Oreodon beds, and Protoceras sandstone. More complete information on these fossils may be found in the works of Profs. Scott and Osborn. (See p. 230. ) 36 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Wyoming is a State of large resources, whose development has only begun. Within its 97,594 square mUes lie the most extensive coal fields and the most productive known oil fields Wyoming. of the Rocky Mountain region, thousands of acres of irrigated and dry-farming lands, and extensive areas of splendid stock range; moreover, some of the finest hunting and fishing in the United States can be found within its borders. Although the precipitation averages only 12| inches a year, the many irrigated areas are higlily productive, and the success which dry farming has here and there attained seems to indicate that a stiU larger area may be brought under that kind of cultivation. An index of the crops that may be raised is the fact that irrigated oats running 45 pounds to the bushel are by no means uncommon. (The average weight of a bushel of oats is 32 pounds.) The value of the State's agricultural crops for 1914 is roughly estimated by the Department of Agriculture at $22,000,000. Noted in the earl}^ days as the range of the '' cattle king," Wyoming has in recent years become even better known as the home of the "sheep baron." It has attained first rank among the United Staies in the sheep industry, the number of sheep in the State on January 1, 1915, being estimated by the Department of Agriculture at 4,427,000, valued at $20,807,000. It should not be understood, however, that the cattle industry has vanished, for the State still ranks high as a cattle producer. Among the mineral products of the State coal is preeminent. Its coal fields cover about 41,500 square miles (42 per cent of the State's area), and contained originally about 670,723,100,000 tons. Of this quantity only 178,000,000 tons (about one-fortieth of 1 per cent) has been exhausted, so that there remains in the ground the enormous amount of 670,545,100,000 tons. The production in 1913 was 7,393,066 tons, valued at $11,510,045. The second in value of production among the mineral resources is oil, of which 2,406,522 barrels, valued at $1,187,232, was produced in 1913. The production in 1914 amounted to about 4,600,000 barrels, equal to more than 60 per cent of the production of Pennsyl- vania for the same year, and places Wyoming, whose oil fields are newly discovered and only partly developed, in the ninth place among the oil-producing States of the Union. Other minerals, mcluding gold, copper, iron, gypsum, limestone, sandstone, marble, brick clay, and mineral waters, brought the value of the State's mineral production in 1913 up to $13,682,091. Among the undeveloped resources are bituminous shale, volcanic ash, graphite, asphaltum, manganese ores, bentonite, tin, salt, bismuth, and, perhaps most important, phosphate rock, on which the future of American agriculture may largely depend. It is estimated that SHhET No. 7 103 NEBRASKA lOZao EXPLANATION Tlie Tertiary rocks exposed in the bluffs are the Brule clay below and the OgalaJla fonnation above ar-v V 4e \ t:^N.v>°^ -41 M I \ m XJ. 'mill ^1 f S'lDfJEY .CJ-*-09O 1 ^00.000 3 miles to 1 inch 15 20 25 20Miies 3oKi;orneteis 'Vdl 200 feet BOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL !:7cs mska, are shewn every IP is are spaced J mile apart y 10 ny.U 103° GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OVERLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY r THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 37 more than 1/250,000 acres in Wyoming are underlain by workable phosphate deposits, a phosphate area greater than that of any other State. Finally, the scenic resources of Wyoming must not be forgotten, the grandeur of the Bighorn and Wind River mountains and the Tetons being excelled only by the wonders of Yellowstone Park. Thus the State of W3"oming is of interest in its agriculture, stock growing, mining, hunting, fishing, and natural beauty. Pine Bluffs, Wyo. Elevation 6,043 feet. Population 246. Omaha 473 miles. The town of Pine Bluffs takes its name from the prominent bluffs of ' ' mortar beds ' ' near by, on which grow a few stunted pine trees. A tree is so rare on these sun-parched plains that these pines seem to have been thought worthy of commemoration in naming the ridge. The bluffs may be seen for a • long distance north and south of the road and mark the western edge of the Ogalalla for- mation. The Arikaree formation ^ underhes the Ogalalla formation near Pine Bluffs and extends thence westward to Granite Canyon, a dis- tance of 62 miles. It consists mainly of sand loosely cemented into a soft sandstone that contains limestone concretions. These are due to the growth of calcite crystals and usually occur in layers con- nected to form irregular sheets. Between Pine Bluffs and Hillsdale are the stations Tracy, Egbert, and Burns. Near Hillsdale station the traveler gets his first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. To the west may be seen the dark summits of the Laramie Range — formerly called the Black Hills — and farther south, 60 miles aw-ay, is visible in ordi- narily clear weather" the snow-covered top of Longs Peak (altitude 14,255 feet) and other high mountains of the Front Range of the Rockies. Dnrham and Archer are stations between Hillsdale and Cheyenne. Hillsdale. Elevation 5,634 feet Omaiia 496 miles. ' The Arikaree formation underlies a laige part of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming and is widely distributed in neighboring regions. These deposits ap- pear to have been spread out by streams over the low-lying plains. No place in North America now exhibits the physical conditions supposed to have existed in Nebraska and Wyoming when these sedi- ments were being deposited, but similar conditions have been reported as prevail- ing now in central South America, where every year a plain of some 60,000 square miles is converted during the rainy season into a labjTinth of lakes, ponds, swamps, channels, and islands. On these islands the animals gather and great numbers of them perish. Large quantities of fossil bones are found in small areas in the White River beds. These areas have been called "fossil graveyards" and are sup- posed to represent ' ' concentration camps " of Tertiary time similar to the isles of ref- uge of the present day in South America. 38 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN U:iSriTED STATES. Cheyenne. Elevation 6,058 feet Population 11,320. Omaha 516 miles. The capital of Wyoming, Cheyenne (see sheet 9, p. 50), is 516 miles west of Omaha and nearly a mile higher. It is rich in memories of the ''Wild West/' memories whicli its inhabitants deUght in perpetuating, for every year they hold one of the most picturesque gatherings in the country, known as "Frontier Days Celebration," at which Indians, cowboys, and plainsmen from aU parts of the West, from Canada to Texas, gather for "bronco busting," steer tying, Indian dances, and the exhibition of all the unique and characteristic features of frontier life. And here gather from far and near spectators to see these performances. Fort Russell, one of the larger Army posts, may be seen to the right, north of the railroad, as the train leaves Cheyenne. The city is sup- plied with water from reservoirs fed by springs that issue from the granite of the Laramie Mountains in Crow Creek canyon. Three miles east of the city the Union Pacific crosses the Chicago, Burling- ton & Quincy Railroad, and a mile west of it the train passes under the tracks of the Colorado & Southern. A little farther west, at Corlett, a branch turns south from the main line, running to Denver, where the westbound traveler can connect with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.^ From Cheyenne the main line climbs a long, graded incline formed by the Arikaree beds, which extend far up the slope of the Laramie Mountains, where they abut against the foothills of the older sedi- mentary rocks or overlap the eroded edges of these rocks and the still older granite. (See fig. 7, p. 42.) The Arikaree and the underlying deposits were here probably tilted to some extent after deposition, but the large bowlders contained in them prove that the streams had a steep descent and were swift and powerful. The character of the Arikaree may be seen in the numerous cuts along the railroad and in the bordering bluffs of the valleys, which are plainly visible to the right, north of the incline. In these bluffs may be seen below the Arikaree the rocks of the Gering formation and of the White itiver group — the Brule clay and the Chadron fonnation — which contain fossU bones of Oligocene animals.^ The Brule clay may be distin- guished from the train as long barren slopes just below the cliffs. 1 The branch from Cheyenne to Denver runs pai-allel with the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, but at so great a distance that these mountains do not appear particularly impressive. It passes through a prosperous agricultural district in which are situated Eaton, Greeley, Brighton, and other towns. In this dis- trict the waters of the South Platte, the Thompson, the Cache la Poudre, and other smaller streams are diverted for irrigation, and from it great quantities of potatoes, beet sugar, canned fruits, vegetables, and farm and dairy products are shipped to market. ^ The Oligocene epoch seems to have been one of relative quiescence com- pared with the Eocene, which was char- acterized by impressive volcanic activity and by the building of great mountain SHEET NO. a GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OVEKLAND EOUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California Baee compiled from United atates Oeoloerlcal Survey Atlas ijboete. from railroad alljfiimentB and profiles eiippI1e<] by the Union Paclflc UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY EXPUNATION ly to Ihi- 0!1\M„ l<.m>a.n'. tW- wnl" il,« S. lo°I! wee fimnation which i* older NEBRASKA-WYO MING r THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUXCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEX, 39 The stations Corlett and Borie are passed between Cheyenne and Otto. From several places near Otto station good views of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains may be obtained to the left (south). Longs Peak is plainly visible, as well as the more massive and scarcely less elevated mountains north of it. Toward the right (north) the foothills east of the Laramie Range form conspicuous ridges that are plainly visible from the train. They consist of sedimentary rocks upturned to a nearly vertical position. These rocks range in age Otto. Elevation 6,946 feet. Omaha 530 miles. systems. The Oligoceiie formations are among the most widespread and most regularly distributed of the Tertiary for- mations of the Great Plains and cover a vast area in Nebraska and Wyoming. The sediments composing them were deposited by streams that meandered over low-lying plains and slowly built up the surface, much as the lower Mississippi is now building its delta or the Platte its flood plain, over which the train has just passed. Some of the old stream channels can be recognized by the filling of con- solidated sand and gravel. The plains country of Nebraska and eastern Wyoming was low during Oligo- cene tirue and the divides between the streams were not high enough to prevent flooding during high water. The whole country was virtually a great flood plain on which accumulated the sediments that the rivers brought from the moun- tains. With these sedijnents occur beds of pure volcanic ash, which must have been carried by the wind or floated by the streams for long distances. The volca- noes that had been so active in western America during the Eocene epoch had not ceased their eruptions — indeed, they have not yet become entirely extinct, as is tes- tified by the recent outburst of Lassen Peak, in northern California, although throughout later Tertiary and Quaternary time their fires have been gradually going out. The lower Oligocene or Chadron forma- tion is often called the Titanotherium beds because it contains bones of extinct mammals of that name. The titano- theres formed a comparatively short-lived family and seem to have been confined almost entirely to North America. Their remains are the most numerous and con- spicuous fossils found in the lower Oligo- cene beds in western America. They were clumsy brutes of elephantine size having on the front of the skull a pair of great bony protuberances, which although hornlike in form were probably not sheathed in horn. (See PI. VII, Z), p. 41.) The head was long and large and of fan- tastic shape. In its thick heavy body and short, massive legs the titanothere resembled the modern rhinoceros. It was doubtless a sluggish, stupid beast, for its brain was small in comparison with the size of its body. The brain cavity was only a few inches in diameter and was surrounded by thick borie, as if to with- stand shocks in battle. The titanotheres were the most formidable animals of the time, and though, so far as known, there were then no carnivores capable of doing them serious harm, yet they seem to have disappeared suddenly from North Amer- ica. Their bones are not found in strata above a certain geologic horizon. The disappearance of a race of animals from any locality or even from the face of the earth does not necessarily require a long period of time. It is easily conceivable that the titanotheres were exterminated by some disease or that one of the physical changes which were so common in the West during Tertiary time made their life conditions here unfavorable and drove them to some other region, in which their remains have not yet been discovered. The animals of Oligocene time seem to have been abundant as well as varied in 40 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. from Carboniferous to Cretaceous ; the rocks of the most prominent ridge seen toward the north are those of the Casper formation and the less prominent ridges are formed by hard strata in the red beds of the Chugwater formation (Triassic or Permian) and by the rocks here called the Cloverly formation, the upper part of which may represent the Dakota sandstone of eastern Nebraska.^ kind. They had a somewhat more mod- ern aspect than the animals that preceded them, for the processes of evolution had been active, and some of the primitive animals of Eocene time had developed into forms more nearly like those with wliich we are familiar now. Others seem to have left no descendants. Great num- bers of Oligocene fossils have been found, and the life of the time is probably better known than that of any other epoch of the Tertiary period. Among the character- istic animals of this epoch were primitive forms of rhinoceroses, peccaries, rumi- nants, camels, insectivores, and opossums. Some of the creodonts or flesh eaters of Eocene time had developed into true carnivores, including many forms of both doglike and catlike animals. The saber- toothed cats wliich later developed into the saber-toothed tiger, one of the most formidable enemies of primitive man, first appeared in the Oligocene. The horses whose history began with the diminutive four-toed Eohippus continued in the Oligocene, where they are repre- sented by many three-toed forms which were about as large as sheep. Hoglike animals were rather numerous, and although many of them were smaller than the modern s^vine some of them were very large. One of these, Archeotherium ingens (see PI. VII, C, p. 41), was a formidable beast with curious protuberances on its head, the use of which is not known. Rhinoce-roses similar to those now found in Africa and India lived in western America, and other rhinoceros-like ani- mals known as anymodonts were abun- dant, but rhinoceroses did not reach their culmination in America until the Pleisto- cene epoch. In addition to these animals of more modern appearance there were many that were so unlike anything now living that it is not possible to designate them by any common names. Among these are the animals of the protocerine group, of whose history little is known. They seem to have appeared suddenly in North Amer- ica in Oligocene time and disappeared from this continent during the early part of the Miocene. They were deerlike creatures about the size of sheep. The head of the male was grotesquely orna- mented with short bony protuberances and large scimitar-like tusks. Each front foot had four toes and each toe had a hoof like that of a deer or antelope. The sup- posed appearance of these curious animals is indicated in the restoration of one of the forms (Protoceras celer) reproduced in Plate VII, -E . ^ The table on page 41 shows the geologic formations exposed in the vicinity of the Laramie Mountains near the Union Pacific Railroad in the order of theii' age, the oldest at the bottom and the youngest at the top. The position of these forma- tions in the complete geologic time scale may be ascertained by comparison with the table on p. 2. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ^'. «aJ hm ^H ■ *^ W^^M t—- ^^^^^B ■' m W *- E V,. 1 ^Mm 1^ ?^ '' si C^PHI 91 ^' > A "■^i^*^ BULLETIN 612 PLATE VI ROCKS OF MIOCENE AGE AND RESTORATIONS OF ANIMALS THAT LIVED IN NORTH AMERICA DURING THE MIOCENE EPOCH. .-1, SHORT-LIMBED RHINOCEROS, KNOWN AS TELEOCERAS, AN ANIMAL ABOUT 5 FEET HIGH CAFTER OSBORN); B, (a) MIOCENE MASTODON (TRILOPHODON PRODUCTUS' AND (h) PLEIS- TOCENE ELEPHANT ( ELEPHAS IMPERATORl, AN ANIMAL NEARLY 15 FEET HIGH (AFTER OSBORN); C, MOROPUS ELASTUS, AN ANIMAL SOMEWHAT LARGER THAN THE MODERN HORSE i AFTER SCOTT); 7), A FOUR-HORNED DEER iSYNDYOCERAS COOKI), ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE MODERN DEER (AFTER SCOTT); E, GIGANTIC GIRAFFE-CAMEL CALTICAMELUS ALTUS), ABOUT 15 FEET HIGH (AFTER SCOTTi; /', MIOCENE BEDS (ARIKAREE FORMATION i RESTING UNCONFORMABLY ON OLIGOCENE BEDS (BRULE CLAY) IN PAWNEE BUTTES, COLO. ,4-£ published by permission of The Macmillan Co. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEV BULIETIN 612 PLATE Vfl % \y^j §M f^M r^;"S "*'' *T "■*• . * Vii ,- ROCKS OF OLIGOCENE AGE AND RESTORATIONS OF ANIMALS THAT LIVED IN CENTRAL NORTH AMERICA DURING THE OLIGOCENE EPOCH. A, JAIL ROCK, NORTH OF SIDNEY, IN WESTERN NEBRASKA, THE LOWER PART OF WHICH CONSISTS OF BRULE CLAY; B, AN AMERICAN RHINOCEROS (AFTER OSBORN); C, "GIANT PIGS," 3 OR 4 FEET HIGH (AFTER SCOTT); D. TITANOTHERES, ALMOST AS LARGE AS THE MODERN ELEPHANT (AFTER OSBORN); E, PROTOCERAS CELER, ANIMALS THE SIZE OF THE MODERN ANTELOPE (AFTER SCOTT). .B-£ published by permisiion of The Macmillan Co, THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 41 Succession of the rock/onnntions exposed along the Union Pacific Railroad east and west of the Laramie Mountains. Period and Epoch and series. Groups and formations. system. East of Laramie Moim tains. West of Laramie Mountains. Pliocene. Ogalalla formation. Miocene . Tertiary. Arikaree formation . Not represented. Gering formation. Oligocene. "White River grou]) : Brule clay. Chadron formation. Tertiary (pos- sibly includ- ing some Cretaceous). "Upper Laramie" for- mation. Cretaceous. Upper Creta- ceous. ^lontana group : Fox Hills sand- stone. Pierre shale. Colorado group : Niobrara limestone. Benton shale, in- cluding MowrA' shale. ' ' Lower Laramie " forma- tion. ]\Iontana group: Lewis shale. Mesaverde forma- tion. Steele shale. Colorado group: Niobrara limestone. Benton shale, in- cluding Mowry shale. Cleverly formation. Lower Creta- ceous. Cloverly formation. Jurassic or Cre- taceous. Morrison formation. Mon-ison formation. Jurassic. Sundance formation. Sundance formation. Triassic or Per- mian. Chugwater formation. Chugwater formation. Carboniferous. Pennsylvanian. Casper formation. Forelle limestone. Satanka shale. Casper formation. Archean. Granite (including Sher- man granite), gneiss, and schist. Granite (including Sher- man granite), gneiss, and schist. 42 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN" UNITED STATES. On reaching the foothills the train passes through a cut made in gray- massive limestone and red quartzose sandstone of the Casper forma- tion, which incUnes steeply toward the east. Another aspect of this fonnation may be seen to the left (south) of the railroad, where it makes a steep cliff above the granite against wliich it is inclined. On Mesa Mountain, a fiat-topped table-land whicli may be seen to the right, the Casper formation is nearly horizontal and forms the top of the mesa. The limestone of the Casper formation at Granite Canyon furnished lime that was used by the railroad during the period of construction. This limestone is nearly pure calcium carbonate (98 per cent CaCOa), and on Horse Creek, 20 miles farther north, about 55,000 tons is quarried every year to be burned for Ume at the beet-sugar factories in eastern Colorado, where it is used in refining the sugar. Figure 7. — Tertiary sand and gravel overlying the tnuicated eroded edges of older rocks and forming the approach to the Laramie Mountains between Cheyenne and Granite Canyon utilized by the Union Pacific Railroad. The ridge up wliicli the train cUmbs in approacliing the mountains is a remnant of the broad plain that once extended uniformly along the mountain front. The streams have made relatively httle im- pression on the hard mountain rocks but have eroded away large parts of the soft Arikaree and other Tertiary beds of this plain, leav- ing the ridge as the one practicable route by which the railroad can ascend to the high table-land at the top of the Laramie Range. The Tertiary sands and gra^'els of the ridge up which the train approaches the mountains form a tliin covering over edges of older formations that range in age fi'om Carboniferous to Cretaceous. The edges of the older formations are truncated — that is, the originally flat strata were tilted and their edges cut off obliquely by erosion before the Tertiary deposits were laid down upon them. Such a relation is called an angular unconformity. The attitude of these older rocks is known from exposures in the valleys both north and south of tliis ridge, and the relations are shown in the accompanying sketch section (fig. 7). The oldest sedimentary formation here is the Casper, consisting of gray to white limestone and red sand- stone. Next is the Chugwater formation, which consists of red sandstone, red sandy shale, thin beds of limestone, and thick beds of gypsum. Unconformably on this lies the Sundance formation, consisting of sandstone and shale and containing marine fossils that denote Jiu'assic age. This is followed with apparent conformity by the Morrison formation, which is noted for its huge fossil reptiles. Upon the Morrison, and apparently conformable with it, lies the Cleverly formation, con- sisting of two sandstones separated by shale. The upper sandstone is probably equivalent in age to the Dakota sandstone and is therefore the base of the Upper Cretaceous series. Above the Cleverly in conformable succession lie the Benton shale, the Niobrara limestone, the Pierre ehale, and the Fox Hills sandstone. THE 0\T:KLAXD route COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEX. 43 Granite Canyon. This easy approach to the mountains was discovered in a pecuhar manner. For more than two years engineers had searched in vain for a practicable grade by wliich the railroad might reach the summit of the range. On one of their excursions in the valley of Crow Creek they discovered Indians between them and their escort of mounted soldiers. In their attempt to find a point where the cavalry could see their signals for help the engineers reached the ridge, and in order to get to a place of saf et}^ they traveled down the ridge and found that it joined the plain east of the mountains without a break. This was just such a grade as they had been looking for, and further exploration showed tliat it was suitable for the road. The station at Granite Canyon is built on granite porph5nry, a crystalline rock of igneous origin. This particular granite porphyry is the oldest rock yet encountered on this route, being of pre-Cambrian age. West of the station is a steep omlS/mner' ^^^pc cut in the Brule clay, which hes directly on the granite porphyry. This is the westernmost exposure of this formation along the Union Pacific line. About 4 miles west of the Granite Canyon station, near Ozone, the road crosses a narrow strip of dark-colored granite gneiss, intruded ages ago into the older crystaUine rock which constitutes the core of the Laramie Range. From many points in the vicinity of Buford good views may be obtained of the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains far away to the left (south) and of the relatively low but rugged Sheniian Mountains, a part of the Laramie Range, to Elevation 7,858 feet, ^j-^g right. Two prominent points seen to the north Omaha 543 miles. ii i m • -» r • i are called Iwm Mountams and are celebrated as one of the strongholds of the notorious desperado Slade. At Buford is the quarry that has furnished ballast for the Union Pacific from Omaha to Rock Springs, Wyo., a distance of more than 800 miles. The quarry is in the crystalline rock of the Laramie Range, known as the Shemian granite.^ At Buford this granite has Buford. 1 The Sherman granite forms a great mass intruded into older rocks in pre- Cambrian time. It is normally a coarse- grained rock composed chiefly of pink' feldspar, glassy-looking quartz, black hornblende, and mica, which in mass give it a spotted appearance. According to report it contains some gold at Buford but not enough for profitable extraction. It shows considerable variation in textm'e, color, and composition. One of the com- monest varieties is coarsely porphyritic, the feldspar standing out in crystals 1 to 2 inches in length. Where the Union Pacific Railroad crosses Dale Creek, west of Sherman, the granite is rich in epidote, a green mineral, which together with the red feldspar imparts to it a mottled red and green color. Although hard when unaltered the Sherman granite breaks up readily into a coarse gravelly soil under the influence of heat, cold, and the action of water, so that it forms smooth, round hills. Where the rock is firm it weathers along widely spaced joints and forms heaps of rounded bowlders, many of which may be seen from the train (PI. VIII, A), par- ticularly west of Buford. 44 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Sherman. Elevation 8,009 feet. Population 115.* Omaha 547 miles. weathered to a depth of 50 feet or more. At the quarry the rock is loosened by heavy charges of explosive, which shatter it to small fragments, and it is then loaded on the cars by steam shovels. This quarry is said to have furnished about 10,000 carloads of ballast every year for the last 14 years and is still in active operation. Bal- last is thus obtained at a cost of about 6 cents a ton, whereas the average cost of crushed rock used for railroad ballast is 49 cents. Sherman, so named in honor of Gen. W. T. Sherman, is the highest point on the Laramie Range reached by the railroad. It is claimed that from this point on a clear day may be seen Pikes Peak, about 165 miles, and Longs Peak, 60 miles to the south, and Elk Mountain, 100 miles to the west. The railroad was originally built a few miles north of its present location and crossed the divide at an altitude 237 feet higher than at present. On this old Hne a great stone monument was erected in honor of Hon. Oliver Ames and liis brother Oakes, to whose energy and perseverance was largely due the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Tlie road here traverses the relatively flat summit of the Laramie Range, on what has been described as the Sherman peneplain.^ Along the track here and elsewhere in the Laramie Mountains there are numerous board fences or windbreaks. The snow drifts badly in the winter, and these fences prevent di'ifts from forming on the track. Dale Creek is a point on the new line that crosses Sherman Hill at a point 237 feet lower than the original crossing. This change not only saved the expense of climbing the heavy grades Dale Creek. |j^|_ jj^j away with the famous Dale Creek Bridge, Elevation 7,918 feet, which was 650 fcct loug and 135 feet high. It also Omaha 550 miles. .ii iic,- • • *i mvolved some notable teats in engineering. Along the new line there are many deep cuts in which the Sherman granite 1 The uniform fineness and approxi- mately uniform thickness of the Creta- ceous sedimentary rocks on each side of the Laramie Range indicate that they once extended over the area now occu- pied by these mountains — in other words, that the mountains did not exist during Cretaceous time. At the close of that period the region was uplifted and the Cretaceous as well as the still older strati- fied rocks were steeply upturned on the eastern flank and slightly upturned on the western flank of the mountains. Then followed a long period of erosion dming the Eocene epoch, when the sedimentary rocks were worn away from the top of the mountains, except where they were pre- served by being infolded within the gran- ite, and the crystalline rocks underlying them were eroded to a nearly level sur- face, or peneplain. At the close of the Eocene epoch the range was again elevated and renewed erosion attacked this planed surface, de- riving from it in part at least the material of the OUgocene and Miocene deposits that border the range on the east. These deposits could not all have been derived from this area, however, for in some places they extend over parts of this peneplain. The present irregularities of the plain were probably produced in large measure by late Tertiary or Quaternary erosion, which developed the canyons and re- moved large parts of the Oligocene and Miocene deposits. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 812 PLATE VIII A. VIEW NEAR DALE CREEK STATION, WYO., SHOWING CHARACTERISTIC WEATHERING OF THE SHERMAN GRANITE. B. SMALL "SODA LAKE" ON THE PLAIN NEAR LARAMIE, WYO. The bed of the " lake," which contains w/ater only in wet weather, is when dfy covered with a white incrusta- tion of salts, mostly alkali, left by the evaporation of the water. U. 8. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE IX NATURAL MONUMENTS ON THE PLAIN NEAR RED BUT1 Eb, WYO., ERODED FROM RED bAND- STONE OF THE CASPER FORMATION. These monuments are 20 to 50 feet high. i THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 45 may be seen to advantage, and a tunnel is driven 1,800 feet through a spur of the same granite 3 miles west of Dale Creek. One hill near this creek, known as Gibraltar Cone, 100 feet high above the grade hne, was drilled and loaded with a})out 1,000 kegs of black powder and 1,000 pounds of dynamite, and on July 4, 1900, this charge was exploded, blowing out the whole hill. The cuts are equaled by some of the great fills. The fill across Dale Creek is 900 feet long and 120 feet high in its deepest part, and 500,000 cubic yards of rock was used in constructing the embankment. The name of the next station, Hermosa, which is Spanish for beau- tiful, seems appropriate, as may be realized by a glance to the left, toward the west. Across the broad Laramie Basin,' which the road enters at this point, the mountains rise in rugged grandeur, and near by may be seen natural monuments carved from red sandstone in Some of these are illustrated in Plate IX. From a point near Hermosa the road has two lines to Laramie. The westbound trains run by way of Red Buttes, and the eastbound trains come from Laramie over an easier grade by way of Forelle and Colores. Red Buttes is little more than a section house and takes its name from the natural monuments or buttes of red sandstone that are numerous in this vicinity (PL IX). From Hermosa to Red Buttes the route has lain on gently sloping red beds of Carboniferous age, consisting of the Casper formation, which was seen east of the mountains; the Satanka shale, made up of red shale and gypsum; and the Forelle limestone. These strata are overlain in some places by deposits of gravel, and at one place, a mile southeast of Red Buttes station, by gypsite. (For description see p. 48.) About a mile south of Red Buttes is a deposit of gypsum, 20 or 30 feet thick, which is being manufactured into cement plaster or impure plaster of Paris. It is of the form known as rock gypsum and is a Hermosa. Elevation 7,862 feet Omaha 554 miles. many forms. Red Buttes. Elevation 7,300 feet Population 110.* Omaha 5G4 miles. > The Laramie Basin as usually defined is 90 miles long and 30 miles in maximum width and has a surface elevation of 7,000 to 7,500 feet. It is a hollow whose form is due to the general structure of the rocks that underlie it. It is overlooked by the Laramie Mountains on the east and the Medicine Bow Mountains on the west. These movmtains are the northward con- tinuation of the Rocky Mountain ranges of Colorado, the Laramie reisresenting the Front Range and the Medicine Bow the north end of one of the inner ranges of the Rocky Mountains.' The basin was formed by the warping and tilting of the rocks during the several periods of upheaval, and has later been modified by erosion. The Big Hollow, a depression in the gen- eral basin a few miles west of Laramie, is 9 miles long, 3 miles wide, and 200 feet deep. Other similar depressions are Big Basin, northwest of Laramie, Cooper Lake Basin, and many smaller hollows occu- pied by alkali lakes. The basin is partly drained by Laramie River, which crosses the Laramie Mountains through a deep ravine and finally joins North Platte River. 46 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Colores. Elevation 7,637 feet Omaha 560 miles. part of the Forelle formation. The most extensive gypsum deposits of this region occur at Red Mountain, 25 miles farther southwest. Other natural products of commercial importance in this region are volcanic ash/ bentonite/ and soda.^ On the track used by eastbound trains between Laramie and Hermosa is a station called Colores, from the highly colored rocks of the Carboniferous formations that are exposed near by. The eastbound trains pass over these red rocks for about 10 miles. The rocks contain water under pressure, and many large springs issue from them along the foothills. A spring near Colores furnishes water to fill a 4-inch pipe. Another spring east of Laramie furnishes the city supply — 3,000,000 gallons a day. About 4 miles south of the city spring there is another large spring, which supplies a fish hatchery. Toward the southwest, across the Laramie Basin, good views are obtained of the Medicine Bow Mountains, which constitute the north end of one of the main ranges of the southern Rocky Mountains and are so high that they are covered with snow during much of the year. Jelm Mountain, the nearest of this group, is a mass of ancient schist 1 Beds of volcanic ash occur about 4 miles south of Red Buttes. They are reminders of the volcanoes that were formerly so active in the Rocky Mountain region, but the location of the i^articular volcanoes that furnished tliis ash is not known. The material is pure white, soft, and fine grained. It occurs in beds that are comparatively young — that is. Ter- tiary or Quaternary. (See table on p. 2.) Volcanic ash is sometimes used as an abrasive, for scouring, polishing, or clean- ing kitchen ware and other articles. - About 6 miles west of Red Buttes, on the northwest shore of Creighton Lake, is a bed of bentonite, 3 or 4 feet thick, which appears as a white band in the black Benton shale, from which bentonite derives its name. Bentonite is a variety of clay used chiefly to give body and weight to paper, but to some extent in a dressing for inflamed hoofs of horses, in antiphlo- gistine (a proprietary remedial dressing), and as an adulterant of candies and drugs. It has notable powers of absorption, tak- ing up about seven times its own volume of water. It absorbs twice as much glycerine as can be absorbed by diatoma- ceous earth, and for this reason has been suggested as a substitute for that material in the manufacture of dynamite. Other beds of bentonite occur farther west. It was first mined in this region in 1888, but with the closing of the western paper mills in 1905 its production practically stopped. ^ Soda lakes occur near the Union Pa- cific line in Laramie Basin and at many places farther west. The waters of these lakes are strongly charged with sodium sulphate, and along their edges lie thick deposits of this salt that has been jirecip- itated from the water. (See PI. VIII, B, p. 44.) Three of these deposits were worked prior to 1895. The lakes lie in depressions in Cretaceous shale that con- tains a variety of salts, some of which were derived from the sea water in which the shale accumulated. Waters issuing as springs from this shale take the salts into solution, and rain falling on the surface of the shale dissolves them and carries them into the lakes. Water can escape from the depressions only by evaporation, so the salts accumulate in them. The soda deposits near Laramie have received more attention than any similar deposits in Wyoming. They cover about 60 acres, and the soda ranges in thickness from 1 foot to 16 feet. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 47 Laramie. Elevation 7,145 feet Population 8,257. Omaha 573 miles. and granite gneiss brought up by faults and contains some minerals of special interest, among which are bismuth ores, allanito, and sperrylite.' Laramie is the second city in population in Wyoming antl is the center of large stock and manufacturing interests. The University of Wyoming, including the State Agricultural CoUege, the School of Mines, the United States Experiment Station, the Wyoming State Normal School, the Wyoming State School of Music, and the University Preparatory School, is located here. The city, as well as the river, the mountain range, and the county, derives its name from Fort Laramie, which stands at the mouth of Laramie River, This most famous fort on the old Overland Trail was named directly or indirectly for Jacques La Ramie, a French fur trader of the early days. The old maps show the river as La Ramies Fork. Stansbury, Sublette, Bonneville, Parkman, and many others have described the old fort in its various stages from the small trading outpost of a fur company to a United States Army post. Laramie was the home of Bill Nye, and here he founded the Boom- erang, a journal of somewhat fitful existence, and wrote the articles for the Cheyenne and Denver papers that brought him into promi- nence as a humorist. It is worthy of notice that some 30 years ago Nye and James Whitcomb Riley published a railway guide. "^Vhat this country needs," they say, "is a railway guide w^hich shall not be cursed by a plethora of facts or poisoned with information. In other railway guides pleasing fancy, poesy, and literary beauty have been tlu'ottled at the very threshold by a wild incontinence of facts, figures, and references to meal stations. For this reason a guide has been built at our own shops and on a new plan. It will not permit information to creep in and mar the reader's enjoyment of the scenery." The city of Laramie rests on the red beds of the Chugwater forma- tion, which may be seen at several places north of Red Buttes and are conspicuously exposed just north of the city. Cement plaster is 1 Bismuth, which is used extensively in the manufacture of drugs and of alloys that melt at low temperatures, occurs in Jelm Mountain in the form of carbonate and oxide. Sperrylite, or platinum arse- nide (PtAsg), has been found at Centen- nial, near Jelm Mountain. It is very rare, and this is the only place where it occurs in quantity so large that serious attempts have been made to work it for platinum. At Albany, in this same region, is found allanite, a black mineral containing cerium, yttrium, thorium, and other rare elements. In some places the ore is nearlj- pure allanite; in others it contains numerous impurities. Cerium, which is now obtained as a by-product in the reduction of thorium from mona- zite, is alloyed with iron to make the "sparker" in the modem "flint and steel" mechanisms used as gas lighters. Cerium oxide is used sparingly in glass making to produce clear glass free from anv greenish tint. 48 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTEEN UNITED STATES. manufactured from an impure gypsum known locally as gypsite,* which occurs near the city. Pressed brick are made from the Benton shale for constructing buildings in the city and elsewhere. Beyond Laramie is the station Bona. The red beds of the Chugwater formation extend as far north of Laramie as Howell, although for most of this distance they are not visible, being covered with beds of gravel. West Howell. ^£ Laramie is a low ridge where the Morrison (see Elevation 7,113 feet, pp, 41^ 42) and Cloverly formations are exposed. The railroad passes over them just north of Howell, but the}^ are covered with surface debris and can not be seen from the train. About 2 miles north of Howell and also at Wyoming the traveler passes through deep cuts in the Benton shale.^ From Wyoming station the train passes northward over the Niobrara limestone, which, however, near the track is covered with beds of sand and gravel. Outcrops of it appear as Wyoming. light-colored bands southwest of the station on both Elevation 7,138 feet, sidcs of the rivcr. Northwcst of this station the Omaha 584 miles. road crosses a thick deposit of marine shale of middle Upper Cretaceous age, but the shale is here covered with the alluvial deposits of Laramie Valley. At many places in this region during the summer there are large fields of gorgeously colored wild flowers. In some places the plain is colored red with the blossoms of a variety of loco weed, which is poisonous to horses, and in others large areas are covered with the deep-blue blossoms of the larkspur. Evening primroses are also ' Gypsite is finely divided gypsum j to correspond to the Frontier formation of mixed with other matter, which does not localities farther west. At some places interfere with its use for cement plaster, indications of oil have been found in this It is baked in ovens, its calcium sulphate remaining as a dry powder, which is mixed with water in plastering and then sandstone. In general there is no material differ- ence in the Benton on opposite sides of the becomes hard. 1 Laramie Mountains, either in physical 2 The Benton formation in Nebraska j character or in age, so that it is believed consists of three members, two of shale that when these beds were formed the and one of limestone, which are recog- | Laramie Mountains did not exist and nizable as far west as the east slope of the j that the sea in which the sediments Laramie Mountains. West of the mouu- i accumulated extended uninterruptedly tains the limestone is represented by shale ' over the area now occupied by the indistinguishable from the other mem- i mountains. Some differences in nomen- bers. Near the base of the Benton on both sides of the mountains there is a hard sandy shale, called the Mowry, which weathers almost white and which con- tains numerous fish scales. Higher in the Benton is a sandstone, about 50 feet thick in the Laramie Basin, which seems clature result from the fact that two standard geologic sections have come into use — one for the general region east of the mountains and the other for the region west of them. (See p. 41.) The Laramie Basin is in the transition zone between the two regions. THE OVERLAND EOUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 49 abundant, but they seem to prefer the gravelly slopes at the side of the road. For a few miles north of Laramie the train follows more or loss closely Laramie River, here a placid meandering stream. Not many miles farther down its course, to the north, the river has cut squarely across the main Laramie Range, below which it flows out into the Great Plains country and empties into the North Platte. A large storage reservoir has been built near the mountains, and lieres tlie flood waters of the river are stored to irrigate the Wheatland tract, east of the mountains. This irrigation project was put through imder the Carey Act by its author, ex-Senator Carey, later governor of Wyoming. Mr. Carey showed that he not oidy could draft a law but could operate under it, for the Wheatland project is said to be very successful. Just after crossing Laramie River, before reaching Bosler, the route leaves the marine Cretaceous shale and enters an area underlain by the sandstone of the Mesaverde, a coal-bearing Bosler. formation of LTpper Cretaceous age. The Mesaverde Elevation 7,077 feet, is of great ecouomic importance west of the Rocky Omaha 592 miles. Mountains because it contains valuable beds of coal. This sandstone near Bosler is soft and has disinte- grated so deeply that its character can not be readily discerned from the train. It is well exposed, however, at many places a httle farther west. Near the station of Cooper Lake a small alkali lake surrounded with white incrustations of sodium carbonate is visible near the track, but Cooper Lake itself can be seen only from a Cooper Lake. point several miles west of the station. This lake Elevation 7,031 feet, ^g about 4 milcs loug and 2 miles wide and occupies Omaha 597 miles. ^ t ci ii • t-i the lowest part or a broad depression. Like many of the smaller lakes of the Laramie Basin it has no outlet, and the considerable quantities of water entering it through the two creeks that head in the Medicine Bow Mountains to the south escape only by evaporation. For this reason the size of the lake is variable, depend- ing on the balance between rainfall and evaporation. From Lookout station westward to Medicine Bow the railroad is relatively new. The road was originally built north of the line now operated, crossing Rock River about 10 miles north- Lookout. g^g|. q£ ^YiQ present crossing and following that river Elevation 7,120 feet, north of Como Blutf to Mediciuc Bow. The new route Omaha 600 miles. it -i shortens the Ime 20 miles. The station at Lookout is built on a sandstone that lies uncon- formably on the Mesaverde. About a mile west of the station this rock is exposed in radroad cuts and consists of soft yellow sandstone 38088°— Bull. 612—16 4 50 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERIST UNITED STATES. containing pebbles of quartz and other varieties of hard rock ranging from grains of sand to pebbles 2 inches in diameter. In a cut about 1^ miles east of Harper this conglomeratic sandstone ^ (see fig. 8) rests with uneven base — that is, unconformably — on a yellow shaly sandstone that contains marine shells. The section house called Harper (see sheet 10, p. 62) is built on a sandy shale in which have been found numerous fossil shells of Cretaceous marine mollusks. In the deep rock cut just west of the station may be seen a bed of coal about 3 feet 6 inches thick. This coal thickens toward the southwest, where it has been mined to some extent for local use. Harper. Elevation 7,073 feet Omaha 606 miles. ^"■•■"""^f^^^?' >-n:^^^.f)^ Figure 8. — An unconformity in a railroad cut about 4 miles west of Lookout, Wye, showing con- glomeratic sandstone (A) of Tertiary age resting on marine shaly sandstone (B) of Cretaceous age. Pine Ridge, so named because of a few scrubby pinons, or nut pines, that grow on the sandstone chffs, consists of a light-gray chfl- making sandstone that forms a prominent northward-facing ledge and belongs near the base of the Mesaverde formation. West of the cut are two prominent ridges formed by large reddish-brown lime- stone concretions that contain great numbers of marme shells. These are in the transition beds between typical Steele shale and the ^ The conglomerate contains near the base sandstone concretions in which have been found fossil plants that seem to indicate Tertiary age, although these rocks have usually been regarded as a part of the Montana group of the Upper Creta- ceous. These plants indicate that here, as elsewhere in this region, Tertiary beds lie unconformably on older rocks. The significance of this relation is discussed in the footnote on p. 2 and also in the foot- note on p. 42. The conglomerate caps the hill south of Harper station, where it rests on rocks containing marine shells, but the contact is not easily determined- owing to surface debris. SHEET No. 9 \0b'_ WYOMING E F Red Bl JuttesI I SHOWING FORMATIONS CROSSED BETWEEN RED BUTTES AND HARPER Cheyenn^ Scale 500.000 Approximately 8 miles to 1 inch 20Miles 15 20 -joKilometers Contour interval 200 feet ELEVATIONS IN FEET ABOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL The distances from Omaha, Nebraska, are shown every JO miles The crossfies on the railroads are spaced J mile apart ^ I < CO n GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OVERLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California from tillroad ailenmenM and profllei jupplled by the Union Pa.-lflc UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ■ Geographer 1915 EXPLANATION nd. mvel, and (Ankarvc and G ivBterdcpMit (BnJ ro.h-..trd.poiit "'"' aas* Mils (-'UpVrUra £".ndw«ns,r deposits iSaUnka shall c THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OCiDEN, 51 massive sandstone of the Mesaverde formation that lies on it. These transition rocks become gradually more sand}- toward (lie west, and west of Rawlins they form a part of the Mesaveivh' formation. Pine Ridge is the divide between the Laramie Ilivcr diainagc and that of Rock River. The waters of its eastern slope pass eastward through the Laramie Mountains and enter Platte River at Fort Laramie, 80 miles to the northeast. Tliose of the western slope How through Rock River and Medicine Bow^ River to the Platte and thence through the Seminoe Mountains around the north end of the Laramie Momitains and after a circuitous route of about 250 miles join those of the eastern slope at Fort Laramie. Just before reachmg Rock River station the train (-rosses the river of the same name, and good exposures of the Steele Rock River. shale may be seen in the bluffs in the north bank. Elevation 6,904 feet. Northwcst of the town the railroad passes over a Omaha 612 miles. broad plain formed on this soft shale. About 10 miles from Rock River the road crosses a low, sharp hogback of Niobrara limestone. This chalky-white bed, 5 to 10 feet tliick, forms a crest because it is harder than the shale above and below it. Ridge takes its name from the promment hogback ridge north of the station, formed by a hard sandstone in the Benton shale. The railroad parallels this ridge for a mile or more and then ^^^^^- cuts through it west of the station. The lower part of Elevation 6,692 feet, the Beiitoii shaic is wcU cxposcd north of this sand- Omaha 623 miles. . , . , ^ , . , . „ stone ridge, in the center oi the anticline formed by the arching of the strata. The route traverses this shale for about a mile before recrossing the sandstone and the Niobrara limestone and fuially returns to the Steele shale in the northern liml) of the arch. Near Ridge the sandstone disappears because the fold that extends westward from the Laramie Range here plunges beneath the surface. Como Bluff, which lies north of Ridge station and wdiich constitutes a part of this fold, consists of the Cloverly formation, the lower con- glomeratic portion of which forms the crest of the bluff because of its superior hardness and forms also the long southward slope seen to the right from the tram. Underneath this conglomerate occm* in descend- ing order the pink and blue shales of the Morrison formation, which, because of the numerous shades of color, are often called the variegated beds; the Sundance formation, containing numerous vertebrate and invertebrate fossils which prove its Jurassic age; and the Chugwater red beds. The Morrison formation is probably the most interesting of those exposed here, because of the fossil bones of huge reptiles that it con- tains. The dinosaurs are described below by C. W. Gilmore, of the 52 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, United States National Museum.^ The largest animals that have ever been found lived at a time when reptiles were the ruling types of animals in the sea, on the land, and in the air. Flying reptiles ^ Como Bluff is classic ground to those interested in the fossil remains of animals that inhabited this region long ages ago, for it was here that the first dinosaur bones were discovered in the Rocky Mountain region. In 1876 Mr. W. H. Reed, now a professor in the University of Wyoming but then in the employ of the Union Pa- cific Co., found in the bluff above the now abandoned station of Aurora a large petri- fied limb bone, which he sent to Prof. O. C. Marsh, of Yale University. Prof. Marsh at once recognized the fossil as be- longing to some imknowu extinct animal and immediatel}' enlisted the services of Mr. Reed. Collecting was actively car- ried on here for a period of ten years or more, and as a result of this work Prof. Marsh was able to publish the remarkable series of restorations of dinosaurs which appeared from time to time in several publications. So famous did these fossils become that in 1899 the officials of the Union Pacific Raihoad invited the geologists of the country to visit the places where the bones were found. An expedition con- sisting of geologists from universities and museums in many parts of the United States visited Como Bluff, the Freeze- out Hills, and other famous fossil locali- ties. So well known are the bone beds at Como Bluff that some have called the beds the Como formation. However, in the same formation at Morrison, Colo., simi- lar bones were found, and the formation was named Morrison — a name which is now generally accepted. Some of the dinosaurs were the largest land animals that ever walked the earth, and some were very diminutive. They differed greatly in size, shape, structure, and habits. Some were plant eaters; others fed on flesh. Some walked on four feet; others with small, weak fore limbs walked entirely upon the strongly developed hind legs. Some had reptde-like feet; others were bird footed. Some had toes pro- vided with long, sharp claws; others had flattened hoof-like nails. There were di- nosaurs with small heads and others with large heads. Some were large and cum- bersome; others were small, light, and graceful and so much resembled birds in their structure that only the skilled anatomist can distinguish their remains. Some of enormous size wei'e clad in coats of bony armor, which gave them a most bizarre appearance. The largest herbivorous or plant-eating dinosaur whose fossil remains have been found in Como Bluff was the huge Bron- tosaurus, or thunder lizard, as it was called , by Prof. Marsh. It was 70 feet long, stood 16 feet high at the hips, and had a long tail, an equally long neck, and a head that was only a little larger than that of a horse. The weight of such a crea- ture has been variously estimated at IS to 20 tons. This animal doubtless lived on the luxuriant tropical vegetation, but how its enormous bulk could be sustained by such food as could pass through its ridic- ulously small mouth has caused much wonder. It is not certain whether the name thunder lizard was given to it be- cause of its size or because of the large sum — over |10,000 — which Prof. Marsh spent in excavating and preparing it. Some dinosaurs that are even larger than the brontosaur have been found more recently. A Diplodocus now in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh had the enormous length of 84J feet. The size of the fossil bones is indicated in the accom- panying figure 9. At the time these animals flourished the Rocky Mountain region was a low, nearly level country, covered with tropical vege- tation, with many wide, shallow streams and swampy areas, thus furnishing a con- genial place for these sluggish swamp- inhabiting creatures to wade lazily about or float in the water, for it has been deemed improbable that the enormous bulk of some of them could be sustained without lateral support such as would be obtained in water. One of the most striking of the vegeta- rians of this period was the Stegosaurus, U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY DULLETITi f,lj PLATE X ,1. AN ARMORED DINOSAUR (STEGOSAURUSj. The bones of this animal, which was about 1 feet high, were found in the Morrison formation. IJURi^Ji.Hd. B. A CARNIVOROUS DINOSAUR (ALLOSAURUS) PREYING ON ONE OF THE HERBIVOROUS DINOSAURS. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEV BULLETIN 612 PLATE XI A. A HORNED TOAD (PHRYNOSOMA CORNUTUM). A modern lizard about 3 inches long that is armed lil55 miles. East of Percy the train enters a eut 0") feel deep atul \\ miles long through beds of coal, carbonaceous shale, and sandstone. It is reported that the coal taken up h(>re by the steam shovel was used in the engine and furnished the power for making the cut. The best bed thus exposed contains coal 8 feet thick. Elk Mountain, which is visible from many points on the route, is seen to best advantage to the left (south) from Percy station. This great mountain of granite, conical in form and 7 miles in diameter at its base (PI. XII, B), rises to an altitude of 11,1(32 feet and is at the north extremity of the Medicine Bow Range. To the west of it is a relatively small peak of irregular outline called Sheephead Mountain. Farther southwest can be distinguished on a clear day the Sierra Madre, near the northern boundary of Colorado. About 1 h miles west of Dana the traveler passes from the rocks of the "Upper Laramie" to those of the underlying "Lower Laramie" formation, but the change is mconspicuous from the train because the rocks are obscured by surface material near the road. The "Lower Laramie" con- sists of sedimentary rocks more than 6,000 feet thick, mainly coarse-grained sandstone, in which are a few thin beds of coal. Dana. Elevation 6,782 feet Omaha 659 miles. walked on its Mnd legs. From speci- mens showing impressions of the skin it is known that the animal was covered with an epidermis made np of tubercles, or knoblike plates, of two sizes, the lai'ger ones predominating on the back and sides. One of the most remarkable features about this reptile was its mouth, which was armed with 2,000 or more separate teeth arranged in vertical rows. Each jaw has from 45 to 60 rows and from 10 to 15 teeth in each vertical row. These were self-adjusting, and as one was lost or worn out another pushed iip to take its place. As in Morrison time, so in the very much later Lance epoch there were armored and flesh-eating reptiles, and some of these were even more ugly than their Morrison progenitors. Ankylosau- nis was an armored dinosaur whose entire back was covered by flattened ridged- skin plates of bone. The animal was low of stature, had a short, blunt head, and carried on the end of its stout, heavy tail a great triangular club of bone. Even the eyes were provided with a ciip- shaped bony shutter, like the visor of a helmet, which could be closed over the eyeball, so that all the \iilnerable parts of this animated fortress were protected by bony armor. The "horned toad," one of the small modern lizards of the western plains, is not very different from the armored dinosaurs except in size. (See PI. XI, A, p. 53.) The most striking of the flesh-eating dinosaurs was the Tyrannosaunis, or tyrant lizard, the largest carnivorous animal that ever lived on land. It was 40 feet in length, and when it stood erect the top of its head was 18 to 20 feet above the grotmd. The fore limbs were small, and it must have walked entirely Upon its powerful hind legs. A perfect skull of this animal is exhibited in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The jaws are 4 feet in length and bristle with sharp-pointed teeth, several of which project 6 inches from their sockets. It is with a feeling of awe that one standing before the huge head contemplates a beast of such terrible ferocitv. 60 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. These rocks contain fossil plants and shells of fresh-water mollusksy although brackish-water and marine fossils occur near their base. Between Dana and Walcott the strata are bent up in one of the great arches or anticlines of this much-disturbed region. Edson is on the Lewis shale, but the beds of the North Park formation (Tertiary) extend to the railroad from the SmlhaeG'SJef*' ^outh. A mile farther southwest, beyond a short tunnel, is a deep cut through the crest of the St. Mary anticlme, which consists of the arched sandstone of the Mesaverde formation. The crest of the ridge is formed of this sandstone, which is harder and has therefore resisted erosion better than the shaly beds that origmaUy covered it. South of the tunnel the train again crosses the Lewis shale and the "Lower Laramie" formation before it reaches Walcott. The town of Walcott is built on the North Park formation, alcott. which here covers the older strata. This formation Elevation 6,618 feet, ^^j^^g j^g ^^^^^ fj.^^ North Park, Colo., where it Omaha 669 miles. . . ' . ' . occupies an extensive area and contains thick beds of coal. From Walcott a branch road runs south to Saratoga and Encampment. Saratoga is on Platte River and is well known to sportsmen for its huntmg and fishing. Here are some hot sulphur springs and a well that furnishes a mineral water sold under a dis- tinctive name. Encampment, 43 miles south of Walcott, at the end of the branch line, is the center of a copper-mining district which for- merly produced considerable ore but is not now very active. This district is in the Sierra Madre. Copper was discovered here in 1868, but not until 1881 did the district become productive. Altogether it has yielded over 20,000,000 pounds of copper. Gold, silver, and other metals have been found in small quantities. The mines are m crystalline and metamorphic rocks, of pre-Cambrian age, cut by intrusive rocks, mcluding gabbro, which is supposed to be the source of the copper ore. About 2 miles due north of Walcott is a prominent hill known as St. Mary Peak, which rises 7,496 feet above sea level. This peak and the ridge extending northwestward from it are composed of upfolded beds of the Mesaverde formation. The strata, during the process of folding, were broken and thrust upon one another in such a way that those east of the fracture were pushed up over those west of it, so that certain beds of the Mesaverde formation now rest upon younger beds that were originally laid down on top of that formation. Two miles west of Walcott the railroad leaves the nearly horizontal beds of the North Park formation and reaches the steeply incHned massive yellow sandstones of the Mesaverde formation, which are carved by erosion into a great variety of forms. These sandstones make a conspicuous ridge that extends northwestward for many U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN CI2 PLATE XII A. PLATTE RIVER AT FORT STEELE, WYO. A characteristic view of the Cretaceous rocks in central V/yomii B. ELK MOUNTAIN, THE NORTH END OF THE MEDICINE BOW RANGE. This mountain may be seen during nearly 1 50 miles of the journey over the Union Pacific Railroad. Photograph furnished by Union Pacific Railroad Co. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XIII A. GAP IN THE CAMBRIAN QUARTZITE THROUGH WHICH THE WESTBOUND TOURIST PASSES AFTER LEAVING RAWLINS, WYO. Sagebrush in the foreground. P.. CHARACTERISTIC VIEW OF THE RED DESERT. The plain is formed on Tertiary beds and covered with sand and sagebrush. The distant buttes are capped with harder beds, which have prevented the rain and wind from wearing them down to the general level of the plain. Photograph furnished by Union Pacific Railroad Co. THE OVEELAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 61 Fort Steele. Elevation 6,505 feet. Population 699. Omaha 675 miles. miles. The part of the ridge between Walcott and the point where North Phatte River crosses the formation is known as the Rattlesnake Hills; the part north of the river is called the Haystack Hills. Three miles east of Fort Steele the railroad leaves the Mesaverde beds and reaches a formation which has been named the Steele shale,' from its occurrence here. This shale is the same as that wliich crops out near Medicine Bow and extends westward from that place beneath the coal-bearing rocks of the Hanna Basin. The town of Fort Steele derives its name from Fort Fred Steele, an army post established here in 1866 to guard the Union Pacific Rail- road against Indians. At the time of the Meeker massacre, in the early eighties, it was from Fort Fred Steele that the unfortunate force commanded by Maj. Thornburg was sent to put down the uprising. Maj. Thornburg and most of his command never returned. That any of them survived was due to the dispatch of a second expe- dition from the fort to their relief. There is little about the town now to suggest the troublous Indian times. It serves as a place of supply for sheep herders and for the farms scattered up and dowTi North Platte River wherever the valley is wide enough to be culti- vated. The North Platte, from which the raih-oad diverged at the city of North Platte, 291 miles west of Omaha, is reached again at Fort Steele, 384 miles west of North Platte and 3,705 feet higher. From its source in North Park, Colo., the North Platte foUows a circuitous route to the north until it reaches a point nearly halfway across the State of Wyoming. In this part of its course it cuts through the Seminoe Mountains and passes completely around the north end of the Laramie Range. In the Seminoe Mountains the river has cut some remarkably picturesque gorges. Across one of these the United States Reclamation Service built the Pathfinder dam, 218 feet high, creating a reservoir having a capacity of 1,100,000 acre-feet — that is, enough water to cover that number of acres to a depth of 1 foot. In this reservoir flood waters that formerly went to waste are stored, to be released as needed to irrigate 130,000 acres in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. This project, which is not yet completed, will cost nearly $7,000,000. To the left (south) as the train crosses the bridge over the North Platte at Fort Steele may be seen a sawmill which works timber cut in the mountains and floated down the river. This mill produces many railroad ties and mine props from timber grown in the Medi- cine Bow and Hayden national forests. ' The upper part of the Steele shale is much more sandy near Fort Steele than it is farther east, and several prominent sandstones lie below the massive sand- stone that is here mapped as the base of the Mesaverde. 62 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. North of Fort Steele the Rattlesnake Hills rise from the river level by a series of escarpments, and about 2^ miles south of the town there is another series of escarpments, composed also of the Mesa- verde formation and the sandstones of the transition beds between the Steele shale and the Mesaverde, which are illustrated in Plate XII, A. If the traveler were to make an excursion to these two ridges he would observe that the strata in the Rattlesnake Hills dip toward the northeast, whereas those in the ridge south of Fort Steele dip toward the south. If the strata of these two ridges were projected upward along their dip tiU they met, they would form an arch whose crest would be a little south of Fort Steele. As a matter of fact the Mesaverde formation did at one time extend over such an arch. Wlien these beds were bent up by the development of the fold they were probably fractured at its crest. Along this line of fracture the hard sandstones were more easily eroded than elsewhere and were finally cut through by the streams. The underlying soft shale was then rapidly eroded along the crest of the fold, so that in time the axis of the arch, which was originally a ridge, was reduced to a vaUey bordered on either side by flaring walls of sandstone. This valley, now several miles wide, is followed by the railroad from Fort Steele to Rawlins. The station at Grenville (see sheet 11, p. 68) is little more than a pump house. Water from the wells that furnish the domestic sup- ply for the town of Rawlins is not suitable for "use in locomotives because it contains mmeral matter that incrusts the boilers. Consequently water for generating steam is pumped to Rawlins from North Platte River at Fort Steele, a distance of 15 miles, with a lift of 236 feet. Far to the north may be seen the Seminoe Mountains, named for Seminoe Lajeunesse,^ a French trapper and fur trader. In plain Grenville. Elevation 6,580 feet Omaha 683 miles. . ^ It is said that Lajeunesse's real name was Basil and that the name Seminoe was corrupted from a French nickname, "Cimineau," although some reports have it that Seminoe was the name given to him by his Snake squaw. Lajeunesse established a trading post on the Over- laud Trail above Devils Gate. Early in the sixties, Avith two men and fifteen pack animals loaded with goods, he started out to trade with the Sioux. On the way the party was attacked by Indians in Bates Hole, southwest of Casper, and Lajeunesse was killed. Lajeunesse was a successful hunter and trapper, and the old settlers who remember him say that the moun- tains were called Seminoe to perpetuate the name of one of the bravest and truest pioneers of Wyoming. He accompanied Fremont on the first expedition into Wyoming, and was one of those chosen to make the ascent of Fremont Peak. He is reported to have accompanied United States troops as a scout on a number of expeditions. His uncle, Gabriel La- jeunesse, was, so tradition says, the hero of Longfellow's "Evangeline." It is interesting to note that some recent maps show these mountains as the Semi- nole Mountains, the compilers of the maps evidently assuming that they were named for the Seminole Indians and that the "1" had been omitted by mistake from the maps on which they were shown as Semi- noe. \ SHEET No. 10 WYOMING ertiary Sftiary, possibly including seme Cretaceous i o '■■■I Scale 1 500.000 Approximately 8 miles to 1 inch 5 10 15 20Mjles iO 15 20 3oKilometers Cretaceous Contour interval 200 feet ELEVATIONS IN FEET ABOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL The distances from Omaha, Nebiaska, are shown every JO miles The crossties on the railroads are spaced J mile apart GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OVERLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California frum railroad aUgntnents and profiles Bnpplled by the tinlon Pacific UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY • r THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 63 sight also north of Grenville, although about 30 miles away, is a range of mountains with striking white scallops on their southern flank. These are the Ferris Mountains, lying just west of the Seminoe Range. The white scallops are vertical beds of limestone which have resisted erosion while the softer beds around them have been worn away. These mountains were named for George Ferris, on© of the early settlers in this region, whose name has been apphed to several of its natural features and many of its enterprises. South of Grenville the rocks, which have been domed, are eroded so deeply that the Mowry shale is exposed at the surface in the center of the dome and the several sandstones of the Frontier formation lie in concentric ridges around it. The shale between these sandstones contains limestone concretions in which are shark teeth, ammonites, scaphites, and other fossils of marine animals that indicate Upper Cretaceous (Benton) age. These sandstones contain oil in some places, and for the purpose of ascertaining their depth south of Rawlins, where a well was started near the base of the Mcsaverde formation, the shale was carefully measured at a favorable exposure south of Grenville, where it w^as found that the sandstone lies 2,200 feet below the lowest sandstone ledge of the transitional zone between the Mesaverde and the Steele shale. The shale between the base of the Mesaverde and the Frontier is therefore somewhat more than 2,200 feet thick. A few miles east of Rawlins the outcropping edges of the several formations are passed over in rapid succession. These strata are upturned around the Rawlins dome ^ and range in age from Cam- brian up to Cretaceous. (See table on p. 2.) Some of these for- mations can not be seen to advantage from the train. From the geologist's point of view it is unfortunate, though inevitable, that railroads are built where the easiest grades can be obtained rather ^ The center of the Rawlins xiplift con- sists of granite whicli reaches an altitude of more than 7,600 feet in the hills north of the railroad . Around this granite core and sloping away from it are the sedimentary rocks. The oldest, the Cambrian quartz- ite, is very hard and forms conspicuous slopes. The railroad is built through a narrow gap in these rocks west of Raw- lins. .(SeePl. XIII, ^, p. 61.) TheCar- bonif erous limestone lies in general uncon- formably on the Cambrian quartzite, but is separated from it in some places by beds of iron ore. Red sedimentary rocks that lie above this limestone are separated into two parts by a layer of similar lime- stone. It is possible that the upper part represents the Chugwater red beds and the lower part the Casper formation of the Laramie region. The Sundance formation comes next, with its characteristic marine Jurassic fos- sils, and above it lie the variegated Alor- rison beds. These are succeeded by the Cloverly, which here, as elsewhere, con- sists of two sandstones, the lower one con- glomeratic, separated by dark shale. Above the upper sandstone is the ilowTy shale, the sandstone of the Frontier for- mation, and a body of shale which in- cludes equivalents of the Steele shale and the Niobrara formation. 64 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Rawlins. Elevation 6,741 feet. Population 4,256. Omaha 090 miles. than where the rocks are best exposed. The sandstone of the Frontier formation may be recognized by low ridges through which shallow cuts have been made, and the Cloverly forms a prominent ridge seen to the right (north) of the track. The pink beds of the Morrison formation appear to the south and the brick-red beds of the Chug- wator formation to the north. The sprmg from which the town of Rawlins took its name was so designated in honor of Gen. J. A. Rawhns, Secretary of War under President Grant. The town is a shipping point for a large area both north and south of the railroad. It is the connecting station for Baggs and Dixon, in southern Wyoming, 70 miles to the south, and before the building of the "Moffat road" (Denver & Salt Lake) it supphed Craig, Hayden, and other places still farther south in northwestern Colorado. It is also a railroad division point. In the old days a Government road ran southeastward from Rawlins to the Wliite River Indian Agency, in what is now Rio Blanco County, Colo. Mail service was maintained on this road, and the bridge which the Government built across Snake River at Baggs is still in good condition.^ Tlie dark-colored Cambrian quartzite is conspicuously exposed north of Rawhns, where it is overlain by hght-colored Carboniferous lime- stone. The red oxide of iron at the base of the Carboniferous was formerly mined north of the town for paint. West of Rawhns the formations on the Rawhns dome that were crossed east of the town are passed over in reverse order. From points west of Rawlins the Ferris Mountains are again plainly visible far to the north, and a noticeable notch, called Whisky Gap, may be discerned at the west end of the range. Through this gap runs the old Rawhns-Lander stage road. West of this range are the Green Mountains, which are terminated on the west by a pass known as Crooks Gap, named for Gen. George H. Crook, a noted Indian ^ ^^^len the ^\1lite River Utes massacred Indian Agent Meeker and his family the command sent south from Fort Steele under Maj. Thornburg followed the Gov- ernment road as far as Baggs, then swung west, crossing Little Snake River about 12 miles farther down and striking out southwest across the great rolling sage- ljru.'*h country which lies between Little Snake and Bear rivers. Their guide must have known the country thoroughly, for their route, still known as the Thorn- burg road, takes advantage of every topo- graphic feature and every safe watering place. Some miles after crossing Bear River Maj. Thornburg decided, it is said against the remonstrances of his subordi- nates, to lead his command through a nar- row valley. Here they were ambushed, and for three days and nights defended themselves as best they could, using the few wagons which they could get together and the bodies of dead horses as barri- cades. Two of the number escaped during the first night and brought word to Raw- lins. ^\^]len the relief expedition reached the scene, Maj. Thornburg and more than two-thirds of his command were dead. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 65 fighter, whoso name was given also to the creek that flows through the gap and to the mountain that hes just west of it. Near Ferris siding the raih'oad crosses a low ridg(5 of hills foinied by the upturned sandstones of the Mesaverde formation, which con- stitute the eastern rim of the Great Divide Basin, a great depression in the older rocks filled with younger omlha'Ss'^SLf *■ sediment. West of the ridge are the younger Creta- ceous rocks, which are here steeply upturned, but which flatten out as they extend westward under this basin. About 2 miles east of Knobs siding the road reaches Tertiary beds, also steeply upturned here, but flattening out farther west. They consist of conglomeratic sandstone alternating with dark-colored shale, and m some places contain beds of coal. These rocks contain some fossil plants and shells of fresh-water mollusks. Near the station called Daley's Ranch the train crosses the wide valley of Separation Creek, which, after following an erratic course for 60 miles, is lost in the Great Divide Basin. North a ey s anc . ^^ ^^^ railroad (to the right) may be seen in this valley omIaTofmUef '■ ^^c barns and corrals of a large sheep ranch. Less than 30 years ago the owner of this ranch was a sec- tion hand on the Union Pacific, but he is now a large property owner and has been a member of the State legislature. Many tales might be told of sudden rise to fortune in the early days of the sheep industry, before the ranges had been overstocked and depleted. In Wood's cut, about 2 miles west of Cherokee, there is a poorly consolidated yellow conglomeratic sandstone resting with uneven base on dark-colored shale. This cut was made tlirough a rise in the rolling plain, and here, as at omahaTi2^'miiel*!** hundreds of other places along the Union Pacific, the road needs protection against drifting snow. The windbreaks for this one cut cost $3,500. At Creston siding the train crosses the divide between the Atlantic and Pacific slopes and a sign south of the track reads : . " Divide of the Continent." As a matter of fact, the traveler is also within the Great Divide Basin. The ordinary omlhanJmnef ^' couccption of a divide is that of a mountain crest, but here is the anomaly of a continental divide pass- ing through an undrained basin that is about 60 miles across from north to south and 100 miles from east to west. This basin contains numerous salt and alkaline lakes, mud flats, and mud springs. Hayden, one of the earlier Government geologists, states that in the region between the Seminoe Hills and Rawlins he saw an interesting group of mud springs, analogous to the mud puffs of the geyser region in Yellow- stone Park. About 400 of these curious springs were found and examined. 38088°— BulL 612—16—5 66 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Throughout this part of the. route the strata lie nearly horizontal, but there are long stretches of desert on which little can be seen except the bunches and tangled growths of stunted Red Desert. sagebrush and greasewood. (See PL XIII, B, p. 61.) This part of the Great Divide Basin is called the Red Desert. Coal beds crop out in it west of Latham siding, about 5 miles beyond Oeston, but the coal is of poor quality and little use has been made of it. West of Creston is obtained the first comprehensive view of the Red Desert. A few miles north of the track is a great stretch of sand dunes, which extends 100 miles, from Green River to North Platte River. The dunes, many of them more than a hundred feet high, are constantly traveling with the pre- vailing winds in a direction a little north of east. If a few camels and an Arab or two were added to the scene, the spectator could easily imagine himself in the Sahara Desert. Frequent mirages, endless variety of feature, and wonderful coloring make the desert far from the monotonous stretch it may seem to be at first glance. As the name suggests, the dominant colors are red — russet, brick-red, and vermilion — but there is every tone of gray and brown, with not a few shades of green, purple, and yeUow. Unlike the colors of an eastern landscape, those of the Red Desert are not dependent on the season, for there is little vegetation to hide the coloring of the rocks and soil. Despite the sparsity of vegetable growth, the Red Desert is a \\dnter sheep range. The scattered ''bunch grass," which looks so meager and dry, is in fact excellent forage, curing into hay where it grew and having a high nutritive value. In summer, when the desert is dry and water holes are few, the sheep are herded in the mountams, where water is abundant and grass is green and tender. The early snows, falling first in the higher mountains and extendmg week by week to lower altitudes, drive the flocks into the rough fall range between the mountains an^l the desert. Here they are held mitil the snow falls on the desert itself, but with the first heavy snowfall they are driven from the footliills to spend the winter in the open, where they find pasture in the spaces cleared of snow by the winds. The winds are not tempered here, but neither is the lamb shorn, and Wyoming winter winds make heavy wool when shearing time comes. It may be noted that the great problem of stock raising in this western country is not so much to find pasturage — although the range has been greatly overstocked — as to find water. This is true not only in the Red Desert but in almost every grazing area throughout the semiarid States. Places at which stock may be watered are so few that control of them in general means control of the entire pasture range. In years gone by it was the custom for large stock owners to acquire a number of water holes and so possess themselves of great U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY A. TABLE ROCK NEAR EITTER CREEK, WYO. This rock is composed of alternating hard and soft Tertiary beds. The hard beds fornfi the top of the table and of the benches. U. CHARACTERISTIC VIEW OF THE NUK I H WALL Uh IMt i„rtiNTLMM i nk^Liuri v.n,^.n Int TOURIST PASSES NEAR POINT OF ROCKS, WYO. The bluffs are composed of the coarse sandstone which separates the two groups of coal beds of the Mesa- verde formation. The Rock Springs coal group lies below this sandstone and tne Almond coal group above it. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XV A. COAL-BEARING SANDSTONE OF MESAVERDE FORMATION IN THE WESTERN PART OF THE ROCK SPRINGS DOME EAST OF ROCK SPRINGS, WYO. B. TRANSPORTATION, OLD AND NEW. team hauling fieight from the railroad (in the foreground). The bluff in the distance is White Mountain and is composed of Tertiary beds. .lp.,jgqS C. NEAR VIEW OF WHITE MOUNTAIN. White Mountain consists of pink sandstone and shale of the Wasatch group below ?nd the light-green b^dsof the Green River formation above. THE OVEELAND EOUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 67 grazing areas as effectively as if they owned every acre of them. In recent years the Government has attempted to break up this practice by creating piibhc water reserves which are open to the use of all comers, thus giving the small stock grower an equal chance with his more powerful rival. In the Indian days the southern Red Desert constituted a more or less neutral territory among the numerous tribes. To the north were the Shoshones or Snakes, to the northeast the Crows, and to the south the Utes, but this territory was the common hunting ground and battle ground of all. In 1906, when the Uncompahgre Utes jumped the reservation in northeastern Utah and ranged northeastward across Wyoming, they held a great antelope round-up in the Red Desert, forming in genuine Indian style a great circle of riders which gradually drew in until the frightened antelope were concentrated in the center and killed. About 400 Indians took part in this round-up. iVlthough they traveled several hundred miles from their reservation, and although it required a regiment of United States troops to awe them into surrender, no one was killed. Wamsutter, formerly called Washakie, is a division point on the railroad. It is the site of old Fort Washakie, built for the protection of railroad employees and emigrants from the Sho- shone and Arapahoe Indians. Three deep wells have omiharaf ^el^*^' been sunk to water here by the railway company, the deepest boring going down 1,900 feet. The coal beds of the Wasatch group (Tertiary) were penetrated near the sur- face, and those in the undifferentiated Tertiary at several lower levels. The color and lithologic character of the beds penetrated indicate that the well probably did not go entirely through the Ter- tiary beds. Similar beds were struck in a well 1,115 feet deep at Red Desert station, 9 miles west of Wamsutter. West of Red Desert station is Hillside. To the left (south), about 4 miles south of Tipton station is a promi- nent escarpment known as Laney Rim, formed by the beds of the upper part of the Wasatch group. To the right is an *^ **"* uninterrupted view of the Green Mountains, more Jmlha'^l'mnef *■ than 50 miles away. In the distance toward the northwest may also be seen the Leucite Hills. Toward the west is a conspicuous dark-colored knob called Black Butte, which has served as a prominent landmark since the days of the earliest pioneers. The stratified rocks, which are nearly horizontal in the center of the Great Divide Basin, have here a gentle inclination toward the east The softer layers have been eroded away faster than the harder ones. 68 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. which now appear as prominent shelves. Near Tipton (see sheet 12, p. 70) the train crosses one of the harder layers of the Wasatch beds, a shelf-making sandstone, which may be seen to the left, south of the raiboad, rising higher and higher toward the west until, on Table Rock (see PI. XIV, A), south of Table Rock station, it is about 800 feet above the level of the track. These rocks near Tipton contain great numbers of shells of fresh-water mollusks and some fossil bones. Toward the east from Bitter Creek station may be obtained a good view of Table Rock, a prominent point in the eastward-sloping shelf just mentioned. The low hills south of the station are covered with gravel deposited by Bitter Creek before that stream had eroded to its present depth. The gravels contain many agate pebbles, some of them beautifully colored. A well drilled at this station years ago to a depth of 1,300 feet found water under sufficient pressure to flow at the surface, but too alkaline to be of much use. West of Bitter Creek station the railroad crosses the eroded edges of eastward-dipping strata that range m age from middle Eocene to Cretaceous. At Patrick siding these strata have the same general appearance as the Wasatch beds farther east, but west of this siding the hard layers are closer together and outcrop in numerous ridges. These ridges are parts of the east limb of the Rock Springs dome.* Bitter Creek. Elevation 6,692 feet. Omaha 764 miles. ' The Cretaceous rocks that are covered by the Tertiary beds of the Great Divide Basin on tlie east and those of the Bridger Basin on the west are exposed between Black Buttes and Rock Springs because they have been arched up into a great dome from the top of which the younger beds have been removed by erosion. The major axis of this dome is about 90 miles long and trends nearly north and south close to the west limb of the dome. The beds on the west dip 15° to 30° ; those on the east dip 5° to 10°. The minor axis is about 40 miles long and passes through the dome south of Rock Springs. The oldest rocks exposed are the shales near Baxter siding, which correspond to the Steele shale seen farther east. Around this shaly center outcrop in concentric zones (1) a series of non coal-bearing sand- stones; (2) the Rock Springs coal group, 600 to 2,400 feet thick, of lower Mesaverde age; (3) a massive sandstone, 800 feet thick, of middle Mesaverde age; (4) the Almond coal group, 900 feet thick, said to be of upper Mesaverde age; (5) the Lewis shale, 750 ± feet thick; (6) the Black Buttes coal group; and (7) the Black Rock coal group, of Tertiary age. It has been estimated that the amount of coal in the Rock Springs field available for mining — that is, within 3,000 feet of the surface and in beds 2h feet or more in tliickness— exceeds 142,000,000,000 tons. As coal is fossilized vegetal matter, the traveler, as he views the barren hillsides where now scarcely a living thing can be seen, may well wonder how all this great store of carbonaceous matter came there. These coal beds are mute bat forceful reminders that desert conditions have not always prevailed in this region. Fossil plants, such as palms, figs, and magnolias, found at many places in these coal beds prove that the carbonaceous matter of the coal accumulated in swamps at a time when the climate was as mild as tliat of Florida at present. SHEET NO. 11 10730' WYOMING kI.-*.^"- D OR VISIBLE BETWEEN LAHKOTA AND RED DESERT 5, (F^ isie or icoous sic Bif or ian )riifsrous rian an(?.) Hh"i:---J /Cretaceous Scale jqqqqq Approximately 8 miles to 1 inch 20Miles 3oKilometers Contour interval 200 feet ELEVATIONS IN FEET ABOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL The distances /row Omaha, Nebraska, are shown every 10 miles The crossfies on the railroads are spaced 1 mile apart I07°3o' i07 :j GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGKAPHIC MAP OVERLAND EOUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to 8an Francisco, California UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SUKVEY BULLETIN 612 r THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN, 69 Hallville. Just before reaching Black Buttes station the train crosses the youngest of the three groups of Cretaceous coal beds that are exposed around the Rock Springs dome. This is called the Black Buttes. -q^^^^ g^^^^g ^^^j ^^.^^p rpj^^ ^^^j ^^^ ^j^^ j^j^^^.^ Elevation 6,610 feet. Buttcs group has been mined to some extent. An Omaha 773 nules. . i i • abandoned mme may be seen to the right (north) of the railroad half a mile east of Black Buttes station, where also a spur runs to an active mine a mile farther south. West of Black Buttes the route follows a valley eroded mainly in the Lewis (Upper Cretaceous) shale. The rocks have been dis- placed by faulting here, so that individual beds are not easily traceable by one passing rapidly over them. Elevation 6,554 feet. At Hallvillo siduig the road crosses one of the faults Omaha 778 miles. i • i c or displacements of the strata that are so numerous in this region and enters a narrow canyon whose steep, craggy walls display the hard rocks of the upper part of the Mesaverde forma- tion. From this siding is obtained a good view of the Almond coal group, ^ which crops out north of the raiboad (to the right) and is underlain by the white sandstone of the middle part of the Mesaverde. The light-colored sandstone near the middle of the Mesaverde for- mation makes prominent cliffs at the town of Point of Rocks. (See PI. XIV, B.) It is an important water-bearing sandstone and yields mineral waters. This sandstone is slightl}^ Elevation 6,503 feet, conglomeratic, is iiTcgular in texture and hardness, Omaha 784 miles. i i i i i ^ ,. • and has been eroded into many fantastic and curious forms. To some of the cavernous hollows in it have been given names, such as ''Hermit's Grotto," "Cave of the Sands," and ''Sancho's Bower." Three wells that have been drilled here to depths of a little more than 1,000 feet have obtained an abundant supply of water. The water is strongly charged with sulphureted hydrogen (IIjS), which soon escapes or is oxidized on exposure to the air. From RawUns to Green River, a distance of 134 miles, there is scarcely a place where water fit to drmk can be found at the surface. The springs and the streams are alkahne, and water from the wells at Point of Rocks is hauled for domestic and railroad use over much of tliis distance. ' The coal beds of the Ahnoiid group are conspicuously exposed above the conglomeratic sandstone, and certain fossil oysters and other brackish-water shells are abundant in the rocks above the coal. The coal was mined about a mile east of the town, where the dip of the strata brmgs the coal beds to the level of the valley floor. Point of Rocks. ' The coals of the Almond coal group are of poorer quality than those of the Rock Springs coal group and as they occur close to the abundant supply of high- grade coal mined at Rock Springs they have not been much exploited. The only place where they have been mined is Point of Rocks, formerly called Almond. 70 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Elevation 6,434 feet, Omaha 791 miles. About 2 miles west of Point of Rocks the route leaves the massive cliff-making sandstone and comes to the relatively soft yellow sand- stone and shale of the Rock Springs coal group/ which contains the principal coal beds of this region. Just east of Thayer Junction the railroad crosses the massive sandstones that occur near the base of the Mesaverde formation and emerges into an open space occupied by the marine shale which farther east is called the Steele shale. This is separated from the younger massive sandstones of the Mesaverde formation by a tliick zone of shaly yellow sandstone that forms prominent benches and "badland" slopes. The coal of the Rock Springs group is mined at Superior, about 7 miles north of Thayer Junction. About 2 miles northeast of Superior are the Leucite HiUs^ which are made up largely of Thayer Junction, igneous rocks in the form of volcanic necks, sheets intruded into the stratified rocks, and dikes cutting across the sedimentary strata. Associated with these intrusive rocks are volcanic cones and lava flows. These rocks have long been objects of scientific interest because of their unusual char- acter. Lately they have attracted additional interest by reason of the potash-rich mineral, leucite, they contain, which may some day be utilized' if a process can be found for extracting the potash cheaply. It has been estimated that the igneous rock of the Leucite Hills con- tains more than 197,000,000 tons of potash. Baxter siding is near the center of the Rock Springs dome. The several eastward -dipping formations crossed between Bitter Creek station and Thayer Junction once arched over the top of this dome and now dip in the opposite direction on its western slope, as is indicated in the profile on the accompanying map (sheet 12). A mile west of Baxter siding a branch line runs northward 3 miles to Gunn, where mines have been opened on the lower beds of tlie Rock Springs coal group. Two miles west of the siding the route enters a Baxter. Elevation 6,303 feet. Omaha 803 miles. 1 The Rock Springs group of coal beds is of lower Mesaverde (middle Upper Creta- ceous) age and is the most important group of coals in Wyoming, for it contains many beds of bituminous coal of higher grade than that of the other groups of this region. The basal portion of the group of rocks consists of heavy ridge-making coal-bear- ing sandstones (PI. XV, ^, p. 67), and the remainder of brown, yellow, and white sandstones, shale, clay, and interbedded coal. The group is about 2,400 feet thick and contains at least twelve coal beds that range from 2 to 10 feet in thickness and many other beds less than 2 feet thick. These beds are somewhat regu- larly distributed through the group and are fairly persistent along the strike. They have been prospected from Sweet- water, south of Rock Si^rings, northward around the end of the dome to Superior. Very little prospecting has been done south of Superior, as in this locality the coal beds are somewhat thinner and are fewer in number than between Superior and Rock Springs. SHEET No. 12 108 30- — 1 WYOMING GREAT DrviLii >SSEO BETWEEN HILLSIDE AND ROCK SPRINGS A ^1^ Oo I EXPLANATION Thickness in I'eet A Sandstone, shale, and coal; fresh- water deposits (Wasatch group and Green River Tertiary formation of White Mountain) B Sandstone, shale, and coal: fresh and brackish water deposits ("Lower Laramie", Black Buttes coal group) 2,300 C Shale; marine deposit (Lewis shale) 750 D Sandstone, shale, and coal; brackish and fresh-water deposits (Mesaverde formation) 5.000 E Shale; marine deposit (includes equivalent of Steele shale) ? BULLETIN 612 GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OVERLAND ROUTE Friim Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 71 picturesque gorge eroded by Bitter Creek through the ri(lg(> formod by the hard sandstone of the Mesaverde formation (PI. XV, A, p. (\7). Coal is mmed from one of the bods that outcrop in the north waJJ of this gorge. From the west end of the gorge, just before tlic train enters Rock Springs, the travekn- gets a magnificent view of White Mountain (PI. XV, C), to the right, northwest of the town. This is the eastern escarpment of the plateau, made up of beds of Eocene (Tertiary) age that occupy the Bridger Basin. The rocks are the same as those ths,t will be seen at close range from {ho. town of Green River. The city of Rock wSprings derives its name from a large sjji'ing of saline water that issues at the base of a bluff of the water-bearins: sandstone previously described as occurring between Rock Springs. the Rock Springs and Almond groups of coal beds Elevation 6,256 feet, near Point of Rocks. However, water for domestic Population 5,778. ti j, , .-, . ■ .^ • ..... Omaha S09 miles. ^^6 as Well as lor use at the mmes m this vicmity is pumped from Green River, a distance of 15 miles, vith a lift of 179 feet. Rock Springs is one of the most important coal-mining centers of the West and ships each year nearly a million tons of high-grade bituminous coal. The mines have been operated since 1868, when the Union Pacific Railroad reached this point, and some of the older workings extend for miles underground. Mine openings may be seen to the right (north) of the railroad east of the city. A branch line runs north to Reliance and another runs south to mines at Sweet- water. All the mines are in beds of the Rock Springs coal group. West of Rock Springs the road passes from the Cretaceous forma- tions to the Tertiary beds that occupy the Bridger Basin. The Ter- tiary rocks are conspicuous to the right (north) of the railroad, in White Mountain (see PI. XV, 0), which here forms the eastern rim of the basin. The mountain is made up of stratified rocks con- sisting of the light-pink beds of the Wasatch group and the white to lixfl A. "STEAMBOAT ROCK,'- IN ECHO CANYON, UTAH. Name is applied to rock mass In foreground because seen at some angles it resembles the bow of a steamship. It consists of red conglomerate of Tertiary age. B. THE NARROWS, IN ECHO CANYON, UTAH. vers constructed by the Mormons in these narrows during the so-called Mormon war of 1857. The walls are composed of coarse red conglomerate of the Wasatch group. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XXIII ^jiA^s,,^^^ •-.^i' - ' ^. _— A. NORTH WALL OF ECHO CANYON, UTAH, AT ITS JUNCTION WITH WEBER CANYON, NEAR THE TOWN OF ECHO, The rocks consist of coarse red conglomerate of the Wasatch group. B. PULPIT ROCK AT ECHO, UTAH. Composed of red conglomerate. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OCDKN. 85 Two miles east of Emory liglit-colorod couglomc^rutic- suudstoiu^ appears in the canyon wall to the riglit (nortli), steeply inclined bencatli tlie red IxhIs of tlie Wasatch 'n-onp. These Emory. ,.,, , i , . ■ <■ •, i , ... tilted beds contani fossd idants that nuhcate Crota- Elevation 5,925 feet. at t7\ . . ■ i • , Omaha 950 miles. ^oous age. JN Car Emory station a thickness of several thousand feet of tliese ])eds is (v\pos(Ml. The coiigh)m- erates are very coarse near the top and an^ coh)red liglit red, so that they can not always be distinguished from the overlying conglomerates of the Wasatch group. In Echo Canyon west of Emory there is some of tlu* most i)ictiir- esque scenery on the Overland Route. After passing over the great stretches of flat, unbroken desert farther (^ast, where litth^ ])iit sag(v brush and sand can be seen, the traveler is here refresluul ])y secun*' something that has a vertical dimension. Some of the cliffs are nearly 1,000 feet high. The canyon has been carved ])y the stream, the rains, and the wind, working thr(,)ugh long ag(^s on the red conglom- erate, which, because of inequalities in hardness, has been worn into many a curious and fantastic shape whose general effect can not be adequately described and is only poorly represented by the camtTa. Many of the forms have received fanciful names suggest(Kl by their shapes, such as "Jack in the Pulpit," "the Sphinx," "the Giant's Teapot," "Steamboat Rock," and "Gibraltar." (See PI. XXII, A.) The imaginative spectator may be able to distinguisli the forms sug- gested by these names, but the more observant will rath(u- be im- pressed by the evidences of the working of the great forces of nature here so conspicuously displayed. Echo Canyon is in places very narrow and long stretches of its north wall are almost vertical. (See PL XXII, B.) On top of this waU may still be seen the rude fortifications buUt by the Mormons during the so-called Mormon war of 1857 to prevent the entrance of United States soldiers into Salt Lake vaUey. Here the defenders watched and waited for the battle that was never fought, for the misunder- standing — or worse, according to Bancroft's "History of Utah" — was adjusted before the troops reached the canyon. Just before enterhig the town of Echo the train passes dose to Pulpit Rock (see PI. XXIII, B) which may be seen on the right. As the name implies, this rock bears some resemblance Echo. to a pulpit, and the story has been somewhat widely Elevation 5,471 feet, circulated that from it Brigham Young preached his om^a %o idtes. ^^^ scrmoii Oil entering the " promised land " in 1847. However, those in position to speak with authority on this subject say that the first company of Mormon emigrants did not stop at Pulpit Rock and that Young was sick with mountain fever diirmg this part of the journey.* ^ Many of the facts relating to the Mormon immigration have been kindly furnished by Mr. Andrew Jensen, of Salt Lake City. 86 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. At the town of Echo the canyon opens into Weber Valley, up which a railroad spur extends through the coal-mining town of Coalville to the metal-mining district surrounding Park City.^ Coal was found by the Mormon settlers near Coalville long before the Union Pacific was built and has been mined more or less continuously ever smce its discovery. The mines of the Grass Creek valley, in the Coalville field, jiow furnish fuel for the niming operations at Park City and for the manufacture of Portland cement at Devils SMdc. At Echo the red conglomerates (Wasatch) form cliffs 500 feet or more in height (PI. XXIII, A). South and west of the town the rocks of Cretaceous age reappear at the surface where the Wasatch beds have been eroded away. About 2 miles west of Echo a group of curious monument-like rocks, some of which are more than 100 feet high, may be seen to the right (north) of the track, well up the slope. These are known as The Witches (PI. XXIV, A) and are remnants formed by the erosion of a coarse conglomerate. Although any rock that has a fancied resemblance to some famihar shape is likely to attract greater attention than many a more significant feature of the landscape, these bizarre monuments are well worthy of more than a passing glance. The name "The Witches" is suggested by the form of the cap rock of one of the monuments, which is shaped something like the fabled witch's hat. (Sec PI. XXIV, B.) The caps are formed from a Ught-colored band of conglomerate that is cemented into a harder mass than the underlying pink conglomerate. This hard cap rock protects the underlying beds from the rain until the supporting column, by slow crumbUng, becomes too slender to hold it. When the cap falls off the monument soon becomes pointed at the top and is finally reduced to the level of the surrounding country. ' The mining camp at Park City is on the east side of the Wasatch Range at an altitude of 7,200 feet, but some of the mines are nearly 2,000 feet higher. The sedimentary rocks of this district, ranging in age from Carboniferous to Triassic, were long ago compressed into a series of folds and broken by mountain-making forces and large portions of them were greatly displaced. Masses of molten rock known as qiiartz diorite and quartz diorite por- phyry were then forced up into them from below. Later other masses of molten rock called andesite flowed over the surface. The ores result from the older intru- sions and occur as compounds of lead, silver, copper, zinc, and other metals in lodes and fissure veins and as bedded deposits in the sedimentary rocks. The more important lode deposits occur in two zones about a mile apart, known as the Ontario and Daly West zone and the Silver King and Kearns-Keith zone. These have been explored for several thou- sand feet (in length), and in the Ontario mine a fissure containing much valuable ore has been explored to a depth of 2,000 feet or more. Ore was discovered in this district in 1869, but not until 1877 did the camp become an important producer. Since that time production has been continuous. The total reported output to the close of the year 1913 was gold $3,959,132; silver, $91,336,065; lead, $47,602,156; copper, $3,587,247; zinc, $2,606,770— a total value of $149,091,370, of which $38,753,126 has been distributed as dividends. i U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XXIV -■ii: \ M A. THE WITCHES, NEAR ECHO, UTAH, AS SEEN FROM THE TRAIN. A group of natural monuments carved by wind and rain from conglomerate probably of Tertiary age i*»^V% '•.V.;%. £. SIDE VIEW SHOWING, ON THE BUTTE TO THE RIGHT, THE "WITCH'S CAP," WHICH SUG- GESTED THE NAME FOR THE GROUP. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XXV .1. VIEW OF THE VALLEY OF WEBER RIVER FROM WITCHES ROCKS. On the monument at the left is a cap which protects the rock under it because its pebbles are cemented together more firmly than those below. B. THE DEVILS SLIDE. These beds consist of layers of hard limestone separated by soft shale of the Twin Creek formation, of Jurrassic age, and were originally formed in a horizontal position but during one of the mountain uplifts were upturned to a vertical position. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN, 87 Henefer. Elevation 5,409 feet. Population -413. Omaha 904 miles. Plate XXIV, A, shows a nioiiument (in the center of the group) that is lower than the others and worn to a sharp point at the top. The cap that once protected this "witch" now lies in a gulch at her feet. The other caps will fall hi tinie — probably after the lapse of centuries— and The Witches, hke their mythical prototypes, will disappear from the face of the earth. Near Henefer the first company of Mormon emigrants, for some reason that is now hard to understand, left the Overland Trail and chose the very difficult route up the creek that enters the Weber from the south. After crossing the moun- tains, they passed down Emigration Canyon to Salt Lake City.^ To the right (north), near Henefer station, may be seen a gravel terrace rising 25 feet or more above the level of the road- bed. This was formed by the river at some former stage, probably during the time of high water in Lake Bonneville. (See pp. 97-99.) Although the gravels here are more than 200 feet above the highest terrace of the old lake, it seems likely that the diminished slope of the river during high water then caused the stream to deposit in this part of its course the beds of gravel that now form the shelf on which the railroad is built west of Echo and that form the protecting cap of the bluff at Henefer. The Cretaceous rocks which in Echo Canyon dip steeply toward the west under the red beds of the Wasatch group reappear with opposite dip west of Echo, but owing to the great quantities of gravel that cover the hillsides, derived by disintegration from the older conglom- erates, these rocks can be seen from the train at only a few places. However, the broad, open valley that the route crosses west of Hen- efer is due to erosion of the soft Cretaceous shales. Three miles west of Henefer the coarse red puddingstone of the Wasatch beds extends down to the river level, and the broad basin- ' It is possible that a little study of the earlier history of the Mormons may throw some light on this strange procedure. They had been driven from place to place in the States until they had decided to seek a place so far from settled districts that they would not be molested. When this first company, consisting of 140 men and 3 women, started westward in April, 1847, one purpose of their leader, Brigham Young, was to mark out a trail for the use of later emigi-ants. Rather than follow the Overland Trail, which had become fairly well known by this time, he chose a new and untraveled route that came later to be called the Mormon Trail. The beaten path was avoided for two reasons. First, they wished to avoid their enemies, some of whom they would be sure to find on the older trail, and second, they never traveled on Sunday and they made relig- ious worship as much a part of their daily program as the travel itself. In order to avoid trouble, as well as for the sake of being unmolested in their devotions, this first company marked out a new route tlu'ough 1,000 miles of wilderness. The Mormon Trail parallels the Overland Trail and in some places where a different route was impracticable joins it, as, for exam- ple, at river crossings and in the mountain passes and canyons. 88 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. like valley suddenly narrows to a gorge barely wide enough for the river to pass through. The road bed has been cut in the side of this gorge, and in the cuts may be seen great bowlders of quartzite, some of them 4 feet in diameter, with smaller bowlders, pebbles, and sand fihing the space between them. These materials are cemented into a resistant mass by red oxide of iron, which gives a brilliant color to the whole mass. At the west end of this short gorge the red conglomerate overlaps rocks of Jurassic age, which have been upturned to a vertical position. On emerging from the gorge, just before entering the town of Devils SUde, the train passes through a long cut in the shale of the upper part of the Jurassic and crosses Weber River Devils Slide. j^^ ^j^^ point where Lost Creek enters it from the Elevation 5,314 feet. xMit (north). To the right also, in the Lost Creek Omaha 969 miles. ,, . , -n i t j. valley, may be seen a large mill where limestone and shale are raanufactm*ed into Portland cement.^ These strati- fied rocks are all turned up into a vertical attitude. The soft shale is worn away by rain and wind faster than the limestone, which is left standing out as ragged vertical walls. The Devils Slide (PI. XXV, B) is formed by two of these limestone reefs, about 20 feet apart, from which the shale has been eroded away, leaving them standing about 40 feet above the general slope of the canyon side. Many other reefs in this vicinity are equally prominent, but no others are so conspicuous from the train. From Devils Slide westward to Morgan Weber River has cut a canyon through the Bear River Range. This broad range is by some geographers included in the Wasatch Mountams, into which it passes farther south. The sedimentary rocks of the Bear River Range consist of steeply inclined beds of limestone and sandstone and a subordinate amount of shale, rangmg in age from Jurassic on the east to Ordovician on the west. (See table on p. 2.) The forma- tions are aU conspicuously exposed in the precipitous craggy sides of the canyon and may be seen to best advantage toward the right, in the north wall of the canyon. West of the town of Devils Slide the gray beds of the Jurassic Twin Creek limestone give place to a massive salmon-colored sandstone (Nugget sandstone) of Jurassic or Triassic age, west of which, and next older, are thin-bedded bright-red shales and sandstones (Ankareh shale), fossiliferousshaly limestone (Thaynes * The Jurassic limestone and shale of this locality are utilized in the manufac- ture of cement, for which they are well adapted and conveniently located. The rock is blasted from the mountain side in quarries plainly visible from the train to the right (north) and passed downward through the mills, coming out at the bot- tom in the form of cement at the rate of about 2,500 barrels a day. The fuel used for the kilns is coal, mined on Grass Creek. Electric power is furnished by streams on the western slope of the Wasatch Mountains and transmitted from generating plants near the base of the range. SHEET No. 14 Mt Agassiz BULLETIN 612 GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OVERLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY EXPLANATION .vh.*ateT \ Cn Oyjter Ridge nndtt o 1 t^L c THE OVERLAND EOUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 89 limestone), and red sandstone and shale (Woodside formation), all probably of Lower Triassic age. TIk^ purplish-red sandstone layers of the Ankareh are beautifully ripple marked. Still farther west appears the fossiliforous limestone of the Park City formation, of Pennsylvanian or Permian age. In the lower part of this formation are beds of black phosphate rock interstratified with beds of shale and limestone. The traveler can see some old prospect openings in the phosphate beds to the left, in the south waU of the canyon, just before the train enters the tumiel. These beds are por- tions of the great phosphate deposits of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, which form a large part of the nation's store of material available for making phosphatic fertilizers. (See pp. 127-129.) West of the phosphate beds is the Weber quartzite, a thick forma- tion of Pennsylvanian age which, because of its superior hardness and resistance to erosion, forms the crest of the Bear River Range. Most of the rounded quartzite bowlders and pebbles in the red conglom- erate of Echo Canyon and of the gorge east of Devils Slide were derived from this formation. The river has cut a winding gorge through the quartzite, and two of the projecting spurs of the craggy walls are pierced by short tun- nels. At the eastern tumiel the strata, which farther east are nearly vertical, are bent into a knee-shaped fold that brings the beds west of the axis to an inclination of scarcely 15°. The second tumiel in tlie Weber quartzite opens on the west into Round Valley, a circular basin hollowed out by the river in the rela- tively soft red sandstone and shale of lower Pennsylvanian age, known as the Morgan formation, because of its occurrence near the town of Morgan. These red beds are well exposed in the north wall of Round Valley and also south of the railroad between this vaUey and Morgan. Morgan is the center of a rich agricultural district that is especially noted for the fine quality of the peas which are raised here. From Morgan (see sheet 15, p. 102) about 90 carloads of Morgan. canned peas are shipped each year. The broad valley Elevation 5,080 feet, whicli makcs this industry possible is due tp the Population 756. pp. i • i • i ji • i ,i omaiia 976 miles. presence 01 soit rocks, in which the river has greatly widened its valley while it was cutting the narrow gorges in the hard rocks both east and west. These rocks once fiUed a basin lying between the two ranges of the Wasatch Mountains. East of Morgan rise the craggy slopes of the Bear River Range, through which the train has just passed, and which attains an altitude of 9,245 feet in Mount Morgan, north of the town. To the west may be seen the rugged crest of the main range of the Wasatch Mountains, which in this latitude consist entirely of granitic rocks of Archean age — that is, rocks which are older than the oldest sedimentary rocks that contain remains of plants or animals. (See table on p. 2.) 90 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Just before entering Morgan the train passes close to the foot of a slope on the right (north) in which dark-colored limestone containing fossil corals and shells of early Carboniferous (Mississippian) age is well exposed. Farther west rocks of Ordovician and Cambrian age are exposed north of the track, but these can not be readily distin- guished from the train. The soft Tertiary rocks that occupy the basin west of Morgan may be seen to the right from the train, north of Peterson, where they appear as light-green to pink strata, slightly conglomeratic and in- clined toward the east. The station at Peterson is near the center of the basin just described. The basin was formerly occupied by a bay of the ancient Lake Bonne- ville, whose waters backed up through Weber Can- yon. (See pp. 97-99.) Along the margin of this bay, which was 300 feet or more in depth, sand and gravel accumulated in large quantities. When the water withdrew from the basin these beach accumulations were left as a shelf, remnants of which lie about 300 feet above the railroad at many places on the slopes. Many a "station" along the Union Pacific Railroad consists of nothing more than a signpost, but at Strawberry not even a post is visible. It is a switch for sidetracking cars to gravel Strawberry. pj^g^ which may be seen to the right, north of the railroad, and which furnish gravel for ballast. From many places near Strawberry the traveler may get good views of Mount Morgan, to the east, and of Observation Peak (over 10,000 feet above sea level), which lies to the north (right) and is here the most prominent mountain north of the railroad. To the left (south) rises the main mass of the southern part of the Wasatch Range.^ Peterson. Elevation 4,892 feet. Population 277.* Omaha 983 miles. Elevation 4,842 feet, Omaha 985 miles. * The Wasatch is the easternmost of the basin ranges. Although very complex in structure, it may be described briefly as a great block of the earth's crust that has been elevated at its western margin, so that it inclines eastward. Its tilting was made possible by a break of the crust in a north-south direction along what is now the western base of the range. The rocks that lie east of this line of fracture were pushed up many thousands of feet higher than those that lie west of the line, thus producing a great fault. Later the ele- vated part of the block was eroded, so that now its surface is a complicated mass of rugged mountains, separated from one an- other by valleys, canyons, and gorges. The western face of the range which was originally nearly straight and might have l)een a single cliff had it not been eroded, is still very precipitous and forms what is known as a great fault scarp. It is this western fault scarj) that is so impressive as seen from Ogden and other points in the valley of Great Salt Lake. The Uinta Mountains differ from the Wasatch Mountains in that they have re- sulted from the erosion of a broad arch whose axis trends east, nearly at right angles to the Wasatch axis. The Uinta is the westernmost of the Rocky Mountain ranges, which reach their maximum de- velopment farther east in central Colo- rado. The junction of this range with the THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 91 Just before reaching Gateway station the route passes abruptly from the open valley into the narrow V-shaped gorge cut by Weber River tlirough this great range of mountains. Pre- Gateway. cipitous, craggy slopes rise on both sides and the omIha*988^Sier*' ^ccncry is varied and impressive. The river descends rapidly in this canyon and the power furnished by it is utilized by hydroelectric plants. Soon after entering the canyon the train passes to the left (south) of a diversion dam at which a large part of the water is turned into a pressure pipe 6 feet in diameter. From this pipe it emerges about 2 miles downstream, at an altitude 172 feet below the intake, at the power house of the Utah Light & Railway Co., from which 5,000 horsepower is trans- mitted 35 miles to Salt Lake City. From the power house the water is carried by a canal along the south wall of the canyon to the tur- bines of a second power house, from which it is distributed for irri- gating the lands of the valley below. The once wortliless desert has thus been transformed to green fields and fruitful orchards which support a tln-iving community. Toward the lower end of the canyon the river makes a sharp turn to the right through a rocky defile called Devils Gate. Instead of passing through this defile, the railroad is built through a cut made in unconsolidated gravel which fills a former channel of the river. Apparently this old channel was filled during one of the stages of high water in Lake Bonneville (see pp. 97-99), and when the lake water withdrew the river was deflected to the right at this point and cut a new channel in the solid rock, making what the physiographer calls a young channel due to superimposed drainage.^ Wasatch constitutes the transition be- tween the Rocky Mountain ranges — mod- ified arches whose axes have a northerly trend with a marked tendency toward westward deflection — and the Basin Ranges — tilted blocks, whose axes have a regular northerly trend. ^ The behavior of the river at this point gives the key to an understanding of its course across the Wasatch Range. The river rises east of this range, but instead of taking the seemingly easier course around the mountains, as Bear River did, it has cut its way directly through them. West of Echo it leaves the open basin-like valley and enters a narrow gorge nearly 2,000 feet deep. West of Devils Slide it enters a canyon cut to a depth of 4,000 feet or more through the Bear River Eange. West of this range it crosses another open space and once more enters a narrow canyon within which it passes through the main range of the Wasatch Mountains. In Tertiary time such valleys as may then have existed in this region wore filled with gravel, sand, and silt, and practically the whole region was aggraded or built up to nearly a common level. Over this plain the streams established their courses without regard to the kind of rock beneath the surface. Weber River chose the course of least resistance at that time, and when it deepened its channel and found itself flowing directly across the ridges of hard rock that now form the Wasatch Mountains it was too late to change. The energy of the stream has been sufficient to cut only narrow gorges in the hard rock, but in the softer rock it has excavated the broad valleys west of Echo and near Morgan. 92 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. On emerging from Weber Canyon the train crosses the line of the great fault by wliicli the rocks on the east were uplifted many thou- sands of feet relative to those on the west. Here we Uinta. enter a broad, fertile valley that is well watered by Elevation 4,497 feet, h^q river. If the traveler covered with alkali dust Omaha 993 miles. from the deserts farther east reaches this valley when the orchard trees are bending to the ground under their burden of ripening fruit he will not wonder that some of the inhabitants call it "Zion." This valley has been eroded from a broad delta of gravel, sand, and silt built up by the river during the Pleistocene epoch, when the waters of Lake Bonneville covered the region. The form of the delta is not visible from the train, because the railroad follows the trench that the river subsequently cut in the old delta. The accompanjmig map (sheet 15, p. 102) shows that a gently sloping surface with Ogden near its center extends from Farmington nearly to Brigham, a dis- tance of 30 miles, and from the foot of the mountams westward to the lake, a distance of 17 miles. This is the delta built by Weber and Ogden rivers and several smaller streams. Two prominent beach lines are plainly visible on either side of the canyon. The higher one, known as the Bonneville terrace, is nearly 1,000 feet above the river and marks the level reached by the water when the lake was at its maximum height. The lower one, known as the Provo terrace, is 375 feet below the Bonneville terrace and •denotes a later stage of the lake. From pomts at a considerable distance these so-called "water lines," some made by deposits of gravel and others by notches cut by the waves of Lake Bonneville in the hard rock, may be seen all along the western face of the mountams. (For a description of these terraces and the phenomena associated with them see pp. 97-99.) The valley of Weber River, which appears so attractive in the vicinity of Umta, is a small part of the Great Salt Lake valley, which includes a large part of northern Utah. This is the home land of the Mormons, and accordmg to the historian Hubert H. Bancroft it is " a new Holy Land, with its Desert and its Dead Sea, its River Jordan, Mount of Olives, and Galilee Lake, and a hundred features of its prototype of Asia." THE OVEELAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 93 Ogden. Elevation 4,301 feet. Population 25,580. Omaha 1,000 miles. Ogden is the western terminus of the Union Pacific system. Through passengers on the Overland Route here pass without change of cars to the Southern Pacific line which connects Ogden with San Francisco. Passengers for Yellowstone Park change to the Oregon Short Line, and those for Salt Lake City ^ have the choice of the Salt Lake & Ogden electric road, the Oregon Short Lme, or the Denver & Rio Grande. The railroad time changes here from mountain to Pacific time, and the westbound traveler should set his watch back one hour. Ogden is the county seat of Weber County and the second largest city in Utah. It is said to have been named for an old trapper and was laid out under the direction of Brigham Young in 1850. Ogden has a variety of industries, owing in part to its good transportation facilities and cheap electric power. Cannmg is one of the most important. In 1913 canneries adjacent to the city made an output of nearly a million cases (approximately 24,000,000 quarts) of fruit and vegetables, of which more than half was tomatoes. Ogden lies at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, which rise abruptly just east of it, and is on the border of the fiat floor of Great Salt Lake vaUey, stretchmg away to the west. The business part of the city is on one of the later terraces cut by the waves of the ' Salt Lake City, 37 miles south of Og- den, is the capital of Utah and the seat of government of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," whose ad- herents are commonly called Mormons. It is a city of 92,777 inhabitants, beauti- fully situated between the shore of Great Salt Lake and the lofty and precipitous front of the Wasatch Mountains. Many of the natiu-al featiues are unique, especially the great lake of brine so salty that no fish can live in it and so dense that the bather floats on it like a cork on ordinary water. But this city is of interest mainly as the headquarters of the Mormon Church, which has grown so rapidly that in place of the 40 who organized it in 1830 it now has a membership of about 500,000. Here are the Temple, the Tabernacle, and many other objects of interest. The city was founded in 1847 by the first com- pany of Mormon emigrants under Brig- ham Young and was the point to which later companies came and from which they went out to possess the land. The story of this migration and the establish- ment of the new sect in the wilderness is of absorbing interest. The fortitude with which these people endiu-ed hardships and suffering and their unwavering devotion to a fixed pm'pose compel admiration. Bingham Canyon, the principal copper district of Utah, is easily reached from Salt Lake City. The ores occur mainly in limestone of Carboniferous age and in an intrusive igneous rock (monzonite por- phyry) which cuts the limestone. The low-grade disseminated ores in porphyry are now more important than the ores in the limestone. In 1913 the disseminated ore mined, chiefly by steam shovels, amounted to 8,300,000 tons, yielding about 0.75 per cent of copper and some gold and silver. The Park City and Tintic districts, which produce large quantities of ores carrying chiefly lead and silver, can also be visited from Salt Lake City. 94 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. ancient Lake Bonneville, described below by G. K. Gilbert/ in an apron of mountain waste; the main residence section rises eastward ^ At Ogden the traveler is fairly within the Great Basin, and for 590 miles, until he reaches the crest of the Sierra Nevada, his course traverses a series of closed val- leys — valleys which resemble basins in the fact that all parts of their rims stand higher than their middle parts. All streams of this region either lose their water by direct evaporation or discharge it to some lake that serves as an evap- oration pan. Some of the lakes have outlets, but every such outflowing stream flows into another lake, and the final receptacle has no outlet, all the water it receives escaping upward, into the air. No stream in the Great Basin finds its way to the ocean. Great Salt Lake has no outlet. Jordan River, which enters it from the south, is the outlet of Utah Lake. Bear River, coming from the north, carries the out- flow from Bear Lake. The waters of Utah and Bear lakes and of Jordan and Bear rivers are fresh, and so is the water of Weber River, the third great tributary of Great Salt Lake, but the lake into which the three rivers flow is saline. It is saline because it has no outlet. The fresh waters of the rivers contain some saline matter, but the quantity is too small to be discovered by taste. As stated by the chemist, in parts per mil- lion, the quantity seems minute, but when account is taken also of the total volume of water brought by the streams to the lake in a year their burden of saline matter is found to be really great, amounting annually to more than 500,000 tons. Year by year and century by centiiry the water which they poiu* into the lake is evaporated, but the dissolved solids can not escape in that way and therefore remain. They have accumu- lated until the lake water is approxi- mately saturated, holding nearly as much mineral matter as it can retain in solution. The lake contains over 5,000 million tons of common salt and 900 million tons of Glauber's salt, or sodium sulphate, as well as other mineral matter. Another consequence of the lack of outlet is that the lake varies from time to time in size. Whenever the gain from inflow ia gi'eater than the loss from evaporation the level of the water surface rises; when the loss is greater it falls. Each year there is a rise, beginning in winter, when the cool air has little power to absorb moisture, and continuing through spring, when the rivers are swollen by the melting of snows in the mountains. Each year there is a fall, beginning in summer, when the hot air rapidly absorbs the water, and continu- ing in autumn, when the rivers are smallest. This annual oscillation amounts on the average to about 16 inches. In some years the rainfall and snowfall are greater tlian in others, and then the lake usually receives more water than it parts with, so that the siuiace is left higher than it was before. In a series of wet years the lake level progressively rises; in a series of dry years it progres- sively falls; and as the rainfall is irreg- ular the fluctuations of the lake are con- spicuous. Since definite knowledge of the lake began, in 1850, there have been five periods of increase and four of de- crease. (See fig. 11.) The summer lev- els of 1868 and 1877 were more than 10 feet above the summer level of 1850, and those of 1903 and 1905 were 4 feet below that of 1850. The level of 1914 was 6 feet above that for 1905. The land bordering the lake has in many places a slope so gentle that a small change in the height of the water surface makes a great change in the area of the lake. On a map completed in 1850 the area shown is 1,750 square miles; on a map made in 1869 it is 2,170 square miles. In the interval between the two surveys the lake ha^l risen 10 feet, and this rise enlarged the area about 24 per cent. From the greater surface the evaporation was of course greater, and the dependence of evaporation on area is thus an important factor in regulating the size of the lake. The effect of a long series of wet years is somewhat reduced THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 95 GAGE HEIGHT IN FEET CO ^ C/l 1850 C :=> 1851 .--' 1852 :.'.'.-> 1853 '--'-' 1854 ...... ' 1865 ..— :."."-' 1856 ---.. 1857 „rri 3 1858 1859 1860 ... ~^ 1861 ^ p 1862 .-".-' 1863 '--^ 1864 "p Oy— II 1865 -=: ::> 1866 ^..^ 1867 1868 1- 1869 __.. ..:--• 1870 t^ .'.-- 1871 ^ .----^ 1872 ^ ^ :::> b 1873 ^^ .--■-' -1- 1874 \ ^ ^ ^ ,-- -■> 1875 (/) '0. ■;.----: --' 1876 _, "■3 1877 s- ^ 3Iir; 1878 ^•^ ^ 1879 ^^- 880 1 (0 c; 1881 -^ c: » 882 f^ ' s 0? 1= 1883 ^• ^ _> 1884 5?^ —p 1885 Q' —=• 1886 :3 > 1887 n! ^ 1888 ^ -^ 1889 ^ 1890 ::==■ 1891 > 1892 ._ _"r:» 1893 s c 1894 r ::> 1895 ,.. 1896 => 1897 '""-rs 1898 > 1899 p=> to 1900 1901 1902 — -^ 1903 =» 1904 c- ^/.J V/7 CC It- ofi ^com ^/e/} o',/9 0'^ 1905 :::» IX_ 1906 1907 e => 1908 1909 ?=^ 1910 • . ^ 1911 ~ 1912 ^^ > 1913 R »14 ~^ 1 96 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTEKIST UNITED STATES. to the level of the Provo terrace, which was built by this lake when its surface remained for a long time at an elevation about 625 feet higher than the present lake. by the resulting increase of evaporation surface, and the effect of a series of dry years is lessened by the resulting reduc- tion of surface exposed to evaporation. This nattu-al and automatic control lim- its the range of oscillation and gives a certain permanence to what may be called a normal or average level. A change in the normal can occur only when some new factor is introduced. Both man and natiu-e have introduced new factors and thus have produced changes in the normal level. The occu- pation of the BVUTOimding region by white men has recently modified the face of the land in ways that have a recognized influence on the water level; and the ancient history of the lake includes enormous modifications in response to changes of climate. Of human influences the most telling has arisen from the development of agri- culture with irrigation. In irrigation the water of rivers and creeks is diverted to cultivated fields, which first absorb it and then through evaporation feed it to the air; and the water thus consimied by utilization is lost to the lake. With the gradual enlargement of the irrigated area the normal level of the lake is inevitably being lowered, and engineers are already confident that the high-water mark of 1877 will never again be reached. On the other hand, there is no reason to expect the lake's extinction, for there is a limit to the possibilities of irrigation. The fresh water brought by the rivers mingles gradually with the brine, and as the river mouths are on or near the eastern shore, the brine is not so strong at the east as at the west. Analyses from samples of the brine gathered at different points and in different years report the dissolved solids as from 13.7 to 27.7 per cent, by weight. A sample taken in August, 1914, contained 18.9 per cent of solids. At the present time the average salinity of the lake is about 6^ times that of the ocean, and its density is 14.5 per cent greater than that of fresh water. Only with diffi- culty can the bather keep his feet from rising to the surface, and if he balances himself in an upright position his head and shoulders are above the surface. The brine is weakest in the northeastern arm, the portion visible from the train near Brigham. This arm has been par- titioned from the main body by the em- bankment of the Southern Pacific Co. and is continuously supplied with fresh water by Bear River. Ice can form on the stronger brine only in zero weather, but this arm is frozen from side to side every winter and sleighs have been driven across it. The only climatic element with which the lake oscillations have been connected by direct observation is precipitation — the lake rises or sinks as the fall of rain and snow is great or small — but it is easy to understand that the balance between supply and loss of water may also be dis- turbed by any change of climate which affects the rate of evaporation. As every laundress well knows, evaporation is favored by heat, by dryness of the air, and by strength of wind and is retarded by cold, by moisture in the air, and by calm. So there are at least four ways in which changes of climate may cause the lake to expand or contract. The latest of the periods into which geologists divide past time witnessed a series of climatic changes which affected the whole earth, and though all the elements just mentioned were doubtless involved, the element which recorded its changes most clearly was temperature. There were several epochs of cold, and they were separated by epochs of warmth. During the cold epochs the high parts of the Wasatch Range held a system of glaciers, and in one of them several ice tongues protruded so far beyond the mouths of the mountain canyons that they heaped their moraines on the floor of Jordan Valley, only a few miles from the place where Salt Lake City now stands. In that epoch of cold the rate of evaporation was far slower than now, and evaporation was at so gi-eat a dis- THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 97 From the station at Ogden may be seen Observation Peak, 6 miles to the east, its top over 10,000 feet above sea level and more than a mile advantage in its contest with precipita- tion that there was immense expansion of the water surface. When the lake was largest it was comparable in area and depth with Lake Michigan; it had eleven times its present extent. In attaining tliis great expanse the water surface rose to a position more than 1,000 feet above its present level. To this great body of water geologists apply a distinctive name, Lake Bonne- ville, and they have given much atten- tion to its history, which is written in shore lines, deltas, channels, deposits, and fossils. The shore lines appeal most to the traveler, and may be seen from car windows at several points. As a matter of definition a shore is merely the meeting place of land and sea or of land and lake, but as a matter of land form it is much more. At the shore the lashing of storm waves works changes in the land, giving it new shapes. At some places the land is carved away; at others it is made to encroach on the water. Where it is eroded the limit of erosion is marked by a cliff, and below the water is a shelf of gentle slope. Where additions are made they take the form of beaches or bars, which rise little above the water level and are composed of sand or gravel. At some places a bar spans a bay from side to side; elsewhere it is incomplete, pro- jecting from a headland as a spit. The waves of Lake Bonneville were as powerful as those of Lake Michigan and fashioned the shore into an elaborate sys- tem of cliffs, beaches, and spits; and when the waters finally fell to lower levels they left behind the shapes their waves had made. The base of each surviving shore cliff is a horizontal line, and so is the crest of each beach, bar, and spit, and these featiu-es in combination trace the outline of the old lake as a level contour about the sides of the basin and the faces of mountains that were once islands in the lake. In rising and falling the waters lin- gered at many levels, and so there are 38088°— Bull. 612—16 7 many ancient shore lines, but two of them are more conspicuous than the rest and have been named. The highest of all is the Bonneville shore line, and 375 feet lower lies the Provo shore line. The Bonneville line represents a relatively short stand of the water and is conspicu- ous chiefly because it marks the bound- ary of wave action. All the slopes below it have been more or less modified by the waves, but the slopes above it retain the shapes which had been given them by other agencies. The Provo line repre- sents a long stand of the water and is con- spicuous because it is strongly sculptiired. In all the early history of the great lake its basin was closed, like that of the mod- ern lake. The water siu-face rose and fell in response to climatic changes, like that of its modern remnant. The last great rising was the highest and terminated the series of oscillations by creating an outlet. The lowest point of the basin's rim was at Red Rock Pass (90 miles by rail north of Ogden), and when the water rose above that level the stream which began to cross the pass descended to Portneuf River, a tributary to Snake River, the chief branch of the Columbia. Through the creation of this outlet the Bonneville Basin, which had previously contained an independent interior drainage system, became part of the drainage system of the Pacific Ocean. Red Rock Pass was not a mountain pass, a notch in a rocky crest; it was merely the highest point on the axis of a valley between two mountain raiiges. Valley and ranges ran north and south and the valley was floored by alluvium washed from the ranges. From the Red Rock summit the valley sloped gently northward toward the Portneuf and south- ward toward Bear River. The formation at the summit consisted of soft earth, and as soon as overflow began a channel was formed. The deepening of the channel increased the volume of the stream, by lowering the outlet of the lake, the greater stream was more efficient in deepening the channel, and these two causes inter- 98 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. above the railroad. This is the culminating peak of the Wasatch Mountains (PI. XXVIII, p. 104), a range that came into existence acted until the stream became a stupen- dous torrent. The volume of water dis- charged before the flow became steady was enough to supply Niagara River for 25 years, but the record of the torrent's violence leads to the belief that it lasted for a much shorter period. The rapid deepening of the outlet chan- nel was finally checked when the stream reached a sill of solid rock beneath the soft alluvium of the pass, and upon this sill the outlet rested for a long period. The lake surface then no longer oscillated in response to varying climate but held a constant level, and it was the long maintenance of this level which enabled the waves to carve and construct the Prove shore line. The draining of the lake down to the Provo level reduced its area by one-third and correspondingly reduced the quan- tity of water annually evaporated. Two- thirds of the inflowing water was then disposed of by evaporation and the re- mainder was discharged through the out- let. Only a great change of climate could restore the balance between inflow and evaporation, and the change was slow in completion. At last, however, the pen- dulum of temperature swung far enough on the side of warmth. The outlet chan- nel ran dry, the lake basin was again separated from the drainage system of the Pacific, and the lake began to shrink. So long as there was outflow the water was fresh, but when the outflow ceased there began that accumulation of salt which has made the water of the present lake a concentrated brine. At times in the history of the lake, especially while the Provo shore line was being formed, the tributary streams brought down sand and gravel, which they dropped at their mouths, building deltas. AVhen the water fell these de- posits remained as fan-shaped benches having steep fronts. The streams that built them then dug channels through them. Part of the city of Ogden stands on a delta bench built by Ogden River. Between Weber Canyon and Ogden the railroad follows the channel that was opened by Weber River through its former delta. The climatic revolutions which created and destroyed Lake Bonneville wi'ought similar changes in all parts of the Great Basin. In Western Nevada the traveler sees the shore lines of another ancient lake, known to geologists as Lake Lahon- tan. It did not rise high enough to establish an outlet, but its water was so nearly pure as to be inhabited by fresh- water shells. Some of its shores are marked by heavy deposits of travertine. When it died away there remained in its basin a group of smaller lakes, some salt and some fresh, but only one — Humboldt, a fresh lake — can be seen from the train. The view from Ogden station is ob- structed by buildings and trees, but by climbing to a near-by viaduct one may see the bold face of the Wasatch Range, across which the line of the Bonne\'ille shore is drawn as a narrow pale band. On the shore bench grow the ash-green sage and other light-colored bushes, and the steeper slopes are mottled by dark- green thickets of dwarf oak. The west- bound traveler ol^tains a better view by looking backward just after leaving Ogden, and may probably recognize the Provo shore line as well as the Bonne- ville. These traces of old shores appear on Promontory Range and Fremont Island ; and if the air is clear the traveler will have the old shore lines in view until he leaves the Bonneville Basin near Montello, 130 miles from Ogden. On the route from Ogden to the Yellow- stone National Park the old shore lines are prominently and almost continuously in sight imtil the train enters Bear River Canyon and may also be seen on a distant range to the left. They reappear in Cache Valley, beyond this canyon, and are especially conspicuous at the left where their terraces surround a range of hills. At the Provo stage of the lake these hills projected above the water as THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 99 in comparatively recent f^eologic time and that has an interesting origni.* [For continuation of itinerary to San Francisco, sec p. 148.] a long island, and at the Bonneville stage as a chain of smaller islands. Between Oxford and Downey the railroad traverses the Red Rock outlet channel, one of the stations. Swan Lake, being within the channel. The modern streamlets, flow- ing fr(jm neighboi-ing hills, have brought down enough gravel and sand to build alluvial dams and have thus obstructed the drainage of the old river bed, so that it now contains a series of ponds and marshes. In quality of water and in temperature Lake Bonneville was as well fitted for abundant and varied life as the Bear Lake of to-day, and though the only re- mains yet found in its sediments are fresh- water shells, we need not doidst that its waters teemed with fish. We may confidently pictiu'e its bordering marshes as fields of verdure and its bolder shores as forest clad; and we may less confidently imagine primitive man as a denizen of its shores and an eyewitness of the spectacular deluge when its earthen barrier was burst. The only permanent animal inhabitant of Great Salt Lake is a tiny "brine shrimp, " a third of an inch in length. A more conspicuous temporary resident is a minute fly which passes its larval stage in the water, and when its transformation takes place leaves behind it the discarded skin. These flies are so numeroiis in their season that even the passing tourist should feel grateful that they do not bite. Their brown exuvice darken the water edge and often sully broad belts of the lake surface. More decorative denizens are gulls and pelicans, which find safe nesting ground on some of the smaller islands. There are no shoal-water plants, and the salt spray of the beach is fatal to all land vegetation along the shores. When the lake is low its salt is segre- gated and deposited in shallow lagoons at its margin, to be redissolved when the water rises. Each autumn, as the water cools, deposits of hydrated sodium sul- phate (Glauber's salt) coat piles and other fixed objects near the water surface, and the deposits increase as the temperature falls. In the depth of winter large masses of this salt may be seen along the embank- ments and trestles of the Lucin cut-off. Calcium carbonate, the mineral consti- tuting limestone, travertine, and chalk, is continuously and permanently sepa- rated from tlie water, which is unal^le to retain that which is brought to it by the rivers. Along the shores it forms minute balls, which together constitute sand, a sand quite distinct from the siliceous sand of ordinary beaches. Man makes little use of the lake. On its shores there are neilhor fisheries nor ports, and commerce finds it an impedi- ment rather than an aid. Its deposits of Glauber's salt, which it offers for the gathering, are neglected because the world's demand is small and is cheaply met in other ways. Its common salt is harvested with great economy of effort, for impurities are easily excluded and the Avork of evaporation is performed by the eun. The present annual output of 40,000 tons must be multiplied fivefold be- fore it can commence to weaken the brine. For the rest man is content to resort to its shore for bathing and to realize a new sensation as he floats upon its surface. ^ Most of the rocks in the Wasatch Range were laid down as sand and mud on the bottom of the ancient sea, where they became compacted and hardened into sandstone, shale, and limestone. The sea bottom eventually became land. As mother earth has aged her skin has cracked and wrinkled. In the Utah- Nevada region many long cracks were formed and the rocks on one side or the other were moved slowly upward or down- ward, forming long ridges along the cracks, steep on one side and gently slop- ing on the other. Such breaks in the earth's crust are called faults. A fault may be a few feet or hundreds of miles long, and the distance which the rock beds on one side slip past those on the other may range from a fraction of an inch 100 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. To see the structure of the Wasatch Mountains, the traveler should make a side trip to the local scenic attraction, Ogden Canyon, which can be reached by street car from Ogden station. In Ogden Canyon. bright afternoon sunlight it can easily be seen that the face of the range is divided into bands of different rock formations. (See PI. XXVIII, J5, p. 104.) Observation Peak itself is a mass of pink rock called quartzite. This rock was a wide- spread bed of sand wliich was laid down on the bottom of the sea about the time the earliest forms of life appeared on the earth. How it reached its present position has been explained in the preceding footnote. A dark band of rocks, partly concealed by brush and tim- ber, lies below the peak. In a spur much lower down the mountain is another band of pink quartzite which makes a 1,000-foot wall and rests on a dark band similar to the one above it. This pink rock is a part of the same formation as that at the peak, the repetition being due to breaking of the earth's crust and piling up of the frag- ments. In fact the structure of the mountains at Ogden is not unlike that of the cakes of ice in an ice jam. to thousands of feet. When the rocks on one side are shoved up over those on the other side the break is called a reverse or overthrust fault. (See fig. 12.) period of slow earth movement which made these mountains flat-lying parallel beds of rock were locally turned on edge, crumpled, and folded in a wonderfully a b Figure 12.— Diagram showing normal faults (a) and a reverse or overthrust fault (b). In the region now occupied by the Wasatch Mountains a number of parallel faults were developed close together and the broken pieces of the earth's crust be- tween them were pushed up, the rocks on intricate manner. These upturned and crumpled rocks are well exposed in Ogden Canyon. The west face of the Wasatch Range is believed to mark the plane of a normal fault (fig. 12) at a nearly vertical Carboniferous Algdnkian FiGUEE 13.— Diagrammatic structure section of the Wasatch Range in Ogden Canyon. one side of each crack riding up over those on the other side until a great moun- tain range was formed where once lay a plain. The accompanying diagram (fig. 13) illustrates the structure of the Wasatch Range in cross section. During the long crack in the earth's crust, the rocks on the east side of which went up or those on the west side went down. The forces which have raised these mountains are still active, for movement along this fault has disturbed the surface recently. U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XXV( A. Z-SHAPED FOLDS NEAR EAST END OF OGDEN CANYON. The lines follow the outcrops of the folded beds. IJ. HtLL-hlJl FAULT ScARk AT "I HE fviuUTH OF OGDLi^ cmIjiON. Scarp is dark wavy line crossing the meadow. U. §. Ge6L6GICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XXVII VIEV/ IN OGDEN CANYON BELOW THE NARROWS. Looking upstream to gap cut in Cimbrian quartzite. THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 101 Just before reaching tlie mouth of the canyon the traveler may see a nearly perpendicular bluff or scarp, a few feet high, at the top of the bank above a gully a few rods southeast of a single-arch con(;reto bridge. This small bluff, which was made by recent uplift along a great fault that parallels the mountain front, is best seen from the higher bench land. (See PI. XXVI, B.) The steep face of the mountain range represents the exposed edges of geologic formations whoso continuation west of the fault is now far below the level of the plain. The mouth of the canyon is in very old, greatly distorted rocks (Archean gneiss and schist) which were formed before life began on the globe. Warm springs issue near the bridge below the mouth of the canyon, and where the trolley road passes over a steel bridge just inside the canyon a warm spring in the south bank of the river steams forth from the contact between pink (juartzite and somber-colored gneiss. The water is salty, contains -•on, and has a temperature of about 136° Fahrenheit. Rounding a arve brings into view a waterfall wliich shoots out from the rocks . 3veral hundred feet above the track and turns to spray. The water collects on the rocks below and cascades into the river. This is an artificial fall, made by a hole in a flume that carries water to a hydro- ■ilectrio plant. Close to the foot of this fall the bedrock wall of the canyon is plastered by a deposit of tlioroughly cemented gravel, a remnant of the material that choked the canyon when Lake Bonne- ville backed up into it.^ The canyon at this point is very narrow, and there is barely room for the highway on one side and the trolley-car tracks on the other side of the river (PI. XXVII). The mountain walls that rise thou- sands of feet above appear almost insurmountable, and directly ahead they seem to completely block further passage upstream. But a little turn shows a thin notch cut by the river through a great mass of quartzite beds standing nearly on edge. This is the same pink formation as that in Observation Peak, and its presence and position ^ G. K. Gilbert describes this material as follows; ' ' The lower part of the canyon through its length, but especially near its mouth, is more or less lined with heavy beds of coarse gravel, thoroughly consolidated by a ferruginous cement. In some places this forms the bed as well as the banks of the stream; but at others it is cut through, and the original well-worn rock bottom of the old channel is exposed beneath the gravel by the side of the road. It is evi- dent that when this canyon was originally excavated the G^-eat Salt Lake was not far if at all above its present level; so that the rushing torrent which wore out this old rounded bottom met no check until it had passed entirely beyond the mouth of the canyon. There followed a time when the lake filled nearly or quitg to its highest terrace; and meanwhile the Ogden River continued to bring down the sand and pebbles which it had before been accustomed to sweep out upon the lower terrace, but now, checked by the rising lake, deposited them in the lower parts of its old channel, until they accumu- lated to a very high level, not yet accu- rately located. Again the lake retired and the stream again cut down its chan- nel, sometimes reaching its old level and sometimes not." 102 GUIDEBOOK OP THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. here show how much these rocks have been turned from their original flat-lying position. The nearly vertical slitting or gashing of the rocks is merely the result of weathering between the original beds of sand as laid down on the sea bottom. The passage is narrow because of the great hardness of the rocks, for the whole valley, like most other valleys, has been made by the gradual washing away of material by its stream and is narrowest where the rocks are hardest. Above the narrows the valley walls are limestone and shale, which are more easily worn away than the quartzite. A limestone quarry and kilns are situated just above the narrows on the south side of the river. Farther up Ogden River (which, by the way, would be called a brook or run in some parts of the country) city people have built summer homes along the stream bank. In 1914 the trolley line ended 7 miles from Ogden at The Hermitage, a rustic hotel built of logs and stone. The verandas of this hotel afford a vantage point for enjoying the rugged canyon scenery.* About a quarter of a mile east of The Hermitage, in the south wall of the canyon, a few feet above the river, the limestone is folded. The position of the thin strata, once nearly horizontal throughout but now turned abruptly back on themselves, suggests something of the stresses that have had a part in forming these mountains. A mile farther along in the road cut, near a flume that crosses the river, there is a very distinct S fold in black shales that indicates even more vividly the complexity of the mountain-making process. Some of this black shale contains phosphate.^ ^ Ogden Canyon was cut in the solid rock by the river which now flows through it. Running water carrying sand and gravel acts as a saw or file and, given time enough, can cut through the hardest rocks. Ogden River was flowing west along its present course before the Wa- satch Mountains came into existence. The raising of the mountains went on slowly for ages, so slowly that the river kept its place by cutting down its ever- rising bed, carving a deep and narrow canyon straight through the block of the earth's crust as it rose. In no other way can we account for a river rising on one side of the range and flowing directly across it. Movement of the mountain mass has continued down to the present time — at least there has been recent dis- turbance along the base of the Wasatch Range, as is shown by faults wliich trav- erse the lake deposits and the modern alluvial aprons. Some of the breaks are so new as to be devoid of vegetation. Furthermore, the main stream channels crossing from the uplifted fault block to the undisturbed rocks on the west have abnormal profiles. Ogden River has a high gradient within the canyon, but on crossing the fault and emerging on the gravel fan at its mouth at once loses grade. The upward movement of the mountains has been so continuous that the river has had no opportunity to mden its valley, a task which it will begin as soon as the mountains cease rising. ^ In a roadside ledge about 2 miles below the upper end of Ogden Canyon there is some black shale and limestone, which proves on analysis to bo decidedly phosphatic. The richest material is con- tained in two beds of black shaly rock, each about 2 feet thick. Analysis of a random sample gives 42.5 per cent of bone phosphate. This deposit is too low in grade and too broken to be of value. SHEET NO. 15 GEOLOC4R' AND TOJ'OCiKAPPIlO MAP OVEKLAND ROUTE From Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, Califoi'iii UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 103 The most promiiienb rock folding in the canyon is at the reservoir about 2| miles above The Hermitage. Here a thick bed of limestone is crumpled into a Z fold, measurmg 1 ,000 feet between the top and bottom bars, which are about half a mile long. It can be seen plainly from the south bank of the reservoir. (See PI. XXVI, A, p. 100.) This great wrinkle was made by the shoving of one mass of rocks over another during the formation of the mountain range. At the upper end of Ogden Canyon, 10 miles from the city, is Ogden Hole or Ogden Valley, which, when Lake Bomieville reached its highest stage, was a small bay connected with the lake by a strait in Ogden Canyon. OGDEN, UTAH, TO YELLOWSTONE, MONT. The route described in the following pages covers a distance of 291 mdles on the Oregon Short Line Railroad from Ogden, Utah, across southeastern Idaho to Yellowstone, Mont., the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park,* a public playground covering about 3,348 square miles. For 40 miles north from Ogden the road lies along the boundary between the Wasatch Mountains and the region once known as the Great American Desert, following the shore line of Lake Bonneville, a great body of fresh water that in geologically recent time covered a large part of Utah (pp. 97-99) ; then after turning eastward and passing through the range in a rocky canyon, it goes northward across a flat stretch of country which was the floor of a bay of the former lake. This bay was surrounded by mountains, and the "lilroad follows the foot of a north-south range to the head of an arm ^i the bay. About 90 miles from Ogden the railroad crosses Red Rock Pass, through which for a time Lake Bonneville drained to the north, and then runs down a valley between two mountain ranges. In this valley the track for miles is on the surface or along the edge of a black ^a flow. Turning west and passing through a notch in the Bannock ^vcinge, it comes out at PocateUo, 134 miles from Ogden, on the great Snake River plain. From PocateUo north for 100 miles the way leads r "ross another lava flow, once a sagebrush waste, now an agricultural .radise. The last 50 miles of the route is through forests and finally over the Continental Divide, in mountains of volcanic rock poured out in the vicinity of Yellowstone Park. The northbound trains, on leaving Ogden, cross Ogden River and come at once into orchards and into fields of sugar beets, hay, corn, ' Mileposts from Ogden to McCammon and from PocateUo to Idaho Falls give the distance north of Ogden; from McCammon to PocateUo, the distance west of Gran- ger, Wyo. ; and from Idaho Falls to Yellow- stone, the distance north of Idaho Falls. 104 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. and garden truck. From the outskirts of the city an uninterrupted view of the Wasatch Range can be had (PI. XXVIII). Ogden Canyon is seen as a great notch with bare chffs of pink quartzite on both sides, and tier on tier of gray limestone farther up the canyon.^ In the distance on the west is the hazy blue outline of Promontory Range, a long point extending from the north out into Great Salt Lake. The traveler who is for the first time west of the Rocky Mountains and wonders if the melodramatic activities of western life he has seen quivering on the "movie" screen really exist to-day along the route between Ogden and Yellowstone Park should remember Francis Parkman's introduction to "The Oregon Trail": The buffalo is gone, and of all his millions nothing is left but bones. Fences of barbed wire supplant his boundless grazing grounds. Those discordant serenaders, the wolves, that howled at evening about the traveler's camp fire have succumbed to arsenic and hushed their savage music. The wild Indian is turned into an ugly- caricature of his conqueror. The slow cavalcade of horsemen has disappeared before parlor cars and the effeminate comforts of modern travel. The all-daring and all- enduring trapper belongs to the past and the cowboy's star begins to wane. The wild West is tamed. The great desert which Fremont explored in 1842 and to which the Mormons came in 1847 is still a desert, but orchards, gardens, and grain fields now mark its border. A large brick plant at Harrisville (see sheet 15a, p. 114) is using clay that was deposited as sediment on the bottom of Lake Bonneville. This is one of the few mmeral industries along this route. Many years of prospecting in the mountains aU the way from Ogden to Yellowstone Park have brought to light a few small metalliferous deposits, but not one from which ore is being shipped. Among the nonmetals clay, sand, gravel, limestone, marl, coal, building stone, and water are utilized. Water is the one mineral to which above aU Harrisville. Elevation 4,297 feet- Population 395.* Ogden 5 miles. ^ The geologic structure of the Wasatch Mountains, from Ogden north to Brigham, has been described by Eliot Blackwelder as "shingled structirre with overthrust slabs or wedges dipping eastward. " (See fig. 13, p. 100.) Although this structure can not be seen from the railroad, the various formations can be distinguished. At the base of the range, showing above the lake benches, is the oldest rock forma- tion here exposed, the Archean gneiss and schist, making dark-colored ragged ledges. (See PI. XXVIII.) Above this is 1,000 feet of bare rock cliff of pale pink or faded iron-stain color, the Cam- brian quartzite. Next higher, under brush and scattered trees, are ledges of gray limestone; then comes the pink quartzite again, and at the top a thick band of gray limestone. In the morning sunlight the west face of the range is somber and does not reveal the striking differences in these formations, but under the light of the afternoon sun they stand out in marked contrast. The Cambrian quartzite can be traced by the eye from Ogden Canyon northward for several miles, but not continuoui^Iy, for the rocks are broken by east-west as well as north-south faults. f -■1 i ^ 1 1 H^l H ^Mr t-! InH ^B I ''' IH'flH 1 < =) z" LU Q O 1- < o z < ;. ^^H ^^BtlMH| W^B CE 1 H 1 I o h- < < ^a ^^H B O .iH-j. tB R^B^^^I ^Hh t- /:<;? ' fH nfl^l ■H 2 o ^1 M' ^^Pk h- LLl I li^H H '•: -J. ^\ It HJfl^^^^l^H l^^^l Mj^^H ^H ^ i^ ; l| ■^■1^^^^H| ^H^l 1 m 1 '^ . >^" M f^m I -V>.'- i 'pr^- '■• ffl l^^9l H| ^■ J^?' . i'9 BkJ H i "^^'ctf^'^v ' ' ''^-^^1 BWpi^^^^^B ^^^H ^-■•f^^-fiH HIH ■ Jl i^«iyH ^^H H V llrfr ■tf- U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 612 PLATE XXIX .1. LAKE BONNEVILLE SHORE AT BRIGHAM, UTAH. B. CAMBRIAN QUARTZITE RESTING ON ARCHEAN GNEISS NEAR WILLARD. UTAH. OREGON SHORT LINE OODEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 105 others is due the prosperity of the country traversed ])y this route. Rock phosphate is a vast potential asset but is not yet used. North of Harrisville a low ridge, strewn with many largo angular blocks of rock, both white and pink, projects from the mountain front nearly to the raih'oad. This ridge is made of a great block of quartzite and limestone broken in two, the two parts standing on edge. A stone crusher working on one of the limestone ledges makes macadam for the highways. The electric-car line between Ogden and Brigham and the main highway from Utah to Idaho are east of the track. There is a tomato- canning factory near Harrisville. Tomatoes are grown extensively all along the foothills between Ogden and Brigham, and in 1913 Brigham packed 30,000 cases, 24 cans to the case. Just before reaching Hot Springs the train passes from Weber to Boxelder County and leaves behind the last saloon on the route, the country from Hot Springs to Yellowstone being "dry." The Utah Hot Springs hotel and sanitarium is a bathing resort that has some reputation for the relief of rheumatism. It is equipped with an open-air concrete pool 125 feet square, two indoor Hot Springs. pools 28 by 45 feet, several smaller pools, and private Elevation 4,271 feet, batlis. Small circular stone walls inclose the springs, Ogden 9 miles. o ^ which are just south of the station. The water, which is strongly charged with salt and other minerals, has a temperature of 131° F. In this region there is a close relation between hot springs and lines of faulting. The temperature of the earth increases about 1° with every 50 feet of depth below the surface. Along the faults rocks which formerly were buried deeply and were therefore hot are now at the surface and water coming into contact with them a short dis- tance below the surface, where they are still hot, is warmed; or the heat of the rocks may be due to friction along the fault plane. Soon after passing Hot Springs the train runs close to a lagoon on the edge of Bear Bay, the northeast arm of Great Salt Lake. This lake, as is shown on pages 97-99, is a remnant of the much larger Lake Bonneville. Patches of white alkali (sodium sulphate and sodium cMoride) may be seen along the edge of the lagoon and are due to the evaporation of salty water rising by capillary attraction. A belt of land of varying width west of the railroad is in grain and pasture, but a strip close to the water is too salty to cultivate. The lagoon near Willard is often dotted with ducks and a flock of great white pelicans may usually be seen on the shore of the bay. The marshes and lagoons along the edge of the lake afford good hunting and many of them are owned by gun clubs. The steel towers between the track and the lake carry the Utah Power & Light Co. 's high-power electric-transmission line, which extends from the Grace hydroelectric plant in Idaho to Salt Lake City. 106 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. On the east there are peach orchards, and back of them is the Wasatch Range, cuhnmatmg in Ben Lomond Peak C'Willard Peak" of the Fortieth Parallel Survey). The terraces of Lake Bonneville, carved in momitain waste deposited along the base of the range, are well preserved, and above them is the dark, rough-weathering gneiss. The Cambrian quartzite is very conspicuous here, formmg a great pink band that extends far up the mountain side. The overlymg limestone and shale, by reason of their softness, have weathered farther back than the much harder quartzite. Willard is a quiet old village, its mam streets lined with poplars and its homes surrounded by orchards. The principal industry is the growing of peaches and tomatoes. The traveler waiard. y^r\yQ gQgg i^orth to Yellowstone Park from Ogden Elevation 4,260 feet, -y^i]] ggg many villages that were started by Mormon Ogden u miles. emigrants. Some of them are at the mouths of moun- tam canyons, where peremiial streams afford water for irrigating the arid land near by. Willard was located near such a mountain stream, as were also Brigham, WeUsville, Logan, and other towns m this region. From Ben Lomond northward the pink Cambrian quartzite slopes down abruptly (PI. XXIX, B), crosses the mouth of a sharp canyon back of Willard, where a stream leaps over it in a beautiful fall, and disappears under the terraces. The crest of the range also becomes lower, and the front of the range as far as Brigham shows older rocks (Algonkian quartzite and slate) thrust over the Cambrian. A short distance north of Willard Canyon the mountain face changes from bare crags to a fairly smooth grassy slope because the underlying rocks decay, so that the bedrock is covered by rubble m which vege- tation soon gains a foothold. North of Willard the old lake terraces are well preserved and peach orchards become more numerous. Among the trees m the distance is seen the white tower of a church in Brigham. The first permanent settlers came to the mouth of Boxelder Canyon in 1853 and named the site of Brigham for their leader, Brigham Young. The Greens, Hunsackers, Johnstones, and Brigham. Harrises were courageous folk, and although the level Elevation 4,307 feet, couutry was a great desert covered with sagebrush, Population 3,685. "^ *? pit • tit Ogden 21 miles. they saw the advantages of the location, diverted the mountain stream into irrigatmg ditches, and trans- formed the desert into a veritable garden. Brigham stands on a delta built ui Lake Bonneville when the water was rising to the Provo level. (See p. 98.) When the lake was at its greatest height at the Bonneville level, the water extended back through Boxelder Canyon, drowned the river and made a bay OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 107 of Mantua Valley, which lies within the range. During this time much of the material washed from the mountains around Mantua Valley was deposited in that vaUey and not carried through the canyon, which at that time held a quiet strait instead of a rapid stream. As the lake dried up the waves on its lowering surface cut terraces on the old delta, and a new Boxcldor River came into existence and wore a channel down through the delta its ancestor had huilt. In summer Brigham, which is sometimes called Peach City, is almost completely hidden in peach orchards. The trees grow luxuriantly, because practically every street has an irrigatmg ditch for its entire length. About 400 acres of land beyond the reach of ditches from the canyon is irrigated from a score or more of wells pumped by electric motor. Brigham has celebrated Peach Day early in Sep- tember annually since 1907. Peach Day is to Boxelder County what the 24th of July is to the State of Utah and the 4th of July to the Nation. On that day there are free peaches and plums and melons for all the thousands of people who visit the city. In 1913 this station shipped 467 cars of peaches. Tomatoes also are grown in large quantities. A factory near the station cans in the height Of the season 60 to 75 tons of tomatoes every day. The old transcontinental railroad line of the Central Pacific went west from Brigham over Promontory Range and around the north end of Great Salt Lake. It is little used now, for the trains go from Ogden straight across the lake. Brigham is the southern terminus of the Malade branch of the Oregon Short Line, which serves the west side of the Bear River vaUey. As the train leaves Brigham going north the traveler gets a fine view of old lake beaches along the face of the mountam. (See PI. XXIX, A.) The upper or Bonneville terrace is particularly conspic- uous on each side of Boxelder Canyon. A few miles to the west is Little Mountam, an isolated butte com- posed of limestone containing abundant fossil coral and shells. This butte was a small island when Lake Bonneville was at its greatest height. Six miles west of Brigham is Corrine, a station on tlie old main line of the Union Pacific Railroad, from which freight was hauled by wagon to the mines of western Montana in the early days. Then it had a population of nearly 5,000, but now it is only a small settlement. From Brigham to Idaho Falls the railroad parallels the road made by the freighters from Corrine. About 4 miles north of Brigham the raih'oad crosses Boxelder Lake, a small area covered with 1 inch or 2 inches of water, m which gulls, snipe, and plover are usually wadmg about. A State law prohibiting the kiUing of sea gulls at any time was passed many years ago, when these birds saved the emigrants' first crops from a scourge of grasshoppers. 108 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Bakers. Just beyond this lake is Bakers sidetrack and the plant of the Ogden Portland Cement Co, This company owns a large area which was supposed for many years to be worthless on account of alkali, but which on testing by drill holes Elevation 4,222 feet. ^ ^^^ ^^ ^ Underlain by 2 to 8 feet of marl, a Ogden 2o miles. . . limy earth, averaging 85 per cent lime carbonate, beneath which is a bed of clay — an especially valuable combination, for the two materials together have the proper chemical composition for making Portland cement, and for a number of years the plant has been using them successfully. In 1914 it had an average daily prcJduction of 700 barrels. The company supplied some of the cement for the Arrowrock dam, built by the United States Recla- mation Service near Boise, Idaho. The broad brown and gray striping of the rugged mountain face north of Brigham is due to alternating shale and limestone formations. At the 28-mile post the railroad passes under a steel transmission line carrying electric power from the plant of the Utah Power & Light Co. in Bear River canyon. The residents of HoneyviUe are principally descendants of Bishop Abraham Hunsacker, the original settler, who was the father of 52 children. The name of the town is a euphonious HoneyviUe. corruption and shortening of Hunsackerville. About Elevation 4,266 feet. 2 milcs north of Honeyville, in fields east of the rail- Ogden 30 miles. , , i c i i i , road, are some weed-grown pools lormed by hot springs that have been known for many years, though no commercial use of the water has yet been made. The water is salty, and strongly impregnated with iron and is described by a neighboring rancher as being ''hot enough to scald a pig." Fremont reported the temperature of these springs at 134° Fahrenheit in 1843, and Gilbert found them varying from 121° to 132° in 1872. The dis- charge from the hot springs, mixed with water from cold springs in the same guUy, is used for power at a gristmill on the bank of Bear River 1^ miles west of HoneyviUe. This part of Bear River valley is a former sagebrush desert that has been changed by irrigation ^ to a thriving agricultural district in which ' To readers who are not familiar with irrigation a brief explanation may be of interest. The common practice is to se- lect a site at the edge of the mountains, where, by throwing an inexpensive dam across a stream, the current may be di- verted a little to one side, into a ditch where a headgate is placed and made se- cure by the use of bowlders or concrete. During the winter and high-water seasons the gate is kept closed, so that no water flows into the ditch, but in the dry season the gate is opened and a part of the stream is diverted from its natural channel. The headgate is, of course, far enough mp- stream to be at a higher altitude than the land to be irrigated, and the course of the ditch is determined by a more or less care- ful survey, so that it will have a uniform grade of a very few feet to the mile. As many of the streams of this region fall more than 100 feet to the mile, the height OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 109 large quantities of grain, alfaKa, sugar beets, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables are raised. It is said that this land has produced, per acre, 15 to 60 bushels of wheat, 65 to 1,35 bushels of oats, 50 to 95 bushels of barley, 6 to 8 tons of alfalfa, and 10 to 40 tons of beets. Apples, apricots, peaches, and plums are the principal fruits raised. Madsen is only a siding and beet-loading platform. On the west is the cut bank of Bear River, which has carved a Madsen. meandering course in the old lake bottom. The river Elevation 4,298 feet. • i • -u i^ x, • i ijiiiir ogden 33 miles. ^^ sluggish here, havmg nearly reached the level of the present lake, though several miles from it. As the train approaches Dewey prominent lake benches are seen on the mountain side. Three excavations on the hill a short distance back of Dewey were made in obtaining limestone for a million-dollar beet-sugar factory. Lime is used for removing various impurities from the beet-sugar juice. The four smokestacks of the fac- tory can be seen about 3 miles to the west. To serve this sugar factory was the purpose of the branch rail- road from Brigham to Malade. Sugar-beet growing is a large industry in this part of the valley, the area cultivated being 5,000 to 7,000 acres and the average production per acre 18 tons of beets. The factory can handle 600 tons of beets daily. It is on the edge of Garland, a village with a population of 800, which Dewey. Elevation 4,323 feet. Population 292.* Ogden 36 miles. of the ditch above the valley bottom in- creases downstream, and for this reason in many ditches the water seems to be run- ning uphill. As the upland inclines in the same direction as the stream, it is pos- sible, without using any hoisting device, to locate the ditches so that water diverted from the stream at a certain point will flow out on the upland farther down- stream — ^indeed, water can be carried in this way from one stream over a divide and down into another valley. At the place where the water is to be used an opening is made in the downhill side of the ditch and the water is allowed to flow out over the land. In grain and hay fields care is taken to keep the water spread out in very thin sheets, by throw- ing earth in its pathway wherever there are little depressions in the surface and the water shows a tendency to get deep. In gardens and orchards the water is caused to flow down fturows between rows so arranged that it does not flow so fast as to wash away the soil. The immense acreage devoted to potato raising along this route is irrigated in this way. On a perfectly level field it would be impossible to make use of this method of Irrigation, but western fields usually have more or less slope, and hence it is possible, by guiding the water in its natural down- ward flow, to keep it spread out over the land either as a thin sheet or as little rills in closely spaced furrows. It is custom- ary to allow the water to flow gradually across a field until it reaches the lower side, and then to stop up the opening in the ditch and make a new one near some other place which it is desired to irrigate. The time required for the water to reach the downhill side of a field Is commonly several days, because the land absorbs so much of it. In actual practice the method of irri- gating is more complicated than that out- lined here. According to the practice generally followed the water is not taken directly from the main ditch but from a branch. 110 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, was named for William Garland, of Kansas City, the contractor for the construction of the irrigating canal through Bear River canyon. The red color on the mountain side opposite Dewey is produced by a mixture of blue, gray, red, and pink limestone and limy sandstone. Just north of Dewey the traveler gets the first glimpse of Bear River, the largest stream draining into Great Salt Lake. This river has an interstate habit ; it rises in southwestern Wyoming and is crossed by the Union Pacific Railroad near Evanston, flows northwestward into Utah, back into Wyoming, crosses into Idaho, and eventually turns southward to empty into Great Salt Lake, It also drains Bear Lake, a body of water 20 miles long lying across the Utah-Idaho boundary near the Wyoming line.* Irrigation is practiced throughout the length of Bear River valley wherever it has been possible to divert water from the stream at a reasonable cost. Between Dewey and Collinston may be seen three conspicuous wave-cut terraces 300, 500, and 640 feet above the track; the upper- most one is the BonneviUe and the lowermost the Provo terrace. Several miles to the west on a clear day the parallel beaches can be seen on the lower gentle slope of Blue Spring Ridge. Just before reaching Collinston the train leaves the flat lake floor and ascends through gravel cuts in an uneven surface to a slightly higher level. CoUinston is a small settlement surrounded by grain fields. Lake terraces, like gigantic music staves engraved on the mountain, are beautifully preserved in this vicinity. The rocky laiob just beyond the station is gray conglomerate (gi-avel and sand cemented together) of Tertiary age, carrying an abundance of fossil snail shells. This rock is very young in comparison with those found in the Wasatch Range and is the remnant of a once extensive body of gravel and sand which was deposited in a fresh-water inland sea that covered this area just prior to or during the uplifting of the mountains. Though geologically young, the rock in this knob is nevertheless hun- dreds of thousands if not millions of years old, and ever since its for- mation was completed and the lake was drained it has been subjected to the washing of the streams which have crossed it, so that much of it has been worn away. It has also been affected by movements within the earth, as is shown by the fact that its once nearly horizontal layers are now tilted and broken. North of Collinston the railroad climbs by easy grades still higher above the plain, across which winds the deep-cut trench of Bear River. Collinston. Elevation 4,416 feet Population 114.* Ogdcn 40 miles. * The mean discharge of Bear River near Preston, Idaho, is 1,290 second-feet (that is, 1,290 cubic feet of water a sec- ond). The total estimated possible i:>ower development on Bear River in the State of Idaho with the aid of storage is 81,500 horsepower. Three hydroelectric' power plants are in operation on the river. OBEGON SHORT LINE — OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. Ill The broad valley continues northward and is occupied by Malade Kiver, but the raikoad turns eastward and goes through a canyon cut by Bear River across a low pass in the Wasatch Range. The Utah-Idaho Sugar Co.'s canal, which u'rigates the west side of the lower Bear River valley, is seen on the far side of th(i river and the Hammond canal on the near side. Although these canals appear to chmb toward the west, they actutdly descend in that direction, for the irrigator has not yet learned how to get around gravitation without lifting devices, and in Utah, as everywhere else, water runs downhill. The Utah Power & Light Co.'s 4,000-horsepower electric plant, with „„ . its great flumes takuig water from these canals, is on WriPf Ion t-j cj / the river bank at the mouth of the canyon. The rail- ogdTnTrMicr*''^'^ ^^^^ station was named for John C. Wheelon, a civil engineer who constructed part of the canal. Such scenery as that for the 2 miles above Wheelon is to be found at no other place on the raih'oad between Ogden and Yellowstone. Here is one of the two tunnels on the route ; here are the highest trestles and the sharpest curves. With a great flume of water just below the track and Bear River roaring over bowlders that impede its progress along the canyon bottom 175 feet below, this is no place for speeding ; and yet the time consumed in going through the canyon is so short that one can only glance at the numerous interesting geo- logic features. It is easy to see that the narrow canyon, with its high precipitous walls, is cut in limestone whose beds dif) about 25° to the west; but there is httle likehhood that the traveler will notice the cavities made by solution of the hmestone or the numerous small faults which break the normal continuity of the rock beds. He will, however, be attracted by a waterfall made by the overflow from a flume below the track and by the low falls in the river. At the upper end of the canyon, just below the dam which diverts the water of the river into flumes, pink quartzite is exposed below the Umestone. Above the dam green Tertiary shales are seen m the opposite wall. These shales are the hardened mud which was laid down on the bottom of a lake that covered this area before the moun- tains were formed or while their elevation was in progress. That they are older than Lake BonneviUe is shown by their continuation beneath the silts deposited in that lake, and that they are older than the mountain uplift is proved by the facts that their original con- tinuity is broken by a mountain-forming fault, and that they were hoisted and tilted from their original position along with the momitain block. The steel-tower transmission line that crosses the hill brmgs elec- tricity from a power plant in the upper Bear River canyon 20 mdes above Preston, Idaho. On leaving the canyon the train swings 112 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. around a bend and enters the broad Cache Valley/ of which the Bear River range, another part of the Wasatch Range, makes the east wall. To the northeast is Newton Hill, which was an island in the o-reat arm of Lake Bonneville that occupied this valley. Wave-cut shore lines are conspicuous on its sides (see PI. XXX, A), showing conclusively that Cache VaUey was once occupied by a great body of water several hundred feet deep. It will be easily realized that when Lake Bonneville was at its greatest height the strait between the body of water in Cache VaUey and the larger body on the west was about 5 miles wide and was shallow and interrupted by several islands. The cliffs of the narrow canyon reach nearly to the level of the second conspicuous terrace (the Provo), and north of the cliffs, where the highway now crosses the pass, there is a considerable break in the upper (Bonneville) terrace, as there is also south of the canyon. From this it appears that as the lake surface lowered the outlet of Cache Bay dwindled to three channels. One of these whose position may have been determined by a fault or line of fracture across the pass persisted and now carries all the drainage. While the canyon was being cut, the surface of the main lake must have been lower than that of Cache Bay. The smaller body of water, besides evapor- ating less rapidly, was receiving the largest inflow. When the shore of the main lake had receded a considerable distance, perhaps several miles from the mouth of the canyon. Cache Valley no longer contained a bay connected with the main lake by a narrow strait, but instead a separate lake which drained into Lake Bonneville by a short river. Eventually the lake in Cache Valley was drained out, and the river flowing across the abandoned lake bottom west of the canyon has gradually deepened its channel. From Cache Junction the Cache VaUey branch of the railroad runs to WellsviUe, Logan, and Preston. The bottom of Cache Valley . has an altitude of about 4,500 feet and presents one of the most beautiful pastoral spectacles in the State. Elevation 4,444 feet. m, n • t_ ^ or- -i i i • ogden 49 miles. ^^^ vailcy proper IS about 35 miles long and m many places 10 miles wide. The settlement of this valley was begun by the Mormons in 1856, when the town of WellsviUe was ^ Cache Valley was formed by faults which broke the earth's crust into blocks and raised some with relation to others. The Wasatch Range has already been described (pp. 99-100) as made of up- turned slabs of rock formations shoved up one on another. The Bear River Range had somewhat the same origin. The west face at Logan is believed to be a fault scarp like that at Ogden. Whether the block under Cache Valley remained at a fixed altitude while the surrounding blocks were raised, or whether it sank with relation to them is not known. The surface of the valley block probably was not smooth, but when Lake Bonneville occupied this basin, the sediment brought in by rivers, and the wash from the mountain sides, were deposited on the lake bottom and smoothed over the inequalities, making the present nearly level sm'face. ■THE GATES" OF BEAR RIVER, FROM THE EAST NEAR CACHE JUNCTION, UTAH. Horizontal lines indicate wave-cut shore lines of ancient Lake Bonneville. '■^ - ah l.4i« J. ' • ' i^J* y;. EAST BUTTE, IDAHO. OREGON SUORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 113 laid out by a colony of six families. White persons had, however, been here before. J. C. Fremont, m the report of his explorations ia 1842, mentions meetmg parties of emigrants in this locality, and Marcus Wliitman traversed the valley in the fall of 1842 on his mem- orable journey from Oregon to Washington, D. C, with the object of savmg Oregon Territory for the United States. Logan, the prhicipal town in Cache Valley, has a population of about 8,000 and is the location of the State Agricultural College, Brigham Young College, and one of the four great Mormon temples. The two towers of this temple, rising above the treetops at the foot of the momitams to the east, can be seen from the railroad. Two large sugar factories m tliis valley, at Logan and at Lewiston, contract for the yield of several thousand acres of sugar beets, the growing of which is one of the principal industries. Dairying is also an extensive industry and condensed-milk factories are located at Logan, Smith- field, Richmond, and Franklui. On leaving Cache Junction the train crosses Bear River and turns to the north, giving a broad view of the south end of Cache Valley and its encircling mountams. Logan Peak, the highest pomt on the range near Logan, has an altitude of 9,713 feet. The strip of timber along the foot of the mountains from Logan nortli is not natural forest but is composed wholly of orchards, shade trees, and windbreaks around the farms. Wave-cut terraces or beaches of old Lake Bonneville are well pre- served on the side of Newton Hill, west of Hammond siding. The rock cliff here probably is the result of comparatively recent uplift along a north-south fault. Between ogtei 53^miies. ^° Hammond and Trenton, at the pomt where the rail- road turns from northeast to north, the white spots that look like closely set gravestones on the hillside west of the track are about 200 beehives. The bees feed on ahalfa and white clover, and the honey industry is growmg. Many years ago the Mormons attempted to estabUsh a silk mdustry in the valley but were not successful. Some of the mulberry trees they set out are still standmg. ^ The prmcipal industry of Trenton is mdicated by the grain elevators and large flour mills. Most of the ridge on the west is formed of soft sandy and limy rocks of Tertiary age. Some houses Trenton, ^^^ ^1^^ vicmity are built of these rocks, which are Elevation 4,460 feet, easily quarricd and shaped. North of Trenton weU- Population 248.* iiiiij. i, i-u*j. ogden 57 miles. dcvcloped lake terraces may be seen on the ridge to the west, and m the late afternoon sunlight they are made particularly conspicuous by the shadows. To the east stretches a broad, level plam, the built-up floor of Cache Bay of the ancient Lake Bonneville. 38088°— Bull. G12— IG 8 114 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Ransom. Most of the villages in the vaUey are at the foot of the mountains on either side. The settlement of an arid country depends on the water supply, and as the best and most usable water was found at the mouths of mountain canyons, there the pioneers built their homes. The center of the broad vaUey is thinly settled, largely because Bear River and its tributaries have cut their channels so deep below the general level that it is hard to get water from them up on the land. Ransom is only a railroad siding. Several miles to the northeast, in the broad vaUey of Bear River,* is the town of Preston, which has a population of about 3,000 and is the terminus of the Cache Valley branch of the Oregon Short Line. Elevation 4,481 feet. ^^^^^^ ^^ ^hc trccs to the right of an isolated hiU on Ogden 61 miles. _ ... the east side of Bear River is the village of Franklin. This hiU, which is 6 miles east of the railroad, is a knob of lime- stone known as Mount Smart ("Franklin Butte" in Gilbert's report on Lake Bonneville; see p. 230) and was an island in Lake Bonneville. The story of that lake is carved in unmistakable signs on what was the windward side of this island. Cliffs cut by the waves that once beat against it and beaches covered with gravel are beautifully preserved on the southwest side, toward what was a broad expanse of open lake, while the east or shoreward side is comparatively smooth. Lime for the beet-sugar factories in this valley has been quarried in this hill. At Cornish the train leaves Utah and enters the State of Idaho. The station stands on the State line. The irrigation canal seen at Cornish is 19 miles long, heads on Bear River above Battle Creek, 12 miles to the north, and supplies water for 20,000 acres of otherwise desert land. The irrigation systems in this valley were built and are owned by private companies. To those who remember Idaho in their school geographies as a small pink block, shaped Uke an easy chair facing east, it may be of interest that this State, which in 1890 added the forty- Idaho, fi^th star to the constellation on the flag, is nearly as large as Pennsylvania and Ohio combined and larger than the six New England States with Maryland included for good measure. It is divided into 33 counties, the smallest of which is half as large as the State of Rhode Island and the largest greater than the combined area of Massachusetts and Delaware. Cornish, Utah. Elevation 4,522 feet. Population 143.* Ogden 62 miles. 1 The mean discharge of Bear River as determined by measurements of its flow made at Preston, Idaho, during a period of 24 years, isl,290 second-feet — that is, 1,290 cubic feet of water passing a given point each second. A maximum flow of 7,980 second-feet was recorded in 1894, and a minimum of 164 second-feet in 1905, There are two hydroelectric plants on Bear River above Preston, one under con- struction in Oneida Narrows, to have an installed capacity of 27,000 horsepower, and one at Grace, Idaho, with 17,000 horsepower. SHEET r^O.l liEOLOGlC AND TOPOGKAPHIC MAP YELLOWSTONE PARK ROUTE From Ogden, Utah, to the Yellowstone National Park Base pom]ine(l n-om rallvfiad alieaiaents and profiles, supplied Informstloii collected wUb rho sselstance or thlg compaay UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY E L,™,»n. S'SS F QuanillH. 1 hklH ud Itmul .„« as.' Hightn (horv li «ofUkeBonn« l,.c ■, 10 ,5 -p ,>KMo™ m OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 115 Idaho covers an area of 83,888 square miles, divided principally between the Rocky Mountain region and the Columbia Plateau, only a small part, in the southeast corner of the State, lying in the Great Basin. In elevation above sea level the State ranges from 735 feet, at Lewiston, to 12,078 feet at the summit of Hyndman Peak. It is drained mainly to the Columbia through Snake River and its tribu- taries, and has an annual rainfall of about 17 inches, the range in a single year at different places being from 6 to 38 inches. The industries of the State are chiefly agriculture, stock raising, and mining. Hay, wheat, oats, and potatoes are the principal crops. A large area is cultivated by irrigation. The mineral production includes gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc. The output of lead in 1913 was valued at $13,986,366, that of silver at $6,033,473. The population of Idaho in 1910 was 325,924. A short distance from Weston the steel-tower electric line, which conveys power from the upper canyon of Bear River and which was last seen by the traveler at Bear River canyon, again Weston, Idaho. crosses the railroad. Weston is an old Mormon village Elevation 4,604 feet, qu the lake tcrracc west of the station. North of it ogdenVs^miies. ^he railroad ascends a shght grade, and the guUies cut in the lake deposit give the surface an uneven appear- ance, but on the upper level it is very apparent that the plain is only slightly dissected. In the distance to the northeast is a high-cut bank of Bear River, but the river is not in view because in this part of its course it has sunk its channel in the easily eroded lake deposits to a depth of 250 feet below the plain. The main highway from Utah to Montana follows the foot of the mountains on the west side of Cache Valley to its very head. Along this road are several old Mormon settlements, among Dayton. which is Dayton (see sheet 15b, p. 124), located at Elevation 4,745 feet, the mouth of Daytou Cauyou and the junction of a ogdenVi°mUes. vcry rough road leading over the mountains to Malade. The big cliff at the mouth of Dayton Canyon is com- posed of very ancient sedimentary rocks (Cambrian?) dipping west- ward at a low angle. About half a mile up the canyon these rocks have been overridden by much younger (Carboniferous ?) limestone, showing that the mountains west of this end of Cache Valley were formed by the piling up of upturned broken slabs of the earth's crust. The foothills back of Dayton are made of sandy and limy rocks which were originally deposited as sand and mud in a fresh-water Tertiary lake. Such rocks are found in many places around the edge of Cache VaUey. The train now approaches on the east a north-south ridge several hundred feet high, known as Battle Creek Butte. It is isolated in the 116 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. midst of the valley and takes its name from Battle Creek, the scene of an Indian fight near its eastern base. Much of the ridge is made up of very old shales (hardened mud rocks), but the south end and some of the top are composed of diorite, a kind of granite which, in a molten condition, was forced up into these shales from below. This molten rock may not have reached the surface, for the surface at the time of the intrusion was considerably above the present one. Whether this ridge is an uplifted fault block or a remnant left by the forces of erosion has not been determined, but it certainly was an island when Lake Bonneville stood at its highest level. The north end of the ridge consists of soft Tertiary sandstone. Opposite the middle of Battle Creek Butte is Garner, a station for the village of Clifton, which lies at the edge of the flat 1 mile west. Clifton is an old Mormon hamlet of about 100 people. Garner. Late m the afternoon the mountains on the west ap- Eievation 4,751 feet, pear a hazv bluc, details are obscured, and it may not Ogden 75 miles. ^ ... , , be possible to distinguish the low romided foothills made by Tertiary conglomerate and sandstone or to see the promi- nent lake-cut benches which continue along the edge of the valley as far north as Oxford. A large reservoir among the Tertiary ridges just east of Garner is fiUod from a ditch that brings water from Mink Creek, several miles to the northeast. An inverted siphon carries water from this reser- voir across the creek at Garner, and a wooden pipe line that goes under the railroad at the fii^st road north of Garner station takes the water to Clifton, where it is turned into irrigation ditches. About 31,000 acres is irrigated from this one system. A short distance north of Garner a clear view is again obtained of the Bear River Range, several miles to the east (right), and of the low Tertiary hills in front of it. The raihoad passes Oxford. a big marsh, one of the few areas in this part of the Elevation 4,748 feet. yaUcy wliich is not yct much utilized, and continuing Ogden 8i°mUes. aloug the practically level lake floor comes to the sta- tion for a Mormon village, Oxford, which stands among the trees 2 miles to the west. The Provo shore line may be seen near the vOlage. If Cache Valley should be filled again to the highest level of Lake Bonneville, Oxford village would be 400 feet under water, and the temple at Logan would stand in water 500 feet deep. A low ridge just north of Oxford station extends eastward from the mountains and makes the valley bottom much narrower. Directly ahead, about 7 miles distant, there are two prominent Swan Lake. ^^^^^ points, which mark Red Rock Pass, the old Elevation 4,772 feet. ^^ £ ^ j^ BonncviUc. Wcst of the track is Swan Ogden 84 miles. Lake, a small body of wat(>r on which it is common to see many ducks either resting quietly or, frightened by the train, OREGON SIIOBT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 117 skittering away through the woods. The raih'oad gra(l(% which has boon gradually rising to Swan Lake station, now begins to descend. By the overflow of Lake Bonneville the drainage divide was moved from Red Rock Pass, where it stood before Bonneville time, back to this point, nearly 7 miles farther south. Sand and gi-avol dumped by small creeks coming out from the hills have dammed this part of the valley, making a marsh which extends most of the way from Swan Lake to the pass. Tho hills on the east are composed of Tertiary sediments, mostly shale, and show the Bonneville shore line about 340 feet above tho marsh. At Red Rock Pass rod limestone cliffs appear on both sides (PI. XXXI, p. 113). From the road crossing just south of the pass may be seen on the right a small vaUoy coming down from the northeast. This is the head of Marsh Creek, which in pre-Bonneville time probably drained southward into Bear River, but which, by the shift of the divide just mentioned, now turns at a sharp angle and goes through the pass to join the Snake River di'ainage system. Through this valley went the magnificent river made by the overflow of Lake Bonneville. As most of the water of Marsh Creek is used in irrigation, the natural channel through tho pass and for a short distance north of it may be dry in summer. The knobs of limestone, 200 to 300 *■ feet high, which overlook the channel from opposite Elevation 4,743 feet, g-^^g i^^^^ ^ maximum width of 600 foot for the river Ogden 90 miles. that drained Lake BonneviUo just before it was drawn down to tho Provo stage. (See PI. XXXI.) Wlien Lake Bonne- ville first started to overflow, the lake level stood higher than the tops of these limestone rocks, which had boon buried beneath mountain waste. Gravel deposited by the stream that drained the lake at its highest stage is found on top of tho rod butte along the base of which the train passes. The Hunt ranch, men- tioned by Gilbert in his description of this old outlet of Lake Bonne- ville published in 1890, was at tho foot of this rocky citadel. The limestone crags bordering Red Rock Pass are conspicuous features of the landscape and were well known to the early travelers in this region and to the freighters who hauled supplies for the western Montana mining camps over the road that follows the course now taken by tho railroad. The traveler going north from the pass may notice that although the stoop-sided valley is a quarter of a mile or more wide, its stream is only a rivulet meandering through the meadow. (See PL XXXI.) The ill-matched stream and valley afford evidence that a great river once flowed where now there is only a brook. (See pp. 97-98.) Hero, then, at or just north of the red cliffs. Lake Bonneville overflowed its rim and began tho discharge wliich continued until evaporation exceeded inflow. 118 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Downey. Elevation 4.85S feet Ogden 95 miles. The valley bottom becomes wider toward the north, and the train leaves it and comes out upon a broad bench, from which an extensive view may be had of the vaUey of Marsh Creek.^ On this bench is Downey, a small settlement in the midst of an ex,tensive agricultural district. The first homes were built here about 1894, but it was not untU 1910, when water was brought by a large irrigation canal from Portneuf River below Lava Hot Springs and it became possible to irrigate the land, that the settlement had any marked growth. It was named for one of the engineers or officers of the Oregon Short Line. The grain elevator and the broad fields of grain that stretch away in all directions teU of the principal industry of the people. About 12,000 acres is irrigated by the Downey Improvement Co.'s ditch and cul- tivated. When the ditch was completed in 1910 land sold for $35.50 an acre, $35 for the water right and 50 cents for the land. In 1914 it was worth about $45 an acre with water right but without im- provements. Oxford Peak (elevation 9,386 feet), which overlooks Red Rock Pass, appears from Downey as a mountain mass with two tops of about equal height. The front of the mountain range east of Downey is made up of Carboniferous limestone dipping to the east; the mountains on the west are composed of Ordovician rocks, also dipping east. In all directions there is a strong suggestion that the com- paratively level valley floor between the two mountain ranges was • Marsh Valley, like Cache Valley, is inclosed between mountain ranges, and has a north and south trend. Its length is about 35 miles, and its greatest width is 8 or 10 miles. Twenty miles from Red Rock Pass the Portneuf River breaks through the eastern mountain chain and enters the valley, turning northward and rimning parallel with Marsh Creek to the end of the valley. There it receives the creek and then turns abruptly westward and escapes from the valley through a deep but open canyon. The upper can- yon of the Portneuf has at some time ad- mitted lava as well as water. A succes- sion of basaltic coulees have poured through it into Marsh Valley and have followed the slope of the valley to the lower canyon. The Portneuf River fol- lows the eastern margin of the lava beds, and Marsh Creek the western, each occu- pying a narrow valley sunk from 30 to 100 feet below the level of the lava table. A comparison of these valleys illustrates the disparity between Marsh Creek and its channel. Portneuf River is several times larger than Marsh Creek, but the immediate valley by which it is contained is smaller. Indeed, there is every evi- dence that the valley of Marsh Creek, hav- ing been formed by the ancient Bonne- ville River, is now in process of filling. It abounds in meadows and marshes and at one point contains a lakelet. It appears, however, that the Bonne- ville River was not contained during its entire existence in the channel now occu- pied by Marsh Creek. The whole upper surface of the lava tongue, where it has a width of more than a mile, is fluted and polished and pitted with potholes after the manner of a river bed, and there seems no escape from the conclusion that it was swept by a broad and rapid current. OREGON SHORT LINE — OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 119 produced by outwash from the mountains. In other words, the debris brought down from the surrounding mountains by the nu- merous streams has spread out as a great apron, lilhng the valley to a considerable depth, and every year, especially at times when the streams are high, a little more sand and gravel are added to the deposit. The valley of old Bonneville River, now occupied by Marsh Creek, is cut in this fiU. At Downey the flat floor is composed, at least near the surface, of well-rounded sand and partly cemented gravel. It is said that a well 600 feet deep west of Downey was drilled entirely in hill wash. Virginia is the station for a considerable number of farmers living on irrigated lands in the vicinity. The fine large school buildings Virginia ^^^^ ^^^ ^* Arimo, a few miles farther north, are typical of the school facihties provided for countrv Elevation 4,790 feet. ^ '^ ., . ^, . ^ p xi i i p i • ogden 100 miles. pupils m this part ol Idaho. After leaving Vir- ginia the train runs down below the level of the Arimo. upper bench and at Marsh VaUey siding passes Elevation 4,736 feet, gravcl pits from which a great quantity of material Ogden 105 mUes. j^^g ^^^^ ^^^^^^ f ^j. ^^^ and baUast along the railroad. The gravel shows the character of the valley filling. Arimo is one of the numerous little settlements on the main highway between Ogden and PocateUo, which parallels the track for many miles. The vaUey of Marsh Creek has been flooded with lava in one of the later stages of geologic history, probably in Pleistocene glacial time. Lava of this kind, a basalt, is widespread in south- ern Idaho. It is seen first in Marsh Creek valley about 1| miles north of Arimo, between mileposts 106 and 107. The edge of the lava first appears as a low vertical wall of black rock on the east side of the creek, just north of some ranch buildings. Marsh Creek flows along the west side of the lava and the railroad runs along the east edge for a short distance, gradually going up on the upper surface, which it traverses to McCammon. The surface ap- pears smooth, but so much of it is bare rock partly hidden by sage- bush that the land is not cultivated. Near McCammon, where there is more soil on the lava, crops are being raised. Just before reaching McCammon the traveler can see on the east the defile which Portneuf River has cut through the mountains. In the forties and fifties pio- neers from the Mississippi Valley bound for Oregon diverged from the Astor route and entered the Snake River valley through this defile by ox team, where travelers now pass along in Pullmans and Packards. 120 GUIDEBOOK OP THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Elevation 4,763 feet Population 321. Ogden 111 miles. Granger 191 miles. At McCammon, the junction of the Granger and Ogden branches of the Oregon Short Line, the mountains on both sides of the valley __ ^ are composed of Ordovician shale, limestone, and quartzite, dipping to the east. A cross section of the valley at this point (fig. 14) shows a fold in the hard rocks which explains how a single formation may occur in the same position in two parallel moun- tain ranges. It also shows the relation of the mountain wash to the bedrock and contains in diagram the record of an interesting series of events. After the mountains were uplifted and had been some- what worn down by erosion, there seems to have been a long period when the earth's crust in this region remained practically stationary and the refuse from the wearing down of the mountains on both sides gradually filled the vaUey to a considerable depth. Subsequently, Figure 14. — Cross section of Marsh Creek valley at McCammon, Idaho. an elevation of this region gave the streams greater fall, which in- creased their cutting power, so that they gradually washed out deep gullies in the fill. Then came a period of volcanic activity during which great quantities of lava welled up through cracks in the earth's crust and flowed out from volcanoes. The bottom of the valley occupied by Marsh Creek and Portneuf River, from a point near Arimo to PocateUo, was filled with black lava, most of which probably came up from a crack along the valley bottom. After the lava cooled Portneuf River, coming out from its canyon on the east, may have flowed for a time directly across the top of the lava to the west side of the valley, as suggested by an abandoned channel to be seen along the railroad just before entering McCammon, and there joined Marsh Creek. Subsequently it cut a new course along the east edge of the lava tongue to its present position and left Marsh Creek in possession of the opposite ledge. Long after the lava had cooled Lake Bonneville formed and its outlet stream through Red Rock Pass poured down Marsh Creek valley, flowed over the top of the lava, leaving deposits of sand and gravel in its wake, and carved deep channels on both sides of the narrow lava tongue. I OREGON SHORT LINE OCiDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 121 A place of more than local interest is Lava Hot Springs, in Port- neuf Canyon 12 miles east of McCammon, where in 1914 the State of Idaho built a natatoriiim inclosing a concrete swimming pool 33 by 66 feet for public use. A number of hot springs issue from the bank of the river, and near them is a popular camping place. In the can- yon at and above the hot springs there is considerable calcareous tufa, a soft cellular limestone deposited by the evaporation of water carrying lime in solution. The gently sloping benches or terraces from McCammon to the foot of the mountains on the east and west are composed of outwash material which, though deposited by mountain torrents, has never- theless accumulated so gradually that it makes a good soil. Large quantities of grain are raised on it by dry farming. The great white ledge seen on the mountain side 5 miles east of the village is a band of gray sandy limestone about 100 feet thick. The Harkness ranch, just north of the village, was one of the first in this region and was a common stopping point for freighters before the raih-oad was built. Mr. Harkness maintained a toll bridge over Portneuf River at this point.^ Water power at McCammon runs the local gristmill and electric-light plant. Immediately on leaving McCammon the train runs down off the top of the lava into a little canyon, and for a number of miles follows the river and the edge of the lava. Toward the north the lava wall mcreases from 10 to 50 feet in height. In most places its upper edge is well exposed, but the lower part is concealed by large and small blocks broken from the ledge above by frost action and other natural forces. Fine exposures of black columnar basalt ^ are almost con- 1 Measurements of the flow of Portneuf River show a mean discharge of 265 second-feet at Topaz, a station in the canyon east of McCammon, during 1913-14 and of 334 second-feet at Pocatello during 1897-1899 and 1912-] 914 . The records at Pocatello show from a minimum flow of 14 to a maximum flow of 1,880 second- feet. No large power plants are feasible on this stream. 2 Columnar structure, or the division of a rock into prisms more or less straight and parallel to one another, is a common feature of basalts. Well-known examples of this structure are the Giants Causeway and Fingals Cave, in Ireland; the lavas in the Auvergne, in central France; the Palisades of the Hudson; the \^'atchung Mountains, west of Orange, N. J.; and the lavas in the Snake River canyon of Idaho and the valley of the Columbia in Oregon. Asin the drying of a mud puddle cracks break the surface into figures having five or six sides, so in the cooling of molten basalt the prismatic shrinkage cracks start at right angles to the cooling surface. If the rock were perfectly homogeneous and the cooling uniform, the columns would all be hexagonal and of uniform thickness. The slower the mass cools and slirinks the larger will be the columns, and as the upper and lower surfaces of a mass of lava are likely to cool at different rates, it is common to find the lower portion separated into larger columns than the upper portion. As the columns are de- veloped at a right angle to the cooling surface it follows that a sag or depression in the surface of a basalt sheet is underlain by radiate columnar structure. 122 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. tinuous on the west side of the track. Areas a few yards in extent showing radiate columnar structure may be seen at several points close to the railroad between McCammon and Pocatello. Onyx is a siding just below a concrete bridge over Portneuf River. Near milepost 200 ^ the river tumbles over falls made by travertine, a soft cellular limestone deposited from calcareous Onyx. spring waters. The small knobs of limestone in the Elevation 4,615 feet, valley bottom between the 198 and 200 mile posts Granger i97mUes. wcrc oucc buricd in the lava which spread over the whole valley floor but have been brought to light again through the wearing away of the lava by the river. Near the 201 -mile post the raihoad and river turn to the middle of the larger valley, where there are basalt walls on both sides. An abandoned channel of Portneuf River continues along the east edge of the lava mass, so that the lava east of Inkom is an isolated block lying between the abandoned channel and the new channel of Port- neuf River. At Inkom, a small settlement just below the point where Marsh Creek enters Portneuf River, the river turns from north to west and cuts through the range in a deep, narrow valley. The basalt formerly occupying the present position of Elevation 4,520 feet. ti it in iiiii Population 549. lukom has bccn gradually removed by the stream ogden 122 miles. wliich comcs in from the northeast. Portneuf River Granger 202 miles. , at, i, Ia- 1 f aT, j.i • i has worn the basaltic lava away from the south side of the valley from Inkom to Pocatello, leaving a black columnar wall on the north side of the track. In some places it is very apparent that there are two thin sheets of lava, one resting upon the other, indicating two distinct volcanic outbursts. About 4 miles west of Inkom the lava stops short, and there is none in the narrow pass through the mountains. The valley of Portneuf River from McCammon to Pocatello is cut in ancient Paleozoic rocks, including limestones, shales, and quartz- ites, tilted at various angles but for the most part to the east. The Bannock Range west of Inkom, through which the train passes so quickly, is composed of Ordovician strata which are more or less folded, an anticline or upward bend being indistinctly recognizable on the south wall of the pass. There is no picturesque canyon here — only a short, sharp gap. A great fault or break in the rocks along the west side of the range crosses the river at the west end of this gap, but no trace of it can be seen from the train, ^ In the Portneuf Valley between McCammon and Pocatello the railroad mileposts indicate the distann« west of Granger, Wyo. OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 123 As soon as the train leaves the gap a basalt wall is seen again on the north. Probably the lava was originally continuous through the gap, having flowed down the valley from McCammon (spur), ^g ^ great molten tongue, but if so it has been com- SgeJmtL. Pletely removed from the gap by the river. Plainly there are two lava sheets here. The columnar struc- ture is well developed, as shown in the vertical wall at the edge of the basalt. At a few places where there were original sags in the surface of the mass radiate structure can be recognized. The basalt ends in the Portneuf Valley with a gentle slope about 3 miles east of Pocatello. Near Pocatello the mountains swing away to the west and north, making room for the city. A low, steep-faced reddish ridge north of the track just east of the city appears to be a block of Ordovician quartzite uplifted by faulting. Pocatello,^ another '^ gateway to the mountains," is the junction of the divisions of the Oregon Short Line running north to Butte, ^ , „ Mont., and west to Huntington, Oreg. It was named for an Indian chief and began as a tent city in 1882, PopTiiation 9,110. whcn the railroad was completed to this point. The Ogdeni34 miles. early history of this locality is a wild one. In the Granger 214 miles. i i .i i i , i • t , days when the overland stage made its way through Portneuf Valley trouble with Indians and with highwaymen was common. The city is built on a town site of 2,000 acres sold by the Indians to the United States. It is divided by the railroad into two distinct parts, connected by a viaduct which crosses the numerous tracks at the station. It is growing rapidly and akeady has many noteworthy institutions, such as a Federal building, a Carnegie library, a hospital, a large railroad Y. M. C. A., and fine schools, including the Academy of Idaho, which bridges the gap between the common schools and the State university. The electric light and power used in the city is generated at American Falls, 25 miles west, on Snake River. The growth of the city is due largely to the rail- road shops, which give employment to hundreds of men. Just west of the city highly tilted Cambrian quartzite is overlain by rhyolite, a light-colored siliceous volcanic rock, which flooded the surface before the basalt came. As the train leaves the station and passes the roundhouses and extensive railroad shops the traveler sees to the west the great Snake River plain. Far out in this plain a solitary mountain appears in dim outUne. This is Big Butte, the cone of an extinct volcano, and the westernmost of three buttes which for generations have been landmarks in this part of the country. Farther than the eye can see the Snake River plain stretches away to the west. The vaUey of the ancient Snake River was flooded ^The railroad mileposts from Pocatello to Idaho Falls give the distance from Ogden. 124 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. with great outpourings of black lava, which spread out sheet on sheet, buried the old land surface, and partly filled the valley with molten rock, which soHdified and has remained to this day undisturbed except for the gorges that the streams have cut in it. In some places old mountains project through the petrified lava flood as islands pro- ject above the surface of the sea, and old ridges stick out into it as capes and promontories. The description of the Snake River plain below given^ is taken from a report written in 1901 by I. C. Russell. ^ Southern Idaho is a region composed of geolc^ically old rocks, which formed an ancient land surface having a rugged relief. In the depressions of this sur- face, during later geologic time, exten- sive lake and stream deposits and vast lava flows were spread out. The older rocks, sharply separated from the younger by a long time interval, during which extensive movements in the earth's crust and deep erosion took place, are mainly granite, rhyolite, quartzite, and lime- stone. The younger of these is probably the limestone which is thought to be of Car- boniferous age. These rocks were variously folded, faulted, and upheaved into prom- inent mountains, and deeply dissected by a large river, with many tributaries, which was long lived. The valley of the main stream, the ancient representative of Snake River, became broad and had many important tributary valleys open- ing from it and extending far into the bordering mountains. The sharp-crested mountain spurs between the lateral val- leys are in some instances prolonged far into the main depression. After the topography had passed matu- rity — that is, after the streams had exca- vated deep valleys, leaving shar[:)-crested or serrated divides between them — the main stream was obstructed, possibly by lava flows, but more probably by an upward movement of the rocks athwart its com-se, in the region now included in western Idaho and eastern Oregon, and a lake was formed which occupied a large part of the country now included in the Snake River plains. This water body, named by Lindgren Lake Payette, re- ceived the sediment brought in by trib- utary streams and the dust blown out by volcanoes and became deeply filled. These sediments, which have a known depth of over 1,000 feet, are now well ex- posed, particularly in southwestern Idaho. In places they contain impressions of leaves of trees which grew on the borders of the old lake, the shells of fresh-water mollusks, the bones of land mammals, and other remains. The fossils record a Ter- tiary (Miocene) age. Before Lake Payette came to an end the vast lava flows which now form such a conspicuous feature of the Snake River basin began to be outpoured. In fact, the lava and the sediments of Lake Pay- ette and of a later lake in the same basin were contemporaneous, the lava and lake sediments being interbedded. Some of the lava flows entered the lake, and the occurrence of thick beds of volcanic fragments (lapilli) and of scoriaceous, glassy lava, with a torn and slaglike structure, at the base of thick sheets of usually compact basalt records the energy of the steam explosions that followed. Highly liquid lava continued to be poured out at various intervals from a large num- ber of volcanic vents and spread out in the previously formed basin, making, in truth, lakes of molten rocks. Besides these two processes of upbiiilding — that is, sedimentation in lakes and the out- pouring of lava which spread widely — there was a third, the washing of d6bris from the uplands and its deposition in alluvial cover and widely extended sheets of sand, gravel, and silt in the valleys. In addition, there are widespread eolian [wind] deposits. The volcanic eruption continued after the lakes were either filled or drained, so that by far the larger portion of the Snake River plains is SHEET. No. 15 B I! 2° IDAHO THALL IIMD.RES. 36 I Scale 1 500.000 Approximately 8 miles to 1 inch 5 10 IS 2oMiies Y .10 "joKilomelers Oriyx Contour interval 200 feet ELEVATIONS IN FEET ASOi/E MEAN SEA LEVEL The dista-jces from Ogdfn, Utah, are shown eveyy JO miles The ovsstiss on the railroads are spaced 1 mile apart iiXsaet •^ BULLETIN 612 GEOLOGIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAP YELLOWSTONE PARK ROUTE From Ogden, Utah, to the Yellowstone National Park Base compiled froin railroad allgntnents and profiler: hupplled mrurmatloil collecttKl with the asaUiaDce of this conipaoy UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ■nphe; I'JIS OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 125 At Tyhee (sco sheet 15c, p. 13S), 1\ miles south of tlie Fort Ihill Indian Reservation, the railroad turns more to the noi-tli and a view is obtained on the left of tlie mi(hlle and east l)uttes of the three already mentioned. The sagebrush flat now being crossed is owned by the Indians. Very little land has been cultivated in this part of the reser- vation, although much of the land is under ditches of the in-igation system installed by the Government. Near Tyhee may be seen the large upper canal which takes water from Blackfoot Iliver about 15 Tyhee. Elevation 4,458 feet. Ogden 140 miles. directly underlain by sheets of basalt. The last of the extensive volcanic dis- charges happened in very recent times, and the ])rocess of stream deposition still continues. The estimated area covered by the Snake River lava is in the neighborhood of 20,000 square miles. So far as is now definitely known, there is but one lava field in North America of greater extent, namely, the Columbia River lava, the estimated area of which is about 200,000 square miles. In Snake River canyon, below Shoshone Falls, nearly 700 feet of lava in horizontal sheets are exposed, but whether this is the maximum thick- ness or not can not be told. As a rule, the various sheets of lava are relatively thin, averaging perhaps 50 to 80 feet and widely extended. That many inde- pendent outflows of lava have occurred is easily seen, but in the walls of Snake River canyon, where the best sections are exposed, it is difficult to determine the number unless lacustral deposits, beds of lapilli, etc., occur between them. Although the soil of the Snake River plains has well-marked variations, it may be said that in general , and, in fact, almost everywhere, it is fertile and needs but the requisite moisture to enable it to pro- duce a strong growth of either native or cultivated plants. In general, however, the soil of the plains is a fine yellowish- white siltlike material, largely a dust de- posit, which mantles the surface not only on level tracts, but covers hills and broad depressions alike. This material is simi- lar to the celebrated loess of China, except that it usually occurs as a comparatively thin layer, and resembles also the deposit bearing the same name in the Mississippi Valley. Like each of these formations, it is of exceptional fertility if properly irrigated. The ever-present and characteristic plant of the Snake River plains is the sagebrush {Artemisia tridentata), which grows abundantly and, we might say, luxuriantly in the dry soil from the bot- tom of the Snake River canyon up to an elevation of some 2,000 or 3,000 or more feet on the mountains bordering the plains. It covers the broad arid valleys almost completely and is seldom lacking over any extensive area except where fires have recently occurred or cultivated fields supplant it. On the plains in sum- mer fire sometimes sweeps through the sagebrush in much the same manner that it does over the prairies and "burns" are produced. The "sage" in the localities most favorable to its growth attains a height of about 10 feet, but usually is not over 3 feet high, the clump of bushes being commonly 6 to 8 feet apart. One can ride or walk over the sagebrush plains with but little difficulty. The light grayish-green leaves of tliis ubiquitous plant give color, or perhaps more prop- erly, lack of color, to the plains and en- hance their monotony. Although the Snake River plains are frequently termed a desert, the name is true only in the sense that they are practically without water. Comparatively little of the surface is des- titute of plant life. In fact, the flora is found to be abundant and varied if one examines it closely. There are many lovely plants that blossom early in the spring, filling the air with fragrance, and in the summer and fall the yellow of sunflowers and of the still more plenti- ful "rabbit brush" {Bigelovia graveolens) , 126 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. miles to the north. The canal is carried under the track near Tyhee by means of an inverted siphon. East and northeast of Tyhee the old flood plain of Snake River terminates against a bluff about 40 feet high, from the top of which the land rises gently in long slopes to the hills made of upturned Paleo- zoic rocks, more or less covered with lava. The gently sloping bench lands are themselves composed of marls, sandstone, conglomerate, volcanic ash, and lavas. These deposits are geologically very young, probably Pliocene. They cloak the older formations over many square miles. Three gray stone buddings with red roofs east of the track belong to a boarding school for Indian boys and girls, where the 180 pupils are given instruction in practical matters relating to farm life as well as the ordinary academic courses. Fort Hall is the headquarters of the superintendent of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and the engineers on the reclamation project. The Indian women seen here are dressed in blankets Fort Hall. ^jj(j moccasins, and the men in semicivdized costume. Elevation 4,458 feet. Somc of the Indian maidens, however, wear gowns of ogden 146 miles. the latest styles. Fort Hall, formerly called Ross Fork, from the stream on which it is built, takes its present name from a fort which was built in July, 1834, about 15 miles to the northeast, at the junction of the Missouri-Oregon and Utah-Canada trails, by Capt. N. J. Wyeth and named for one of his partners. It was to the original fort that Dr. and Mrs. Marcus Whitman and Rev. and Mrs. H. H. Spaulding came in 1836 on their way from Boston to missionary labors among the Indians in Oregon. Theirs were the first wagons and Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spaulding a relative of the goldenrod, here and there give broad dashes of brilliant winter range. The mountain sheep is also present in winter, and the mountain color. Beneath the sagebrush in a state j goat is reported to have been met with. of nature nutritious bunch grass grows abundantly and still furnishes pasturage where sheep have not ravished the land. Where the plains are broadest — that is, north of the Oregon Short Line Railroad The great horn cores of the mountain sheep are occasionally to be seen bleach- ing among the clumps of sagebushes. Occasionally also the horns and bones of the bison are found, showing that south- and especially in the vicinity of the three em Idaho was within the former range of steptoes, Big, Middle, and East buttes — ! that species. Besides the animals just much of the land is without sagebrush and I mentioned, the plains are visited by in the condition of a rolling prairie, wliich I bears, wolves, lynxes, foxes, and skunks, supplies excellent mnter pasturage. , and the coyote is only too abundant. On the plains, more especially in the broader portions in the vicinity of the three prominent buttes that break their monotony, big game is still to be found. Antelope roam over them throughout the year, while deer and elk find there a safe Ducks, geese, and other birds visit the ponds and streams, particularly along Snake River and on the west side of the plain to the Lost River country. Grouse of several species are common and smaller birds are by no means rare. OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 127 the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains. The party forded Snake River near the site of Blackfoot and went bravely west over the waterless plain. The old fort was abandoned many years ago and practically all vestige of it is lost. In the Fort Hall Reservation sagebrush seems to cover every acre and the traveler may question if the Indians cultivate any land. Most of the Indians, however, live near the creeks and their homes can not be seen from the train. In 1914 they had 7,240 acres under cultivation. The principal crops are alfalfa, oats, wheat, potatoes, barley, garden truck, and sugar beets. According to the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1014 the total Indian population of the reservation was 1,797, including 462 children of school age. Of these Indians, 1,506 are full bloods belonging to the Bannock and Shoshoni tribes. There had been allotted to the Indians 38,280 acres of irrigated land and 330,971 acres of grazing land. The old and decrepit Indians, 250 in number, get rations. More than two-thirds of the Indians live in tepees and tents. Nearly a third of them winter on the Snake River bottoms, where there is timber for shelter, fire wood, and plenty of pasturage and where snow rarely lies more than a few days. The road up Ross Fork from Fort Hall station leads across the mountains to the dam of the great Blackfoot reservoir, about 30 miles east, built to store water for the Fort Hall irrigation system. Phosphate deposits occur about 20 miles east of Fort Hall station along this road. The deposits in this reservation contain approxi- mately 738,000,000 long tons and are estimated to underlie 58J square miles at depths of less than 5,000 feet; they doubtless underlie a much larger area at greater depths. The main phosphate bed is 6 or 7 feet thick and is rich in tricalcic phosphate, the mineral con- stituent in bones. The phosphate beds are relatively soft and are exposed in only a few places, although clearly recognizable fragments of phosphate rock are scattered more or less abundantly along the zone of outcrop. A description of the western phosphate field, by G. R. Mansfield, is given below. ^ ^A hard problem for the farmer is to discover the needs of his depleted or un- favorably proportioned soil. Its greatest need may be phosphoric acid, one of the three substances that are most necessary in maintaining fertility, the other two being nitrogen and potash. Phosphoric acid for use in fertilizers has been sup- plied for many years in part by the phos- phates of Florida and Tennessee and from islands in the Pacific Ocean. These de- posits can not always supply the demand, and therefore the recent discovery that the Rocky Mountains contain the largest known area of phosphate rock in the world is of vital interest to future generations, if not to the present one. Albert Richter claims to be the original discoverer of the western phosphate de- posits, because he recognized rock phos- phate in Cache County, Utah, in 1889 and located claims on it. These phosphate deposits are said to have been independ- ently discovered in 1897 by R. A. Pid- cock in Rich Coimty, Utah, in old dig- gings in black rock that he mistook for 128 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. North of Fort Hall station, 1 to 3 miles east of the track, there is a group of low rounded hills composed largely of basalt lava but covered for the most part with dark sand that was blown out from a volcano, the basalt appearmg here and there as ledges and bowlders of black rock. From Fort Hall station an excellent view may be obtained of the highest mountains in the reservation, North and South Putnam, situated 15 to 18 miles to the southeast and reaching 8,837 and 8,989 feet, respectively, above sea level. North and west of Fort Hall station the surface of the flat is over- spread with dark sand, largely of volcanic origin. It is similar to volcanic ash except that it is coarser. This sand is piled in low dunes west of Fort Hall, and some of the dunes have been utilized as burial places by the Indians. These Indian cemeteries are marked by high poles, set rather close together, which may be seen for consid- erable distances. A cemetery about 2 miles west of the track and 1 mile north of Fort Hall can be seen from the train in clear weather. On close inspection the cemeteries are found to be decorated with effects of the departed Indians, including clothing, cooking utensils, and implements. gold prospects. A large sample analyzed in 1899, however, proved to be high-grade phosphate rock. In 1908, on recommen- dation of the Geological Survey, Secre- tary of the Interior Garfield withdrew from entry 4,500,000 acres of public land in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming believed to be valuable for phosphate, and this phosphate withdrawal was continued by President Taft under the act of June 25, 1910. In 1909 and succeeding years these phosphate deposits were systematically examined by the United States Geological Survey, and in 1910 phosphate rock was discovered in Montana, near Melrose, by Geologist II. S. Gale. On January 1, 1915, the total area of phosphate lands in Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho withdrawn from entry was 2,713,155 acres. This phosphate reserve is larger than any similar area in the United States; it is, indeed, the largest area of phosphate rock yet recognized in the world. A characteristic of the phosphate rock of this region is its oolitic texture, the rounded grains, resembling fish eggs, ranging in size from the tiniest specks to bodies half an inch or more in diameter. In its weathered condition these grains are more or less distinct and the rock has a grayish color. When freshly mined, however, the rock is dark brown or black. In some places where the rock has been subjected to great compression during the deformation of the inclosing strata it has apparently lost the ooUtic texture and shows a slight increase in density. The phosphate deposits in the West oc- cur in definite beds that extend over wide areas and that are related to the associated rocks in the same way as coal beds. The associated beds are predominantly shaly, but include also sandstones and lime- stones, the whole ranging in thickness from a few feet to 175 feet. Above these phosphate shales there is commonly mas- sive chert or cherty limestone, and below them in the Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho fields a light-colored siliceous limestone. These three sets of beds in Utah and west- ern Wyoming are grouped together as the Park City formation, of Carboniferous age. In Idaho the phosphate shales and over- lying chert are called the Phosphoria formation. The number of phosphate beds distributed through the phosphate shales varies from place to place. There is, however, usually near the base, a bed 5 or G feet thick in the Idaho field and the adjacent portions of Wyoming and Utah. OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 129 Gibson. Elevation 4,103 feet Ogdon 151 miles. Volcanic hills, composed largely of a rhyolite lava, appear to the east at a distance of 4 or 5 miles from Gibson siding. On one of the nearer hills of this group there is a very symmetrical little cone built of material similar to that which makes so large a proportion of the dark volcanic sand found abundantly in this vicinity. It seems proba- ble that this little cone is the crater from which the sand was blown out and that its eruption marks perhaps the latest chapter in the volcanic history of tlie district. For many miles north from Fort Hall the three buttes in the Snake River plain are visible in clear weather. The westernmost, or Big Butte, is an old volcano rising 2,350 feet above the plain, or 7,659 feet above sea level. East Butte, also a volcano, is 700 feet high, and Middle Butte, an upraised block of basaltic lavas, is 400 feet high. Big and East buttes are ancient rhyolitic volcanoes which existed previous to the outpouring of the fluid basalt that flowed about them, their upper parts rising as islands in this sea of molten rock. They are about 25 and 35 miles from Blackfoot, and Big Butte is 15 miles from Middle Butte and 20 miles from East Butte. The Lost River and Lemhi^ ranges may be seen behind the buttes. North of Gibson there may be a few tepees along the road. At the south end of the bridge over Blackfoot River there is a well-appointed ranch, the home of a prosperous Indian who owns an automobile and has several hundred head of horses and cattle in the hills. This bed is also of uniformly high quality, averaging 32 per cent or more of phospho- ric acid, equivalent to 70 per cent or more of bone phosj^hate. The total quantity of high-grade rock in this main bed, esti- mated for the areas examined by the Geo- logical Survey in five years (not including Montana fields), is a2)2)roximately 5,000,- 000,000 long tons. This estimate includes only rock that is believed to lie at minable depths — that is, less than 5,000 feet from the surface — but does not include a vastly greater quantity of lower grade rock. • The raw phosphate rock is not readily soluble, so that its action in fertilizing land is very slow, but the so-called sujjer- phosphate, made by treating the jiulver- ized rock with sulphuric acid, which the smelters of the West can furnish in large quantity, contains phosphate in more easily soluble and available form. At present, on account of the cost of trans- 38088°— Bull. 612—16 9 portation to the eastern markets, the de- mand for western jihosphate is confined to the Pacific Coast States, and even here it is in competition with phosphate rock imported from Ocean Island. Of the total phosphate rock produced in the United States in 1914, the Western States fur- nished less than one-half of 1 per cent. With the gromng recognition of the im- portance of intensive agriculture and the consequent need of fertilizers in the great agricultural districts that have passed the period of maximum fertility, the demand for phosphate rock is certain to increase. Although at i^resent the dc2)osits in the Eastern States are more accessible to mar- kets, these deposits are already apj^roach- ing i^artial exhaustion, so that this rich and extensive western field, already im- portant as a grazing district, is destined to become the scene of another thriving industry. 130 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTEEN UNITED STATES. Blackfoot. Elevation 4,502 feet. Population 2,202. Ogden 158 miles. Blackfoot River/ which the raiboad crosses 1 mile south of the village of Blackfoot, is the north boundary of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Blackfoot city and river are named from a tribe of North American Indians. The name is explained as an allusion to an observation by pioneer whites that their leggins were generally blackened by walking over the freshly burned prairie. The Indians commonly seen about the station and on the streets, however, belong to the Lemlii, Ban- nock, or Shoshone tribes. Blackfoot is the business center of a large, well-settled, and prosperous irrigated agricultural district, and is sometimes called the "grove city," because aU the streets in the residence section are well hned with mature shade trees. It is noteworthy that the first trees ever planted in upper Snake River valley were set out around the Blackfoot courthouse in 1886, and a ditch was constructed for irrigating them. Three grain elevators and a flour mill suggest that a large part of the produce of the surrounding district is grain. The raihoad station, one of the finest on the Hne, is built of pink rhyohte, a lava rock that is abundant in the hills to the east. Blackfoot is the junction point for branch lines to Mackay and Aberdeen. Gasohne motor trains are run on these lines and also to PocateUo. The city water supply is pumped from weUs drilled to depths of 120 to 150 feet, which reach basalt (black lava) at 65 feet. These weUs show the depth of sand and gravel deposited at this place by Snake and Blackfoot rivers in wandering about over the surface before settling in their present courses. The electricity used in Blackfoot is brought from a power plant on Snake River at American Falls, 40 miles to the southwest.^ Gold placers on Snake River about 15 miles below Blackfoot have been worked intermittently in former years, but are now idle. In hard times a few men wash out a httle gold by pannmg, but here, as elsewhere on Snake River, the gold is so flaky and fine that it is difiicult to recover. Several attempts at large operations with dredges have been failures. A beet-sugar factory at Blackfoot, built in 1905 at a cost of $500,000, contracts for the beets from about ' The mean discharge of Blackfoot River in 1906-1909, measured at Presto, a few miles upstream from the railroad, was 415 cubic feet a second. It has a recorded range from a maximum of 2,370 to a minimum of 64 cubic feet a second during that period. No hydroelectric power plants are in operation or in process of construction on this stream. Although the fall of the river from the Blackfoot dam down to the mouth of the canyon is comparatively great, the storage of water for irrigation makes it impracti- cable to develop any very large amount of continuous power. Besides the 48,000 acres to be irrigated on the Fort Hall Reservation, 6,000 to 10,000 acres are irri- gated by independent or private ditches taking water from the river. ^ The mean discharge of Snake River at Blackfoot during 1911-1914 was 7,930 cubic feet a second. OEEGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 131 7,000 acres and pays $5 a ton for them. The average yield is about 12 tons to the acre, but some tracts under skillful treatment produce 20 to 22 tons. The flat extending from Snake Eiver, 3 miles west of the railroad, to the foot of the hills on the east is aU under irrigation (Htches, practically every acre being cultivated. The agricultural interests of this valley are diversified; no one crop predominates. On either side of the track are fields of alfalfa, barley, oats, potatoes, sugar beets, timothy, and wheat. Apple orchards are common. Many of the highways are lined by trees, and almost every group of farm buildings is shaded and sheltered by Lombardy poplars. This tall poplar, a native of Europe, is a favorite because the trees grow rapidly and, if planted in rows close together, make excellent windbreaks. They are propagated by means of cuttings. While viewing this pros- perous and beautiful rural country the traveler should bear in mind that only a few years ago, not further back than 1885, the entire Snake River plain was one great sagebrush desert, whoUy barren of trees and populated mainly by jack rabbits, coyotes, and rattlesnakes. Wapello in 1914 was a new settlement consisting of a store, a school, and a raih'oad siding. The trees about a mile to the west are on the bank of Snake River, the main stream, of Wapello. southern Idaho. The name of the river is said to Elevation 4,542 feet, i^^ ^j^^ translation of the name of a tribe of Indians, Ogden 164 miles. i oi i i t i • i i the Shoshones, who hve along its banks. The river rises among the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Yellowstone National Park, flows southward, broadening into Jackson Lake, and then northward, and near Rigby, Idaho, is joined by Henrys Fork, locally known as the North Fork, which rises in Henrys Lake, near the Idaho-Montana State fine. The portion of Snake River above Henrys Fork is locally known as the South Fork. These two streams receive numerous tributaries, much of whose water the year round is melted snow. Below the confluence Snake River flows in a general southwesterly course for 150 miles, to a point a short distance below the American FaUs, where it turns nearly westward. The small settlement of Firth, which was started about 1911, is on the Snake River flat or first bottom. A three-span steel highway bridge crosses the river near by. Half a mile north ^'^^*^- of Firth the river itself first comes into sight from the Elevation 4,564 feet. tTSLiu. The bluff rising to the second bottom is just Ogden 169 miles. i -r->- -i j- -r-i- i i east of the track. Five miles east oi l^irtn a second bluff rises about 50 feet to a third flat or bottom. This flat is com- posed of material brought down from the mountains by Blackfoot River and deposited on the plain at the mouth of its canyon. Blackfoot River has had a hard fight for existence. When the earth's crust cracked and broke and quartzites and Hmestones were 132 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. faulted up across the river's course, it kept its place by grinding down its bed. The upturned hard rocks made a mountain range through which the river cut a narrow valley. This valley was afterward flooded with rhyohtic lava and the river had to grind its bed dowii again. After it had regained its grade through the rhyohte that blocked its course a stream of molten basaltic lava flowed down the chaimel, and for a long time all water that came this way was turned to steam. When the hot lava became cold rock Blackfoot River began a third time the task of sawing its bed down to grade. It has now sunk a deep, narrow canyon in the black basalt so deep that the road up the river is on a bench 100 to 300 feet above the stream. The mountains east of Firth and Monroe, rising 7,000 feet above the sea, or 2,500 feet above the plain, are mostly made of limestone of Carboniferous age or older. They contain also younger rocks, but all the beds are so tilted and broken up that their relations are difficult to determine. Some of the mountains are included in the areas of phosphate land withdrawn, for high-grade phosphate rock has been found here by members of the United States Geological Survey. The belt of irrigated land on the west side of Snake River at Firth is very narrow, owing to the fact that the "lavas" are close to the river. By this term is meant the area in which black lava, crumpled into low ridges, makes a rough surface with very httle soil. Many of the ridges are cracked open along their axes as a result of internal movement after the surface of the lava had cooled. These cracked folds are called pressure ridges. The soil on the "lavas" is too poor and thin to be cultivated, and is used only for pasturage. Farther downstream the "lavas" recede from the river bank, and irrigation projects^ have made great tracts of desert available for settlement. 1 Water is diverted from Snake River at the Minidoka dam, 80 miles below Blackfoot, and at the Milner dam, 35 miles farther west. Jackson Lake, in Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone Park, has been made into a great reservoir in which 380,000 acre-feet of water, or enough to cover 380,000 acres to a depth of 1 foot, is now stored by the United States Reclamation Service for use on the Minidoka project. During 1914 work was in progress of raising the dam at the out- let of the lake to such an extent as to make it possible to store 780,000 acre-feet. The expense of this new work is being borne by the North and South Side Twin Falls projects, and the additional water obtained will be used on these projects. The Minidoka project includes 117,090 acres and during 1913 81,518 acres was actually watered. The princiiDal crops raised here are alfalfa, grain, wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, sugar beets, miscel- laneous hay crops, and fruit — chiefly ap- ples. Stock raising and dairying are thriving indu&'tries. At the Milner dam water is diverted fo^* irrigating lands included in the North and South Side Twin Falls projects. The exact area to be irrigated has not been definitely determined but will be about 400,000 acres. Dm-ing 1913 about 150,000 acres lying within the South Side tract was watered and in cultivation. The land is used for alfalfa, wheat, oats, pasture, apples, potatoes, and peas. Sheep and hog raising are profitable industries. The crops raised on the North Side tract are similar. OREGON SHORT LINE OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 133 Monroe. Shelley. Elevation 4,619 foet. Population 537. Ogden 175 miles. Two miles north of Monroe siding and 1^ miles east of the track there is a low sandy hill, on the top of which is the reservoir in which the water supply of Shelley, pumped from a deep well, is stored. Tliis hill is basalt partly mantled Elevation 4,605 feet, ^i^li drifted sand. Northeast of it there is a series Ogden 172 miles. . t p i -i • 01 moving sand dunes extending tor about 8 miles in the direction of the prevailing winds. Shelley is the trading point for several small settlements away from the railroad and is the center of an irrigation district which has been brought to a high grade of cultivation.^ A hydroelectric plant on Snake River, 2 miles north of Shelley, develops about S,0()0 horse- power for use in this part of the valley. West of Shelley the three buttes previously described arc plainly visible far out on the Snake River lava plain. East Butte (PI. XXX, 5, p. 112) appears to have two sharp peaks between which there is a saddle-shaped depression. Big Butte has a less pronounced sag top, and Middle Butte shows a gentle south slope and steep north slope, which indicate that it is not a volcano. To the north- east, beyond the first low range of lava hills, is the crest of the Caribou Range. In very clear weather one can see more than 70 miles away a snowy peak coming into view over the crest of this range. This is Grand Teton, 13,747 feet high, the culminating peak of the range lymg west of Jackson Hole and the largest of the three peaks which have been known as the Tetons or the Pilot Knobs since the members of the Astor expedition fu"st saw them in 1811. (See p. 17.) At Cotton, a railroad siding 3 miles south of Idaho Falls, named for the owner of an adjoining ranch, an electric-power house may be seen on the bank of Snake River. Just north of Bach, another siding IJ miles south of Idaho FaUs, is a grove in Tautphaus Park. This is the local fair ground, where the annual War Bonnet round-up is held. Every September for five days Idaho Falls is thronged with visitors. Tliey come to see cowboys and Indians with their race horses, bucking horses, and wild steers gathered here to amuse the crowd and to con- test for prizes in feats of skill in riding and rope throwing. Tlie War Bonnet round-up is to Idaho what Frontier Day at Cheyenne is to Wyoming and the round-up at Pendleton is to Oregon. Cotton. Elevation 4,661 feet Ogden 179 miles. ^ The variety of products f>f thi.s type of land is shown by the freight shipments made from Shelley from July 1, 1913, to June 30, 1914. According to the state- ment of P. J. Bennett, a notary public in Shelley, the shipments, in carloads, were: Wheat, 49; oats, 34; potatoes, 937; beets, 722; live stock, 104; mill stuff, 37; hay, 25; apples, 6; miscellaneous, 31; total, 1,945 carloads, or more than 74,000,000 pounds. ].'i4 riTTTDEBOOK OP THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. The city of Idaho Falls has a significant name and its site has had an interesting history. Snake River * here falls over the edge of a lava flow, and the incessant wear of the running Idaho Falls. water has cut the falls back into the lava sheet fully Elevation 4,708 feet, j^j^^ ^ uiilc and they are now at the head of a narrow Population 4,827. ^, iiji-i . -j.!.! ogden 184 miles. canyou, the walls 01 which are at one point barely 50 feet apart. Here a toll bridge was built in 1866, and the toll money collected from the freighters over the Utah- Montana trail started a store and the store started a town. The town was called Eagle Rock, because for many years an eagle had a nest on the large rock in the stream just above the bridge. The name was changed to Idaho Falls a few years ago. Snake River forms the west boundary of the city, and the falls, the eagle rock, and the site of the original bridge are only three blocks west of the railroad. Steel was laid on the main line north from Idaho Falls in 1879, and the railroad was completed to Silverbow, 6 miles from Butte, Mont., in 1881. The branch line to Yellowstone was completed in 1906. In 1914 a loop around the vaUey was being built from Idaho Falls northeastward to cross Snake River (South Fork) below Heise Hot Springs and thence go north to St. Anthony. Idaho Falls owes its prosperity to the large quantities of farm products raised in its vicinity and is the most important shipping point between Ogden and Butte. Practically all the land in this part of the valley is in a high state of cultivation under irrigating ditches. The average yield of grain to the acre in the upper Snake River valley, on irrigated and dry land taken together, is estimated to be as follows : Wlieat, 40 bushels; oats, 70 to 75 bushels; potatoes, 200 bushels; and beets, 14 tons. These averages are far below what the successful rancher gets, for oats on irrigated land make from 50 to 120 bushels an acre and weigh from 40 to 44 pounds to the bushel. Two hundred bushels of potatoes is a light yield, 200 sacks or 400 bushels a good yield, and it is reported that as high as 700 bushels an acre have been raised in one 20-acre tract. In 1913 the district between Blackfoot and St. Anthony shipped 5,000 cars of potatoes, Idaho Falls alone being the shipping point for 2,500 cars. Potato bugs are as yet unknown in this region. Wheat on irrigated land yields from 40 to 60 bushels, weighing from 60 to 63 pounds to the bushel. It is re- ported that one tract of 720 acres averaged 38 bushels an acre in 1913, and as much as 70 to 75 bushels an acre has been produced in 10-acre tracts. It is said that almost no commercial fertilizer is shipped to this country. Crop rotation is practiced. When oat fields fail to yield 85 bushels an acre, some ranchers sow them with alfalfa or clov^er for a few years. Seed peas and beans for planting kitchen gardens from Maine to California are grown in the upper Snake River ' The mean discharge of Snake River at Idaho Falls from 1890 to 1892, inclusive, was 10,300 cubic feet a second. OREGON SHORT LINE — OGDEN TO YELLOWSTONE. 135 valley, and a seed-cleaning miU stands near the Idaho Falls station. Raw land with water right sold in 1914 for $40 to $60 an acre, and improved land brought $65 to $160 an acre, depending on the improve- ments, the lay of the land, and the location. Red Duroc Jersey hogs are favorite money makers in this region, and sheep and cattle are ranged in the mountains in summer and pastured at the valley ranches in winter. The honeybee is respected and encouraged to greater industry. One man in this vicinity has 600 colonies of bees and keeps 4 tons of honey for their winter feed. Another bee keeper in the valley has 3,000 colonies. A factory at Idaho Falls extracts, stores, and ships hundreds of tons of aKaKa and sweet-clover honey every year. A round stone tower (used as a tool house), which stands on the lawn at the north end of the Idaho Falls station shows the fitness of the local lavas, rhyolite and basalt, for use as building stone. Soon after leaving the city * the train passes the firet beet-sugar factory built in Idaho. It was erected in 1903 at a cost of a milhon dollars and has added much to the growth of Idaho Falls. Lincoln, a settlement of 300 people aroimd the sugar factory, is reached by a branch line. St. Leon is a siding at the crossing of WiUow Creek. Far to the east, if the air is clear, two of the three Teton peaks are visible, and on the west, 12 miles from Idaho Falls, there is a low, broad, sUghtly sag-topped cinder cone, g en 189 mi es. wliich holds a bowl-shapcd depression about a quarter of a mile in diameter. Near this cone in 1914 there was a single tract of about 2,000 acres of dry-farm wheat. The sagebrush plain just north of Ucon suggests what the whole valley once was, and the fertile fields already passed show what can be done by irrigation. Very little of the soil of the Snake River plain is derived from the basalt on wliich ogden wVmne^'' ^^ hes. There is an abrupt change from the soil to the lava, and the exposed surface of the lava shows prac- tically no trace of disintegration. The soil near the rivers, on their present or former flood plains, is largely river deposit, and that near the mountains is mountain waste, but the fine soil that covers the plains at a distance from the mountains is mainly wind-blown dust, which has accumulated gradually in the centuries since the basalt was poured out The sources of the dust are the naked chffs in the mountains, talus slopes, stream deposits on the margin of the plains, and volcanic ashes. The Market Lake Craters (see p. 137), truncated volcanic cones 10 miles northwest of the track, and other volcanoes of that type threw out large quantities of volcanic dust. A vigorous growth of sagebrush attests the good quaUty of the soil. ^ Mileposta north, of Idaho Falls give the distance from this junction. 136 GUIDEBOOK OP THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. Near Ucoii, iis olsowliero in the valley, all trees except those along Snake River have been planted by the settlers. The main highway from Idaho Falls to Yellowstone Park parallels the railroad for several miles, but farther north it follows section lines, making the distance between towns by the highway somewhat greater than the railroad mileage. North of Ucon the summit of the tliird and lowest of the tlireo Teton peaks comes into view; farther north, at Ash ton, they come into full view. The Teton Mountains were named from an Indian tribe. In "Astoria," Washington Irving's entertaining description of John Jacob Astor's expedilion wliich crossed this country in 1811 on its way to establish a trading post at the mouth of the Columbia, there is the following reference to these mountains: September 15 one of the guides i^oiiited lo throe mountain peaks glistening with snow, wliich rose, he said, above a fork of Columbia River. These remarkable peaks are known to some travelers as the Tetons; as they had been guiding points for many days to Mr. Hunt, he gave them the name of the Pilot Knobs. The Astor party came into Idaho near Victor, the present terminus of a branch of the Oregon Short Line at the west foot of the Tetons, and followed down the valley of Teton River, reaching Henrys (North) Fork of Snake River near the present site of St. Anthony, where there was then a "fort" estal)lished by Mr. Henry, of the Missouri Fur Co. At the fort they Iniilt canoes and started down Snake River. The next day they reached some falls about 30 feet high, took another day to portage around them, and then pursued their journey southward from the present site of Idaho Falls. They soon found the river unnavigable, had to abandon their canoes and strike across country, and endured terrible privations the following winter, the account of which is told in thrilling narrative by Irving. A branch railroad running northwest from Ucon passes through Menan, 2 miles south of the Market Lake Craters. Rigby is the largest town in the east end of Jefferson County and is the trading and shipping point for an agricultural district having a population of several thousand. It was organized in ^'^^y- 1886 by tlie Mormon apostle John W. Taylor, from Elevation 4,s5i feet. Utah, and William F. Rigby, of the local church Population 555. i • ■ i f •" i i- i i • ogden 198 miles. authorities. A post ofhce was established m 1888, and the railroad came in 1899. Within 15 or 20 miles above Rigby, on Snake River, are the headgates of a dozen or more canals in one stretch of the river — a canal every three-quarters of a mile. Tliese canals, when full, carry every minute enough water to flood 8^ acres to a depth of more than 1 foot. This great system of canals was built not by the Government or by promoters, but by the ranchers whose land they irrigate. The first canals were built between OREGON SIJOItT TJNK — 0(!T)KN TO VKI.LOWSTONK. 137 1879 and 1,S,S4, wlum sottlcmorit ho.^nu in Miis section, Potatoos are tho l(uulin<; crop near Ki^by and a common yi(^ld is 300 bushels an aero. Under especially favorable conditions of soil treatment 700 ])ushels are said to have boon taken from 1 aero. Wheat is reported to average a])out 45 bushels an acre, oats 65 bushels an aero, and beets 20 tons an acre. Ileise Hot Springs, 1 1 miles east of Iligl)y, is a resort on the north bank of Snake liivcu- (South P\)rk), at tlu^ foot of tlu^ wall formed by rhyolite tilted and oveilain by horiz(mtal younger lava flows. A log hoiol that will accommodate about 150 guests and a ])athhouse with two concrete pools have been built at liot springs wliich issue from the bank of the river. Tlie springs have temperatures of 126° to 140° Fahrenheit. The wat(^r smells ol' sulphur and is strongly mineralized. Bathing in it is said to relieve rlieumatism. Fishing is popular at this resort in summer and elk hunting in winter. For a number of miles north of Iligby the railroad crosses a delta- like deposit ])uilt by Snake River. The stream brings great quanti- ties of sediment down from the mountains, and here, on the Snake River plain, where the grade of the stream is decreased and its velocity is slackened, much of its load has been dropped. As a result, a low, broad fan has been built up, across which the river now flows in a mnnber of cliannels. Henrys Fork joins Snake River at the ])ase of the two craters seen a few miles to the west. Between Rigby and Lorenzo the railroad crosses tho "dry bed" of Snake River. This was fonnerly tho main watercourse, but in 1894 tho current shifted to the channel it now occupies, north of Lorenzo. At times there is water in the old channel, as part of its upper course is used as an irrigating canal. The boot-loading platform at Lorenzo indicates one of the principal crops in this vicinity. Just after passing the station the train crosses tlio main chaimcl of Snake River, which at this point is 500 feet wido.^ The Market Lake Craters, 4 miles west of Lorenzo, are two low buttes, ])road of base, with gently sloping sides and broad tops, rising 500 to 600 feet above the surroimding plain. Each butte lias an oval base measuring about 1 ])y 2 miles, and each has a well-defined crater in its summit about half a mile in diameter and 150 to 200 feet deep. Tho beds of ejected material slope away in all directions at sharp angles around the rims LoreHzo. KloviUion 'l,S(10 foot. Population 379.* Ogdon 202 miles. ' The (lificharf^e of Snako Rivor at TIeisn Hot S])ringH, about ]() miloH above this bri(lf,'o, ill 1910-T913, avoraged