58 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Wahsatch as the western side, and the great Wind river 

 range, with the westward members of the Rocky moun- 

 tain chain as its eastern boundary." It is a great plain 

 intersected by numerous canons, the whole having a desert 

 aspect. Every part of this basin has an altitude of more 

 than 5,000 feet. A portion of the Uintah basin, on the 

 other hand, has an elevation of less than 5,000 feet. The 

 desert features on the south side of the range in the 

 Uintah basin are even more marked than on the north 

 side. The red Jurassic sandstone is intersected by deep 

 canons. These contain no perennial streams between 

 Ashley creek and Farm creek to the west. The only tree 

 found here is the western cedar {Juniperus occidenfalis var 

 monospenna), and an abundance of Artemisia tridenfata, 

 with the associated desert herbaceous plants. The shorter 

 tributaries of Green river rising in the foothills carry 

 water only during the spring months; in July and August 

 the water stands in small pools. The tertiary plateaus 

 which may be seen as escarpements along Green river and 

 all of the larger tributaries, rise from 200 feet to 700 feet 

 above the flood-plains of the streams. 



These plateaus likewise support a desert vegetation, 

 although towards the foothills shrubs like Anielanchier 

 alnifolia and Symphoricarpos grow in greater abundance 

 than along Green river. From the base of the tertiary 

 plain, through a series of gentle rises, the foothills and 

 mountains may be approached. The long parallel ridges 

 on the south side are less marked than on the north slopes 

 of the mountains. 



Clarence A. King in a terse paragraph describes this 

 range as follows: "The only one of the great boundary 

 mountain ranges that encompass the Green River basin is 

 the Uintah range which forms the southern barrier to the 

 basin. It is an immense single mountain block about 150 

 miles long, having an average elevation of 10,000 to 11,000 

 feet, and rising at its culminating point, Emmon's Peak, 

 to 13,694 feet. It is defined both on the north and on the 

 south by tertiary table-lands which abut unconformably 



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