258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



We soon began to climl) up the eastern side of them ; 

 and a very steep chmb it was, the summit level of the 

 Central Pacific railroad, at Sherman, being 8,200 feet above 

 the sea. After this is reached there is, on the whole, a 

 descending grade into the great central basin of which the 

 Salt Lake is the lowest point, about 4,000 feet above sea- 

 level. 



It is a common mistake to consider the Rocky 

 Mountains as a single, well-defined range of mountain 

 summits, just as a traveller by the Midland line from 

 Birmingham to Bristol, observing the escarpment of the 

 Cotteswolds on his left hand, might think that they were 

 a range of hills, narrciw and isolated like the Malvern Hills 

 on his right. He would soon find out his error if he left 

 the Midland line at Stonehouse, and climbed by the Great 

 Western Railwav uj) the Stroud \'alley to Swindon and 

 Reading. He would then sec that the ('otteswold Hills 

 are reallv an elevated i>lateau, sloping gradually towards 

 the E., but with no well-defined "other side." The .same 

 is true of the Rockies, on a very much larger scale. They 

 consist of a high plateau, or rather, a series of plateaux, 

 with an average elevation of 6.000-7,000 feet above sea- 

 level, on which rise here and there immense rocky masses 

 such as the range of the Wahsatch Mountains, Mount 

 Washbourn (10,340 feet), and above all (in every sense of 

 the words) the three gigantic Tetons (14,000 feet), which 

 form landmarks visible throughout the whole region. 

 Such prominences are strictly comparalde to the Malverns, 

 consisting as they do of volcanic materials forced up 

 through the older sedimentary strata which flank them on 

 all sides. But hf^re the resemblance to our familiar 

 district ends, for .since the protrusion of these massive 

 peaks and ridges, outbursts of lava have occurred on a 

 scale to which we find no parallel in Great Britain, though 

 in chemical characters and geological age we may compare 

 them to the formations observed in the West of Scotland 



