﻿20 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS \0L. 76 



O. Hayes, professor of Geology at Brigham Young University, Provo, 

 Utah, joined the party for a week's work near the end of the season 

 in the Wasatch and Bear Lake Mountains. 



Passing hy the beautiful Rul)y Range (fig. 25) the party proceeded 

 to Eureka, Nevada, where the first two weeks were spent in this region 

 made classic by Dr. Walcott's monograph of 1886. Large collections 

 were secured here supplementing those made by Dr. Walcott in the 

 early days when the district was densely populated and the producer 

 of great quantities of silver and gold. Now it is largely abandoned 

 like the other older mining districts, but more knowledge of the 

 geology is necessary because at the present time several large mining 

 companies are making an intensive search to find any ore bodies that 

 may lie beyond the older workings. 



A rapid survey was then made of the Schell Creek, Egan and Snake 

 Ranges in eastern Nevada, all typical Basin Ranges where Cambrian 

 beds are brought to the surface at many places. A most excellent and 

 important section was found in Patterson Canyon. 50 miles south of 

 Ely in the Schell Creek Range, but as it is eight miles by very steep 

 road from the nearest water and 50 miles from the nearest gasoline 

 station, through a wide desert (fig. 26), only one trip could be made 

 to it from the spring at the Geyser Ranch. 



A large collection of Cambrian fossils was secured along the Lincoln 

 Highway just west of the summit on Schellbourne Pass. Thousands 

 of tourists pass this way each season, for the party was joined in its 

 camps along this highway invariably by numerous other parties repre- 

 senting every type of American citizen. 



In the drier portions of the world the universal and absolute control 

 exercised by water on the position of man's habitation and manner 

 of living is the more apparent. In the Great Basin one finds no 

 dwellings except where water can be secured and the size of the 

 unit of dwellings is determined altogether by the amount of water. 

 Thus one may find a single individual at a small spring, a small ranch 

 at the end of a small stream and a large ranch or groups of ranches 

 where the stream carries more water. The copper ores from the Ruth- 

 Kimberley District must be carried 30 miles across Steptoe Valley to 

 the concentrators and smelters at McGill, situated on Duck Creek, 

 the largest stream in this region. To conserve the water supply the 

 ranches formerly depending on this stream have been abandoned and 

 the water is piped to the ])lant to avoid the loss in the natural stream 

 bed. The higher ranges catch the greater amount of snow and rain 

 and so the denser populations arc located along their foot. 



