160 The Rocks of the John Day Valley. 



their alkaline waters and unproductive soils, 

 the geologist feels at home. How strangely 

 out of place a score of palm trees, a hundred 

 yew trees, or even a bank of ferns, would seem 

 here now, and yet here these once lived and 

 died and were buried, and beautiful beyond 

 description are their fossil remains even now, 

 as they are unburied. 



Seen from the summit of Kern Creek hill, 

 its western border, this vast amphitheater of 

 lesser hills presents a wild, wonderful group- 

 ing of varied outlines and colors. A spur of 

 the Blue mountains its nearest point forty 

 miles away covered with a dense forest, 

 forms the dark background of the view. The 

 varying shades of brown that characterize the 

 older marine rocks rise in vast border masses, 

 almost treeless and shrubless, in an inner, ir- 

 regular circle, while the lighter shades that 

 fill the deeper depressions of the central por- 

 tion mark the later sedimentary deposits; and 

 then, like vast ink blots on a painting, one 

 sees, here and there, a protruding mass of 

 dark colored trap. Through the heart of this 



