954 Transactions of the American Institute. 



red flame, giving out a good degree of heat, leaving scarcely any 

 ash, and is quite as desirable fuel for domestic purposes as any 

 wood. Indeed, it might be called condensed dry wood. It is 

 non-bituminous, exhibits just a trace of .sulphuret of iron, which, 

 decomposing, gives a rusty reddish appearance to the outcrops; 

 and there are seams of jet, one to twelve inches in thickness, 

 which looks much like cannel coal, and is thus termed by the 

 miners. The Union Pacific railroad will pass directly through 

 these great coal fields, and, as most of the freight will go westward 

 for many years, the cars on their return can be loaded with this 

 lignite, thus to be distributed through Nebraska at a cost much 

 less than that of wood at the present time. There are also indica- 

 tions of an abundance of iron ore in the vicinity of these deposits, 

 and the Union Pacific Railroad Company contemplate establishing 

 rolling mills in the Laramie plains, at no distant period. 



The next point visited was South Boulder creek, the Marshall 

 mines, which are probably the most valuable in the West. They 

 have been wrought for four or five years. An average of fifty tons 

 daily are taken out and sold at Denver, varying in prices from 

 twelve to fifteen dollars per ton. The beds at the foot of the 

 mountain dip to such an extent as to expose the whole series, 

 eleven in number, varying from three to thirteen feet in thickness, 

 making from thirty to fifty feet, at least, of solid lignite. Another 

 mine has been opened al)out twenty miles south of Cheyenne City, 

 on Pole creek. The lignite here grows better in quality as it is 

 wrought farther into the earth, and is sold readily at Cheyenne 

 City for twenty-five dollars per ton. The summit of the hills near 

 this bed of lignite is covered with loose oyster shells, and there 

 must have been a thickness of four feet or more almost entirely 

 composed of them. The species seems to be identical with the 

 one found in a similar geological position in tlie lower lignite beds 

 of the Upper Missouri, near Fort Clark, and at the mouth of the 

 Judith river, and doubtless was an inhabitant of the brackish waters 

 which must have existed about the dawn, of the tertiary period in 

 the West. These lignite beds are exposed in many localities all 

 along the eastern base of the mountains. According to the explo- 

 rations of Dr. J. L. le Conte, during the past season, these same 

 •lignite formations extend far southward into New Mexico, on both 

 sides of the Rocky Mountains. It is probable that no true coal 

 will ever be found west of longitude 96° and it becomes, there- 

 fore, a most important question to ascertain the real value of these 



