26 COLORADO COLLEGE STUDIES. 



tern of sculpture that is best designated as cone-and-gully 

 erosion, consisting of alternate cones (more strictly semi- 

 cones) and rain-gullies. The cones are sometimes arranged 

 in a close and remarkably uniform palisade -like series on 

 the face of a rampart-like or amphitheater-like bluff, and in 

 such instances are calculated to arrest the attention even of 

 those most indifferent to natural phenomena. Such a pali- 

 sade of cones may conveniently be called a conarium. 

 When viewed at a moderate distance, it recalls the arrange- 

 ment of points on a backgammon-board. Occasionally the 

 adjacent conaria of two parallel ravines meet, producing a 

 sharp serriform spur running out upon a base- level of eros- 

 ion. An example of the latter sort (doubtless short-lived 

 in its destiny) is seen near the road from the old Eldred 

 postoffice to .^tna. On the whole, the outcrop of the 

 Flower-pot clays, with its conaria and occasional pinnacles 

 and buttresses, presents a type of erosion similar in many 

 respects to that of the northern Tertiary "Bad Lands." 

 Its mineral-surcharged character renders its occasional 

 smoother tracts little less barren than the ruggeder portions, 

 so that the Flower-pot lands are generally waste-lands. 



From the eastern ( scarpment of the Gypsum hills 

 northwestward in the bluffs of the Medicine Lodge river and 

 its tributaries, the Flower-pot formation may be seen in 

 diminishing exposures, as it gradually descends below the 

 river- valley. It disappears under the latter a few miles 

 below Belvidere. It appears in the divide between East 

 Cedar and Little Mule creeks; on the upper branches of 

 the latter; and on the Salt fork drainage, from the Eldred 

 district on the north and the eastern promontor}^ of the 

 Cimarron-Salt fork divide on the south, northwestward to 

 a point above the mouth of Cave creek. It extends up 

 Big Mule creek at least seven or eight miles from its mouth. 

 It is well displayed in both bluffs of the Cimarron river at 

 the Great Salt plain, and thence down that stream to an 

 unknown distance beyond the bridge of the Panhandle 



