SUEVEY OF COLORADO AND NEW MEXICO. ' 45 



lig'lit brick-red, and deep, dull, pnrx)lisli sandstones. Here again tlie 

 sandstones are worn into wonderful sliapes — columns, peaks, &c. All the 

 sedimentary rocks are reduced to a narrow belt, and the ridges are 

 crowded together into a space of hardly a mile in width, and on the foot- 

 hills of the mountains are the deep, dull, red sandstones and limestones 

 of the carboniferous resting npon the red granites. The walls of the 

 Camp Creek caSon show all the carboniferous beds in their relation with 

 the granites most perfectly. Upon the Aveathered surface of the reddish 

 limestones I found a number of specimens of brachiqpodous shells. 



A short distance north of this caiion, the Jurassic and carboniferous 

 beds are seen in a nearly vertical position, and lying in perfect apposi- 

 tion, showing complete continuity. It is therefore my opinion that there 

 is no discordancy in the unchanged beds, from the granites up to the 

 Monument Creek group. The latter never conform to the beds below, 

 Avhile I am inclined to regard all the instances of apparent conformity 

 of the sedimentary rocks with the metamorphic as not real but accidental. 



As the ridges emerge from beneath the Monument Creek group a;t the 

 north end of "the second Garden of the Gods, the trend is a little east of 

 south, and they finally bend around so that they jut up against the 

 base of the mountains a little way south of Colorado City, with a trend 

 nearly east and west. 



About five miles east of the base of the mountains, and four miles 

 northeast of Colorado City, Mr. Gehrung has a land claim where a coal . 

 bed crops out of the bank of a creek. Above the coal is about eight or 

 t(!n feet of clay, and below there is also a bed of clay, and the coal 

 above and below gradually passes into the clay. This clay is filled 

 with fragments of vegetable matter, some seeds and plants. The clay 

 passes up into fine sand. In the distant hills, the beds of whitish mas- 

 sive sandstones are weathered into fortification -like bluffs. The coal is 

 very light, varies much in thickness, from a few inches to five or six feet, 

 and seems to be a sort of jet. There are several other localities where 

 the carbonaceous clay crops out in the valleys of the little branches, and 

 it occurs iu the Monument Creek group, and therefore must be of very 

 modern date. There are also, in the clays above and below the coal, con- 

 siderable quantities of impure broAvn iron ore. 



Perhaps the feature of the greatest general interest in this region is 

 the Soda Springs, which are located about three miles above Colorado 

 Cit5% in the valley of Fountain Creek. The water issues from the ground 

 very near the junction of the sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, close 

 by the base of Pike's Peak. The scenery around them is grand beyond 

 any that I have ever seen in the vicinity of any other medicinal springs. 



There are four of them. The first one is close to the road and within fifty 

 feet of the creek, and perhaps at this time ten or fifteen feet above its 

 bed. The violent bubbling up of the water would indicate the issue of 

 a large supply, but there can hardly be a gallon a minute. For a 

 distance of sixty feet or more around the spring there is a deposit or 

 incrustation in thin layers. Its thickness I could not determine, 

 though it is probably not more than six or eight feet. About twenty- 

 five feet west of the present opening there is another which formerly 

 gave exit to the water. It is about five inches in diameter. The sediments 

 deposited around these springs seem to be filled up with foreign mat- 

 ter, introduced during deposition. Portions of the deposit are very 

 hard and filled with small cavities, lined with a whitish, partially crys- 

 talline material, probably carbonate of lime or gypsum. 



About one hundred yards above the first spring is the second one, 

 on the right side of the creek. This is much the largest one and 



