48 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



mountains — have been formed. Carter's Lake, a most beautiful little sheet 

 of water at the head of Smith's Fork, is formed in that way ; it is about 

 three hundred yards long, and fifty to one hundred wide. These little 

 accumulations of water occur at all elevations from the foot of the 

 mountains to the crest j and in looking from the high mountain divide, 

 down the valleys of Bear Biver or Black's Fork, they appear like gems 

 set in the landscape as their waters glisten in the sunlight. In many 

 instances these little lakes are surrounded with tall pines, which cast 

 their shadows across the waters with such sharp outlines that they have 

 become favorite subjects for the photographer; thus we have the 

 beautiful pictures of " shadow lakes." I have described this ridge more 

 in detail from the fact that it supplied me with a key to an important 

 portion of the history of this curious mountainous range which was 

 before very obscure. 



I think the Uinta Mountains might be divided into three belts or 

 zones, parallel with the axis: 1. The tertiary beds at the base lap- 

 ping on the sides of the foot-hills for a short distance ; 2. A broad belt, 

 fifteen to twenty miles in width, covered with a vast deposit of drift, and 

 so covered with vegetation, and so smoothed down to the water's edge 

 of all the streams, that the basis rocks are entirely concealed from view, 

 and it is only by the accident of a land slide the character or ex- 

 tent of this modern drift deposite can be ascertained, but inasmuch as 

 it has given the most prominent surface feature to this range it is worthy 

 of our careful study. The third belt comprises the central portion, which 

 is covered with sharp peaks rising eleven thousand to twelve thousand 

 feet above the sea, varying in width from ten to twenty miles. This is 

 the most rugged and inaccessible portion of the range, and is composed 

 of high ridges of upheaval, parallel to the axis of elevation, and the 

 strata inclining from it. These three belts will be described in detail as 

 we proceed from point to point. 



Leaving that portion of the ridge that separates the waters of Bear 

 Biver and Muddy Creek, we passed along a sharp crest to a broad, 

 sloping, plateau-like area between Black's Fork and the east branch 

 of Bear Biver. We thus see at a glance that not only the greater part 

 of the water of the main streams that issue from the mountain origi- 

 nates in this second or middle belt, but that some of the important 

 streams are entirely fed from springs that flow out of these grassy or 

 wooded slopes. In ascending the " plateau slope " above mentioned we 

 pass around the fountains of half a dozen branches of Muddy Biver, which 

 in the plains become quite important trout streams, varying from ten to 

 thirty feet in width. As we passed up this ridge toward the water divide, 

 sometimes it would expand out three to five miles in width, with thick 

 forests of pine or broad, meadow-like openings covered with a thick growth 

 of grass. Then it would become so narrow that we could look into the 

 magnificent, gorge-like valleys of the rivers on either side. The surface 

 is covered thickly with transported rocks, mostly of reddish sandstones 

 and quartzites ot the mountain nucleus. We made our camp in the edge of 

 the spruce forest, at the upper side of a beautiful grassy meadow of about 

 one thousand acres in extent, near a fine spring, ten thousand three 

 hundred and eight feet above tide water. The sky was clear and the 

 weather mild. We slept on the ground in the open air with a satisfac- 

 tion which we shall not soon forget. Our animals drank the mountain 

 water and cropped the sweet, nutritious grass as delighted as ourselves. 

 We were about ten miles in a direct line from the axis of elevation. The 

 course of Black's Fork is nearly north, while the branches of Bear 

 Biver flow northwest. Our camp was within a few hundred yards of 



