168 GEOLOGICAL SUEYEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



servation where the proofs seem to be so conclusive ; and yet I wish to 

 make a still more careful examination of this • locality before I commit 

 myself fully. My reading of the rocks is, that they are either upper 

 cretaceous, above what we have usually regarded as No. 5, or a portion 

 of my transition series, more purely marine in their character than 

 usual. 



If it is true that there must have been such a continuity in the pro- 

 gress of events during geological times that there can be no general phys- 

 ical line of separation between any of the great periods, and that the 

 names Jurassic, cretaceous, or tertiary are merely terms of convenience— 

 milestones, as it were, to mark steps of time — then why should not cer- 

 tain marine forms of life extend up into the lower eocene, or in other 

 words, did not the cretaceous deposits at certain localities continue on 

 up, unchanged, into tertiary time'? Whether the coal strata of the 

 West are of cretaceous or tertiary age, or both, is a matter of indifference 

 to me ; I only wish to discuss the subject from time to time, as the occa- 

 sion offers, in the light of such facts as I can secure. The geologist is 

 simply the interpreter of nature. He must seek to read the records as 

 the Creator has written them upon the tablets of stone, and his ob- 

 servations will be of permanent value only when he is able to arrive at 

 the true reading. Experience has shown that with a simple love of the 

 truth, untrammeled by tradition or preconceived notions one is led step 

 by step, slowly, perhaps, and through many difficulties, but eventually, 

 to the light. 



We will now pass rapidly down the valley of the Weber Eiver. The 

 geological structure is very complicated, and there is much that is 

 yet obscure. We only hope, at present, to contribute something toward 

 a knowledge of it. Every year we hope to gather more facts and ex- 

 tend our examinations over larger areas. Before proceeding further we 

 might say a word in regard to the conglomerates which form the most 

 conspicuous feature in the geology of this region. I now regard the 

 whole group as distinct from any other — a separate lake basin. The east- 

 ern shore of it may be regarded as the same as the eastern rim of the 

 great basin, of which Salt Lake Valley forms a part. The great thick- 

 ness of variegated clays, sands, and sandstones, which we see from Car- 

 ter Station to the middle of Echo Canon, lie beneath the vast body 

 of conglomerates in Echo and AVeber Valleys. I have never been able 

 to find a single well-defined fossil in this group, only a few small frag- 

 ments of the shell of a fresh- water turtle. It occupies so large an area 

 that it seems to me more careful explorations must bring to light some 

 organic remains. From physical evidence I am inclined to the belief 

 that it began its existence after that of the Green Eiver Group, but be- 

 fore the close of that period and extending up through the time of the 

 deposition of the Bridger Group ; that is, the conglomerates are prob- 

 ably on a parallel with the Bridger Group, or upper miocene. These 

 conglomerates originally extended entirely across the Wasatch Moun- 

 tains. In City Creek Canon, on the west side of the range, these con- 

 glomerates are finely shown, a thousand feet or more in thickness, in- 

 clining from the range. There is the same evidence of want of con- 

 formity as is shown near the " Narrows," but no rocks more recent than 

 the Jurassic limestones were observed between them. I do not doubt 

 that further to the southward both cretaceous and older tertiary beds 

 occur on the flanks of the mountains. The immense thickness of strata 

 exposed in the Weber Valley seems to be made up, so far as I can as- 

 certain, of Jurassic, triassic, and carboniferous rocks. Near Morgan 

 Station, in limestones which appear to hold a position at the base of the 



