204 GEOLOGY OP THE HIGH PLATEAUS. 



tinguishable in composition and texture from ordinary sediments derived 

 from ordinary materials. Nor is tlieir exact age assignable, since they have 

 yielded no fossils, but the probabilities are great that they are not far from 

 middle Eocene age. 



Beneath them lies what is called the Pink Cliff series, which is known 

 to be Lower Eocene.* At the base brackish -water fossils are found, which 

 give place as we ascend to a fresh-water fauna. The upper members are 

 limestones, • which are usually more or less siliceous, and the silica in- 

 creases in the lower members, where gravelly beds, layers of sandstone, 

 and even conglomerate are found. The highly calcareous members strongly 

 predominate. The coloring is always striking and vies in brilliancy with 

 the Triassic beds. The highest member is frequently almost snow-white, 

 with a band of strong orange-yellow beneath it. But the great mass of 

 color is a pale rosy-pink. When the sun is low and sends his nearly 

 level beams of reddish light against the towering fronts and mazes of 

 buttresses, alcoves, and pinnacles, they seem to glow with a rare color, 

 intensely rich and beautiful — ^flesh-of-watermelon color is the nearest hue I 

 can suggest. Some of the beds do not naturally possess this color, but 

 have been painted superficially by the wash from the beds above them, or 

 possibly have taken on the color through exposure, while they are yellow 

 within. 



The identity of these beds with the Bitter Creek of the Wasatch Pla- 

 teau and of the Uintas seems clear. The connection by actual continuity is, 

 indeed, wanting, but the fossils, though few, are convincing, and the rela- 

 tions to the Cretaceous beneath are strictly homologous to those which pre- 

 vail farther north. Some doubt arises whether the white limestone which 

 caps the series should be referred to the Bitter Creek or to the Green River 

 beds. Mr. Howell, whose opinions are of great weight, inclined to the lat- 

 ter view, and thought that one of the members of the Wasatch Plateau 

 (No. 2), which I have referred to the Lower Green River period, was want- 

 ing, and that the white limestone should be correlated to those beds which 

 I have referred doubtfully to the Upper Green River. It is true that two 



*I uso tbo term Eoccno in its local sense. It mayor may not be coeval with the European 

 Eocene. Probably it is very nearly so. 



