GEOLOGICAL REPORT. 309 



not hitherto known so far West. Referring to Mr. Meek's report, I will (-online myself 

 to some general remarks, and describe the rocks more fully in the subjoined enumera- 

 tion of the single mountain ranges. 



Stratified rocks of the Paleozoic age were found extensively developed many 

 hundreds of feet in thickness. A large portion of them belong to the Upper Carbon- 

 iferous formation, the existence of which near Salt Lake had been proved by Trot'. I. 

 Hall, from collections brought in by Captain Stansbury and others. It is principally 

 composed of dark gray and bluish siliceous or silico-argillaceous limestones, with sili- 

 cious or calcareous shires, and some siliceous or calcareous sandstones. 



With this series of rocks, as exposed in the Timpanogos Canon, west of Lake 

 Utah, I found fragments of Lephloihndron in a slate rock, and in the same mountains 

 also a series of bluish-black argillaceous shales, containing a great deal of carbona- 

 ceous matter. Captain Simpson obtained there some pieres which are a mixture of 

 such shale with small particles of brittle anthracite. From this we infer that the 

 waters there at one time must have been shallow, and dry land probably near, and 

 that conditions must have prevailed favoring the growth of coal-plants, although, per- 

 haps, not sufficient to produce strata of coal. Examining the shales at several points, 

 I found the carbonaceous matter only disseminated in small particles, but in other 

 places it may be more frequent, and concentrated in pockets, and even strata of coal. 



As the indications of coal of true Carboniferous date are more favorable there 

 than at any other point examined in the far West, they ought to be followed up. The 

 question whether stone-coal of the Carboniferous age exists here is of superior importance 

 at the present time, when the communication by rail with the Pacific State- has become 

 a political necessity. Even if a railroad should not be located in that immediate 

 vicinity, a thorough investigation of the subject would be desirable. If coal was 

 found in one place, geologists would be enabled to trace it to distant points, even 

 where it is now concealed by overlying formations or recent deposits. 



In San Pete Valley, about one degree of latitude farther south, in the same 

 mountain range, a coal has been found superior to any which I have seen west of the 

 Mississippi coal-basin, and which would furnish a most valuable fuel for locomotives. 

 I have not examined the locality myself. It might perhaps be a true stone-coal, and 

 be connected with the above shales; but from all that I have been able to learn about 

 the formation, I am confident that it is an equivalent of the Sulphur Creek coal of 

 more recent origin, and associated with the rocks which are developed on the eastern 

 slope of the Wahsatch range. (See section IV.)* 



The Upper Carboniferous strata, wherever observed before in the western portion 

 of the continent, seem to have been formed at the bottom of a deep ocean, which 

 precludes the formation of coal.f Prof. I. Hall, in his Report of the Geological Sur- 

 vey of Iowa, vol. i, part i, p. 138, and also in the Report of the Mexican Boundary 

 Survey, vol. i, makes use of the following language: "The conditions favorable for 

 the production of an extensive deposit of marine limestone are not such as usually 

 accompany the production of coal. * * * The evidences of the existence 



* Tbia opinion has since proved correct, 

 eastern portion of the Rocky M< uutaiiis. but th. proceedings have not yet been published. 



