GEOLOGICAL REPORT. 323 



rent flowing from the canon. It is evidently a recent deposit, and would at once lead 

 to the conclusion that a larger auriferous bed must he found higher up in the canon 

 In fact, a short time before we came there, -old had been discovered some seven miles 

 above, on a branch of this canon. The di<rgiiu>-s there are in a rotten quartz, and paid 

 high. As much as 8l5o had been made bV~a man in a da v. This is close bv the non- 

 famous Comstock lode. 



Gold, has also been found north and south of our route, on the upper course of 

 Walker River, &c. 



In the Black Mountains, east of Carson Lake, a quartz-vein was noticed with 

 altered argillaceous slates, gneiss, &c, but the hurried examination did not reveal anv 

 indications of gold. We must leave it to more detailed investigations to decide whether 

 gold occurs in the more eastern ranges of Utah. No direct indications have been ob- 

 served. Still we find at some points metamorphic rocks similar to those with which 

 the gold is frequently associated in the Sierra Nevada: and these ranges seem to have 

 been originated by the same forces which have raised the Siena Nevada, and to have 

 been subject to the same agencies upon which its metallic wealth seems to depend. 

 Moreover, Mr. Blake, in Captain Whipple's Pacific Railroad Report, mentions gold- 

 diggings in another part of the basin, namely, the Annngosa mine, near the southern 

 road from Salt Lake to California, not many miles bevond the sink of the Mojave 

 River, where the gold was found in connection with calcareous spar. 



Silver.— At the time of our survey nothing definite was known in regard to the 

 existence of silver in the basin. Rumors located argentiferous veins in the southern 

 part of Utah. Recently rich silver-ore has been found in the close vicinity of the gold- 

 mines of Carson River, in the so-called Washoe mines, which just now create so much 

 excitement. 



Lead. — Minute particles of galena were noticed in an impure brown hematite, or 

 a decomposed, highly ferruginous igneous rock, which crops out in the mountains 

 northeast of Kobah Valley. It appears to be connected with a mineral vein, perhaps 

 of argentiferous lead. Some pieces of galena (sulphuret of lead) were exhibited at 

 Camp Floyd as coming from the vicinity. Ores of lead, and perhaps copper and 

 silver, may exist further south. 



in the mountains near Cedar City, a small Mormon settlement not far from Little Salt 

 Lake, longitude 113°, latitude 38°. An attempt was once made there to manufacture 

 iron, but it failed. I am not aware of the particulars and the reason whv, but if the 

 increased demand for iron and its price warranted it, the experiment might be renewed, 

 and the obstacles probably be overcome by an experienced metallurgist, notwith- 

 standing the apparently interior quality of the coal which is found in that neighbor- 

 hood, and upon which die manufacturers would have to depend. 



Native sulphur is found in the same vicinity. In the collection 1 have a specimen 

 (obtained from Dr. Brewer, United States Army) which is very pure, but I have been 

 unable to get any information in regard to the quantity and connection in which it 

 occurs. It may be the production of extinguished volcanic action. If it could be 



