38 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



grows liigli up on the mouutain-side, so that it is remarkably well adapted 

 for dairy purposes. A large amount of the best butter and cheese is 

 made, and the demand is greater than the supply, as yet. 



Most of the hardy garden-vegetables and some of the cereals grow 

 well at an elevation of 6,000 to 8,000 feet. These mountain -ranches are 

 every year filling up the more elevated regions of Colorado, so that we 

 may conclude that no portion of the Territory, even aside from the min- 

 eral wealth, is practically unavailable to man. 



From the high mountain-hills that border the north side of the South 

 Park we have a fine view of the great basin-like depression. The sur- 

 face of this basin is not entirely a plain, but is covered to a greater or 

 less extent with low ridges and hills, which trend about southeast and 

 northwest. The dish-shaped character of the depression, as well as its 

 origin, is plain, when we come to examine the borders. We find the 

 sedimentary rocks lying high up on the sides, showing clearly that these 

 strata incline in every direction toward a common center. In other 

 words, the South Park may be regarded as an immense quaquaversal. 

 On the north border, the sedimentary rocks are very much obscured by 

 the great deposit of mountain-drift and the igneous rocks that seem to 

 concentrate there to a great extent. . Fragments of sandstone, appar- 

 ently of the Triassic group, cover the hills, and here and there we see 

 an outcrop of the main beds, but not sufficient to make a connected sec- 

 tion. At one locality there was a circular depression surrounded with 

 a wall of trachyte, with a small lake in the center, which was undoubt- 

 edly an old crater. There is also a great thickness of trachyte here in 

 layers, varying from an inch to a foot in thickness, inclining from the 

 hill at first 4.5°, then increasing to 65^, showing that after the first out- 

 flow had cooled there were subsequent outflows elevating the cooled 

 IJortions at a high angle. 



Passing along the road to the southwest, toward Fairplay, w^e see all 

 along the boarders of the park a terrace, which seems to have such a 

 uniformity of level that it points to the existence of a lake here at a 

 comparatively modern period. There is also a very beautiful valley like 

 area here, which occupies about one hundred square miles. I^Tear Lech- 

 ners ranch a shaft has been sunk about 30 feet deep, cutting a coal-bed 

 about 12 feet in thickness, with a dip of 45° northeast,- and a strike 

 south 450 east. The clay above the coal is about 6 inches, and be- 

 low the coal 10 inches thick. Below the lower clay is a sandstone, at 

 the bottom of the shaft, and aboye the upper clay a bed of yellow soft 

 sandstone. About 200 yards to the west another shaft has been sunk, 

 exposing a bed of coal 6 feet thick. I am inclined to t'hink tnere are 

 two- different coal-beds here, though there may be but one. The slope 

 underlaid by the coal strata extends up close to the sides of the mount- 

 ain, and the surface is so covered with drift that it is only by means of 

 these shafts that the Lignitic beds can be seen at all. A few fragments 

 of deciduous leaves have been collected here, showing clearly that a 

 portion of the Lignitic group, as seen on the east side of the mountain- 

 range, occurs here. 



As we pass along the road to Fairplay, we travel over the entire series 

 of sedimentary beds known in the park. Long ridges extend across the 

 basin, composed of the black shales of the Cretaceous, containing Inocera- 

 mus, Ostrea, 8caj)hites, the well-known Baculites ovatus, &c. The entire 

 series of Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Eed or Triassic group are well shown. 

 Toward the center of the park are some long ridges of trachyte, which 

 must have been produced by the outflow of igneous matter from an ex- 

 tended fissure. The sedimentary beds are exposed more or less all along 



