214 IRVING. 



until at the foot of the bluff, or about twenty feet distant there- 

 from, it has attained an angle of fifty-one degrees. This will 

 be brought out quite distinctly by the accompanying photo- 

 graph, and the diagram which has been traced from it, plate 9. 

 Passing now up the bed of Calamity creek one finds the talus 

 covering everything on the northern side of of the gulch. On 

 the south side, however, the escarpment of limestone can be 

 seen capping the divide and below it in numerous prospect holes 

 the miners have opened the Cambrian shales, or, more properly 

 speaking, those of the Silurian, which immediately underlie the 

 limestone. These shales become more extensively exposed as 

 we approach the slopes of Elk mountain, and are to be found 

 far up on the northern slopes of the hill, but the geological re- 

 lations in this direction have been complicated by the Elk 

 mountain upheaval. It is, therefore, difficult to say how much 

 the extent of this Cambrian exposure is due to that intrusion 

 and how much to Ragged Top. From Elk mountain towards 

 the north extends a quite prominent ridge of limestone. In 

 the low valley between this and the slopes of Ragged Top is 

 the town of Balmoral. No outcrops of shales can be found 

 in this valley, for even the prospect holes have not penetrated 

 the thickly strewn talus. The Cambrian formation is not vis- 

 ible at any other point around the mountain, but an artificial 

 exposure has been made available on the northern slopes of the 

 hill by the Badger shaft. 



The Badger shaft is situated on the north side of the moun- 

 tain, just to the east of a small draw running into Jackass 

 creek, and not more than sixty feet from the phonolite bluff. 

 It has now reached a total depth of three hundred and sixty 

 feet. For three hundred and sixteen feet the shaft penetrated 

 the Cambrian formation, and at that depth entered phonolite 

 dipping a little to the west of north, at an angle of about 

 forty-five feet. The phonolite is identical in every way with 

 that exposed on the top of the mountain. At the depth of one 

 hundred and five feet a drift was run toward the south and the 

 phonolite encountered at a distance of eighteen feet, the shales 

 lying against it in an almost vertical position. Another drift 



