Racky Mountains, 399 



we have reason to believe, exist in the neighbourhood of 

 the R')clcy Mountains. The briny character of those great 

 streams, the Arkansa and Red rivers, flowing over the red 

 sandstone formation, and receiving fronts it the peculiar cha- 

 racter, and colour of their waters, afford sufficient evidence of 

 the existence of such beds, and the greatness of the quantity 

 washed away in any given time, would lead to the conclusion, 

 that they must be of vast extent. By the analogy of other rock 

 salt formations, apparently similar in character, we should 

 he instructed to search for these beds, in depressed situations 

 and basin-shapt'd cavities, whose contents had not been worn 

 down and removed by the currents of water. In England 

 the saliferous sandstone, is locally known, as the red dead 

 lyet\ and is supposed to be identical with the stratum, called 

 by the German mineralogists, the roihe todte liegende^ and 

 which in the north of Germany, is believed to occur over the 

 coal, as appears from the researches of Karsten, Von Rau- 

 mer. Von Buch, and Frieslieben. The same position is as- 

 signed by many of the English geologists, to their new red 

 sandstone, while Mr. Weaver* and others, consider it infe- 

 rior to the coal strata, as is the case in the country we have 

 described. 



Perhaps the most striking feature of this formation of 

 sandstone, is the great and abrupt change in the inclination 

 of the strata, in the parts near the granite as already de- 

 scribed. 



It may perhaps be thought possible that the gradual wear- 

 ing away, by the agency of rivers, of some portions of the 

 sandstone, may have been sufficiently extensive, to have oc- 

 casioned that change of elevation of v/hich we speak, and 

 that those rocks now found in an inclined position, are de- 

 tached portions, of what was formerly the upper part of the 

 stratum, which having been undermined on their eastern side 

 and supported by the granite on their western, have fallen 

 into their present situation. 



This supposition, however, seems incompatible with the 

 vast magnitude and extent of these rocks, and entirely irre- 

 concilable to the fact, that they dip to a great and indefinite 

 extent below the present level, of any of the beds of the 

 rivers. 



The position of this formation, in relation to the granite, 

 is similar to that of the sandstone of the island of Guachaco, 



* Annals of Phil. Oct, Nor. and Dec. 1821. 



