Rocky Mountains, 419 



have observed, contains no remains of animals or plants- It 

 is traversed by large upright veins, filled usually with white 

 quartz, contrasting strongly with the dark blue of the slate- 

 stone. The elevation of the " Hot Spring Mountain," is es* 

 timated by Hunter and Dunbar, at three hundred feet above 

 the surface of the creek at the springs. This point is proba- 

 bly twenty or thirty feet above the Washita at Keisler's. 

 North of the springs, the slate rocks rise to more considera- 

 ble elevation, but it is not probable that, at any point, they 

 rise more than one thousand feet above the Mississippi. 



The high lands between the Washita and Red river, are 

 occupied principally by sandstone; the clay slate appearing 

 to extend in a narrow line, from northeast to southwest, 

 which, as far as we have observed, is the direction of its 

 strata — these, when they are not perpendicular, usually dip- 

 ping to the northwest. 



The country about the sources of the Washita, is repre- 

 sented as affording many interesting minerals, among which 

 are enumerated " martial pyrites, large bodies of crystallized 

 spar, and hexagonal prisms, which are known to contain no 

 small portion of the precious metals."* If the clay slate in 

 any part of this mountainous region should be found to be 

 accompanied by its usual attendant, the metalliferous lime- 

 stone, we should be more ready to credit the accounts of the 

 existence of the precious metals in that quarter, as at least 

 some of the valuable mines in America, occur in that stra- 

 tum. f As yet, we have no satisfactory accounts of the oc- 

 currence of that limestone, or any of the precious metals in 

 that part of the United States. 



VII. — Granite. 



About fifteen miles southeast from the Hot Springs, near 

 the Washita, granite is found in situ. It forms the base, 

 and, as far as we could discover, the entire mass of a small 

 hill, but little elevated above the level of the river. We found 

 it emerging from beneath the soil at several parts, of an area 

 of two or three hundred acres, but had not an opportunity 

 to trace it to any great distance, nor to observe its connexion 



* Stoddart's Louisiana, page 391. 



f Eaton's Index to the Geology of tlie ?s"urtliern States, page 185, second 

 edition. The most celebrated mines of Mexico and Peru, ->re fcind in the 

 primitive and transition schist in the trap porphyries, the graywackc, and 

 the alpine or metalliferous limestone. See Humboldt's Pers. Nar. vol. iii., 

 p. 525, and Neif Spain, vol. ii, p. 49 1. 



