1870. | Geology and Paleontology. 461 
the lake for a short distance along the south-east shore. Near 
Lake Point, as in many other places, old lake beaches or “benches” 
can be traced on the side of the mountain, the highest having an 
altitude of about goo feet. In some places four distinct ones can 
be seen. On one of the benches a cave opens into the carbonif- 
erous limestone, of which the mountain is mostly composed. 
This cave, known as Clinton’s cave, was first brought into public 
notice by Mr. G. K. Gilbert who described it and explained the 
probable mode of its formation. Later Dr. A. S. Packard, Jr., 
published an interesting account? of several species of cave 
animals which he found living there. He also determined its 
geological. age to be most probably the Quaternary. Having 
recently visited it and made a discovery which seems to throw 
some light on the mode of its formation and its age, I am enabled 
to verify their conclusions and to give further particulars. 
The strata forming the mountain are here uplifted into nearly 
a vertical position. One stratum having a thickness of ten or 
twelve feet, seems to have been composed of a softer material 
than the adjacent ones. When the water of the lake stood at 
about the level of the bench on which the cave is now situated, 
the action of the waves in breaking upon the rocky shore gradu- 
ally wore away this soft stratum until a long narrow crevice had 
been excavated into the side of the mountain. Similar action is 
going on to-day on the coast of New England, where dykes of 
porphyry are exposed to the direct action of sea-waves, the por- 
phyry being worn away faster than the wall-rock. 
After thus cutting horizontally to a depth of over 300 feet, and 
vertically to the surface of the slope for the whole distance, the 
lake evidently subsided sufficiently to allow of an accumulation 
of coarse sediment which was washed from the slope above, fill- _ 
ing the crevice, and which was cemented into a conglomerate by 
carbonate of lime. Then the lake rose again to the level of this 
more than twenty-five or thirty feet. The width varies from 
about twelve feet at the mouth to three feet at the innermost 
‘Report on the Geology of Portions of Nevada, Utah, &c. G. K. Gilbert, A.M. 
Wheeler’s Report, Vol. 111, p. 98 ee re 
? On a New Cave Fauna in Utah, by A. S. Packard, Jr., M.D. Bulletinof U.S. — 
Geol. and Geog. Survey, F. V. Hayden, U. S. Geologist-in-charge. _ Vol nL Note 3 
