WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
Dead ? 
BY G. K. GILBERT, U. S. GEOLOGIST, IN CHARGE 
OE THE DIVISION OF THE GREAT BASIN. 
Fumarole Butte stands near the north edge of 
the Sevier Desert. The Sevier Desert lies in 
Western Utah, a hundred miles south from Salt 
Lake City. The desert is a treeless plain, forty 
miles broad and nearly twice as long, floored by 
sand and white clay, and sparsely set with low 
bushes. Its only stream is the Sevier River, 
which rises among the mountains to the east- 
ward, and after meandering across the waste, 
dwindling by evaporation as it goes, finally dis- 
charges its scanty remnant into a small salt lake, 
whence its “elements return to earth and air.” 
The butte is an insignificant crag, one hundred 
and fifty feet high, which would pass unnoticed 
in a region of mountains, but is here rendered 
conspicuous by the flatness of its surroundings. 
The diameter of its base is about twice its height, 
and it is so steep-sided that he who ascends it 
must exercise judgment in the selection of a route. 
From a distance it appears to he flat-topped, hut 
in reality it is cratered, a central depression being- 
surrounded on three sides by a rim or parapet. 
Its material is a gray basalt, superficially tinted 
by oxidation to various shades of brown. Its 
general form, and especially the precipitous na- 
ture of its outer walls, show that the mass is 
coherent, but to the eye it conveys the impression 
of being shattered, and its surface abounds in 
small crevices of irregular form. From many of « 
these openings there issue streams of warm, moist 
air, having a temperature, alike in winter and in 
summer, of 73° Fahrenheit, and these are the 
fumaroles which have given name to the butte. 
Their throats are lined with emerald green moss, 
sustained by the perennial warmth and moisture, 
and upon the moss beds sparkle drops of water, 
brilliant as jewels. In winter the rising moisture 
is condensed by contact with the colder air, form- 
ing visible clouds, or jets of steam, which can 
sometimes be seen from a distance of many miles. 
Near the butte there are two fields of basaltic 
lava, the broader toward the south, the higher 
toward the north, and each field forms a table 
limited on all sides by a cliff. The northern field 
has no ascertained connection with the butte, but 
the southern rises gently toward it in such man- 
ner as to indicate that the source of its lava was 
in that direction, and probably at the very point 
occupied by the butte. This opinion is strength- 
ened by an examination of the ground about the 
base of the butte, including the swale which sep- 
arates it from the lava field. It consists of lapilli 
or volcanic scoriae, tinted in rich shades of red, 
yellow and brown, and interspersed here and 
there with reefs of spongy lava. The dip of 
these reefs, the distribution of the lapilli, and the 
relation of the butte to the lava beds, convey to 
one who is familiar with the structure of craters 
a tolerably definite history. The butte marks the 
position of the volcanic vent. The early stages 
of the eruption were of the explosive type, and a 
quantity of light, spongy, perishable ejecta were 
piled about the vent in a circular hill, with a 
crater at the center. Then followed fluid lavas, 
which overflowed the rim upon the south side 
and ran down upon the plain, congealing in the 
fields, which still remain. This occurred more 
than once, and doubtless there were intervals of 
quiescence and of alternating explosive activity, 
as with modern active volcanoes. Eventually’ 
when eruption finally ceased, the crater was filled 
with a somewhat compact lava, which hardened 
in place, constituting a solid core to the cone of 
frothy lapilli. 
Then followed erosion, not by a deluge or other 
catastrophic agency, but by the slow wear of rain 
beating upon the cone, and gradually disintegrat- 
ing it and washing it away. The lapilli, when 
they were first piled up, constituted a hill* which 
must have overtopped all its surroundings, and 
may have risen a thousand feet from the plain, 
but their spongy nature exposed them to rapid 
disintegration by frost, and their lightness and 
incoherence caused them to be easily removed by 
rain, and now their position is marked by a de- 
pression, above which the core and the lava field 
preserved by their superior hardness, rise abruptly! 
The core itself is a ruin in appearance, and doubt- 
MINERALOGY. 
Besides our usual supply of material in replen- 
ishment of stock, we have lately received some 
fine specimens of 
NEW ZEALAND JADE; 
Also, a magnificent suite of 
QUEENSLAND OPALS. 
This handsome variety is quite different from 
either the Hungarian or the Mexican, the colors 
inclining towards blue and green, with less of the 
red reflections. The blues vary from the palest 
azure to the most intense indigo, interspersed with 
scintillating points of those rich metallic greens 
observed in the plumage of the Trochilidae. The 
specimens appear to be infiltrations of hydrated 
silica into the crevices of an argillaceous brown 
iron ore. 
Among American minerals we have the new 
green spodumene from Alexander county, North 
Carolina, 
HIDDENITE, 
and an especially choice and interesting lot of 
AGATES. 
Besides these, we have received, since the last 
issue of our Bulletin, among other 
MINERALS: 
Ambrite, from New Zealand 
Anhydrite, “ Nova Scotia 
Apatites, “ ... Canada 
AZURITE, “ ziuSTRALIA 
Barite, — New Jersey 
Cassiterite, “ Australia 
Chiastolites, “ New Hampshire 
Chalcedony, “ Australia 
Diamonds, “ Brazil & S. Africa 
Fluor, “ Kentucky 
Garnierite, “ New Caledonia 
Geodes, “ Illinois and Iowa 
Gold Quartz, “ Montana 
Itacolumite, “ North Carolina 
Malachite, “ Australia 
Ozocerite, “ Wasatch Mts. 
Pyrophyllite, “ North Carolina 
Sulphur, “ New Zealand 
Sphene, “ Canada 
Stibnite, “ Utah 
Waved ite, “• Arkansas 
Wollongongite, _ __ “ Australia 
Wood Opal, “ Tasmania 
Zircons, “ South Carolina 
and many others in less quantity. 
For full enumeration of the various mineral 
species consult our Catalogue of Minerals— 60 
pages; price, 20 cents. 
less has been diminished by erosion. The lava 
field, which consists of the hardest and most dura- 
ble of all the erupted material, retains nearly its 
full proportions, but has lost the original rough- 
ness of its upper surface, so as to be partially cov- 
ered by soil, and a few small ravines have been 
cut in it near its margins. 
After the greater part of this erosion had been 
accomplished, the desert was flooded by a lake 
from the waters of which were deposited the 
clays and sands now constituting its surface. At 
its highest stage the water submerged the south- 
ern lava field, and washed the base of Fumarole 
Butte. Its ancient beach can still be traced at 
the foot of the crag, and its sediments are to be 
found in sheltered spots about the lava field, and 
especially in the ravines that divide its margin. 
They overspread, too, a considerable share of the 
zone of lapilli. 
The erosion which has succeeded the advent of 
the lake is insignificant in comparison with that 
which preceded it. The shore-marks, cut by 
waves upon the lava at various stages of the ris- 
ing water, have not been obliterated, and the lake 
beds which clogged the ravines of the lava table 
have not been entirely re-excavated. In the ab- 
sence of any reason for supposing the rate of 
erosion to have been more rapid at one time than 
another, we must believe that the time which 
elapsed between the epoch of eruption and the 
epoch of the lake was not merely longer than the 
time which has elapsed since the disappearance 
of the lake, but was many times longer; and this 
helps us to a conception of the antiquity of the 
Butte, — for the geological date of the lake is defi- 
nitely known. It was a contemporary of the gla- 
ciers of Northern Europe and Northern America, 
owing its existence to the same grfeat revolution 
of climate. It is true we do not know, in terms 
of our ordinary units of time, the antiquity of the 
Age of Ice, and cannot even say whether it should 
be expressed in tens or hundreds of thousands of 
years, but we do know that it greatly transcends 
all written and legendary history. When, there- 
fore, we add to the period of human history a 
period several times greater, in order to carry us 
back to the close of the lake epoch, when we add 
to this sum the equal or even greater period dur- 
ing which the lake existed, and when we multiply 
this total by a large number in order to make 
allowance for the antecedent period during which 
the crater was demolished by slow atmospheric 
wasting, we cannot fail to recognize the high 
antiquity of the epoch of eruption. 
How marvellous is it, then, that the heat brought 
by the rising lava to the surface of the ground 
should not have been completely dissipated from 
the vent! The. temperature of the fumaroles is 
not, indeed, high, but it is twenty degrees higher 
than the mean annual temperature of the coun- 
try, and the amount of heat which now annually 
passes off by means of these warm air currents 
cannot be inconsiderable. Is the volcano really 
dead, and does this heat come from the once 
molten lava which through long ages has been 
slowly cooling within its flue ? Or, is it only dor- 
mant, and are new pulses rising through its veins, 
threatening to break forth once more and build 
another cone ? 
Before we wrote our article on Meteorites for 
the Bulletin, Dr. Hahn had published his work 
on fossil organisms in meteorites (Die Meteorite— 
Chondrite — und ihre _ Organismen), but his con- 
clusions seemed so wild and contradictory to the 
known facts in the case that we considered it 
merely as a literary curiosity. Since then, how- 
ever, the question has caused so much discussion 
that it is a matter no longer to be passed by in 
silence, particularly as his conclusions have been 
accepted as correct, or at least probable, by some 
scientific journals; and we had hoped in this 
number to review the whole subject, but are 
obliged to postpone it until our next issue. 
We make a specialty of sawing Meteoric Iron, 
and have machinery especially designed for the 
purpose, driven by steam power. We are thus 
piepaied. to cut material into slices of any re- 
quired size or thickness. Parties having such 
will find it to their advantage to correspond 
with us. 
