The Fuel Resources of Colorado. — Lakes. 1 5 
tliracite area is one I saw this summer on the southwest base of 
Mount Gunnison, where a continuous seam, ten feet thick, over- 
laid by a sheet of volcanic rock, appears to underlie a consider- 
able area, i. e. , if we assume it to be co-extensive with the out- 
crop of the volcanic sheet. In the same vicinit}- were some of the 
finest seams of domestic coal I have 3-et seen in Colorado. Thej 
are some five or six in number, and vary from six to twelve feet 
in thickness, and lie at intervals one above another in the same 
section. There appears also to be an area of coking coal on the 
same propert}'. The bulk of the coal area so far developed has 
been along the outskirts of the field. The center of the field is 
buried beneath the mountain plateaux of 5,000 to 10,000 feet 
thickness, of newer Tertiary strata. On the cliflJ's of these plateaux, 
instead of coal we see long black lines of asphaltum, with shale 
saturated with hydrocarbons to such a degree that the}- ignite with 
a match. From the latter, petroleum could doubtless be extracted 
and manufactured in the same manner as it used to l)e in the East- 
ern states before the great flowing oil, wells were discovered. 
NATURAL GAS. 
It was in this same region and set of strata that this summer I 
saw the first genuine and promising gas springs of an}* power or 
consequence so far discovered in the state. The locality was 
thirty miles west of Meeker, on the White river, near its junction 
with the Piceance creek. There I saw on the edge of a great hol- 
low basin that had been excavated by erosion out of a broad anti- 
clinal or arched table-land, two powerful springs which had been 
exploited to a depth of 500 feet. During the work, one of the 
springs caught fire, and a column of flame, sixt}^ feet in hight and 
twelve feet in diameter, shot up into the heavens, illuminating 
the surrounding countr}' for many miles, till it gradually subsided 
owing to the press ui'e of water, after destroying the machinery, 
severely burning the operator, and calcining the ground for several 
yards around the orifice. The site of this spring is at present oc- 
cupied b}- a pond, up through which several jets of gas bubble 
fiercel}-. 
The other spring, a few hundred yards distant, was also ex- 
ploited to some depth, and, owing to business matters, abandoned 
and the tubing drawn out. This spring I also found surrounded 
bj- a circular pond twelve feet in diameter. Here the water was 
in a seething, violent state of agitation, churning round and 
