The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1875-09-15

RESOURCES.
This mountain rises about forty
miles northwest of old Fort Casper,
on the North Platte, some distance
west Of Fort Fettermar. 1t i n
broad, high mour tain, trembling off
to the northwest some two hundred
miles, and then turns westerly
towards Yellowstone Park and Lake.
1t is cut in twain at its bend by the
Big Horn river, where it has eXca-
waited a deep csnon Of about sixty
miles in length, near the lower end
Of which, and between it and the
Yellowstone river, Fort G. +. Smith
was located in 1867. From the north
eastern base of this mountain flow
Powder, Tongue, Rosebud and Little
Big Horn rivers, and all of them are
said to contain gold in their alluvium
beds, From its western base flow
Q small streams TINT enter
the Big Horn river, and are known
to carry down placer gold.
The backbone or grauitOid portions
of this mountain, have not been eX-
plored, except by a bold adventurous
miner now and then, who hides from
the Indians, and returns In the fall
with quite II harvest of Cue gold, and
gives glowing accounts of the future
gold Of the mountains.
The Big Horn, like all the other
mountains of Wyoming, vas elevated
at II very recent period of geology (;
chiefly, indeed, after the close of the
Tertiary era.
Like the Medicine Bow, Laramie,
Sweet Water, Wind River, and the
Black Hills Mountains, it was forced
up through all the everything strata
which are so enormous in thickness
in the Rocky Mountain region. Over
the granite base are deposited
LIST. The old Red or PotSdam sand
stone-occasionally giving place to
massive deposits Of quartzlte, as at
Park City and Alma in the Was
atch, or the dark micaceOus states, as
at the Sweetwater mines, and proba-
bly, some parts of the Black Hills.
Ind. The carbJnlferoIS or Silurian
limestone formation which is Of
enormous several miles, thickness,
as seen between Parley's Pu!k and
the Big and Little Cottonwood can
ons, in the Wusatch mountains, and
is the receptacle of the famous En-
ma mine, and most of the other
noted silver mines there. This o
derful formation is fully described in
Clarence Kings volume on Geology.
This stratified linear formation is gem
orally silver bearing, when found of
sufficient thickness, lying against the
sides of tre~Rocky mountains.
3rd. Next h found the stratiied
triassic formation, generally of blood
red color, and upon it rests the rocks
of the Jurassic period.
4th. Upon the TriaSsic and JuraSsIc
rocks, lies generally a thick deposit
of ~cretaceous rocks, of no economic
value, except for cheap building pur-
pUses.
5th. The Tertiary, or most recent
rUck formation, is composed of poor 4,
porous limestone, which underlies
the soil and gravel of the plains
around Cheyenne aud Denver, and
along the base of these mountains for
hundreds of miles. In the lowest
strata, next to the c~retaceous rocks,
are found all the remarkable Ignite
coal veins of Wyoming, Colorado and
Montana.
These coal veins crop out all along
the eastern base of the Big Horn
Mountain and dip eastwardly into
the basin between it and the Black
Hills, through which run the Powder
river and other streams, to the yell
lowstone.
Now it was, at a recent period in
geological time that this mountain, as
as well as most of the others east of a
north and south line, drawn through
Salt Lake basin, that the upheaving
GRANTEES and porphyries had TO raise
and burst assunder all this vast thick
ness of everything stratiied rocks, and
thus expose the granite surface only
along the central portions of the line
of %upheaval, and cause them to form
the crest and peaks now found in
the highest parts OF the mountains.