The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-01-20

,
contains worlds of valuable minerals, and
that he will try to bug the whole Glass
hills. 1t is very strange that no eastern
lutte possession of that exceedingly odd
masterpiece of nature
THE Glass mountains are 10 .topo-
graphical wonder and freak'-alT in the
world that is unusual about them is their
size. They are what we call geolosically
butts or erosive'-remnant of an old levhl
left standing at q distance from the hill
to which they belong They are a part
of the Gypsum Hill that extend from just
north of Ell Reno, @. T., TO Medicine
Lodge, Kansas. There are scores of such
outlying butts along the line of hills
for instance near Ferguson and Hem
Messy, O. T. The top of the Glass
mountains is composed of a heavy ledge
twenty feet or more thick. of massive
white gypsum which being harder than
the underlying shales protects them from
erosion The valley cur by the head
waters of Skull and Cottonwood creeks
that separates the Glass mountains from
the main line of Gypsum hill is about
three miles wide, but on the hills the
same ledge of white gypsum may be seen.
These mountains are not mountains
at all, but simply large buttes. The
height above the Cinarron, half a mile
away, is about 25G feet The area Of
the largest butte is perhaps a square
mile. But the hills are perfectly nor
NAL, ordinary, and just such erosive forms
as one would naturally expect under the
given conditions Of stratification and
erosion The statement that there are
worlds of valuable mineral in all sorts
of places in Oklahoma is repeated to the
point of WEAKNESS. The only mineral of
value in the Glass mountains is gypsum.
and that is abundant all over the west
ern part of the territory. The geological
survey a year ago published the fact that
in dozen of the western counties there
are approximately 125 billion tons of
gypsum in sight There is enough gyp-
sum in the Glass mountains 10 supply
a thousand mills for a Thousand years.
There is said TO be a very small amount
of copper found in the red rocks at the
base CT the bluffs. That doesn't mean
anything. = Copper is found in dozen
places in Oklahoma red beds but always
in such small quantities that it will never
pay to mine it. There have been thou
sands of dollars spent in digging holes
in the hills during the past ten years
and not a dollar has ever come back,
and it is improbable that it ever will.
why do people go mineral mad?
give it up. 1t is more than I can tell
The fact is that they do. It's my expert
ence that if an Individual or a corporation
Or city once gets the notion that some
thing of value lies beneath the ground
nothing will satisfy them until they have
spent their money. The papers are full
of accounts of eastern coal. oil and gas
exjerts who prophesy all sorts of wealth
in all sorts of impossible places. And the
worst of it is, they are usually credited.
work their graft, and leave with the
proceeds
There are a good many things yet to
be worked out regarding the geological
structure of Oklahoma, but we are reason
ably certain of find things, and one of
them is. that it is useless to expect min
erals except gypsum or salt in paying
quantities. throughout the greater part of
Oklahoma red beds I suppose however,
it will take years of time and hundreds
of thousands dollars spent in holes in
the ground before this fact is recog-
nzed
If one fftieth part of the amount an
nually wasted in so-called prospecting"
could be spent in an intelligent geological
survey OF the territory, results would be
secured that would be of lasting benefit.
AS it Isl however, 1 suppose that people
win keep on hunting the impossible