Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-06-11

easy explanation Is now discarded as
inadequate.
SEVERAL MODERN GUBSSES.
Others have advanced the idea THAI
since mineral veins are so frequently
associated with molten eruptions or
intrusions, those with which we arc
familiar We're certainly formed In Pc
RODS more recent than the supposed
universal reign of fire. They therefore
hold that mineral assure veins were
product of the rising flows of molten or
igneous rock. In these seething vol
canic caldrons, and In the course of the
supposed wonderful upheaving and
boiling OF bygone ages. they think that
moisture and chemical action first dis
solved and later preoipitated from So
luton the gold, silver lead, copper, bis
muth, antirnony, sulphur, and other
minerals, and that these materials
lodged in tho crevices of the sandstone,
and limerick, and in quartz veins al
ready present. Others suppose that the
mineral veins were formed from the
forcing of melted rock into assures of
hard rock. Sulphur. vapor. and other
gases escaping from the melted rock
would form sulphuf1c actde and would
readily dissolve the metals, AS the acid
water evaporated or became mixed with
alkalies, the minerals would crystalline
out and fill the crevices along the walls
OF the opening occupied by the melted
rock. These ores, they say, would be
sulphides (sulphates. the writer would
slippose). If near the surface. they fur
Their conclude that the oxygen of the
air would attack the sulphides forming
oxidized ores.
MORE RECENT VIEWS.
Still others, and these seem TO the
writer to be the latest and best au-
thorities, hold that the true assure VEINS
and also the minerals in the ore beds
were deposited from water. Hot aka
line solutions will freely dissolve many
of the minerals and. as we have seen,
quartz itself the moro usual oonstltu-
ent of assure veins. These solutions
might be due to some form of earth
heat, but would not necessarily be as
ISOLATED with eruptNe action. Ihey
would deposit the quartz veins and the
included metals in the crevices OF other
rocks. and even from percolating waters
passing through the various rock lay
ers and depositing their dissolved min
erals as they evaporated or as they
were neutralized, in case they CHANGED
TO be either strongly acid or alkaline,
the metallic minerals could accumulate
by a process OF successive enrichment
in ore beds or be left In various ways
All these are matters for the miner
alogists yet to make plain; and any
hasty conclusion, so far as one may
have any view on this obscure but abb
sorbing controversy of rival theories
would be much like landsman's opin-
ion of the comparative merits OF ocean
steamers
MANY MINERALS FOUND HERE
But however they were formed, Utah
has probably more different kinds of
minerals than occur, In any similar
commonwealth. Only the principal
groups can be enumerated here. A
complete list, prepared by Maynard
Bixby may be obtained from r. II. Of
f1cer & Co. OF this city, Every county
contains many varieties OF interesting
cabinet specimens. No list as yet pre-
pared indicates in perspective the rela-
tive abundance or Importance Of the
mineral specimens obtainable in any
given place. Briefly, Frisco abounds In
lead. silver and other forms; T1nHc. In
gold. lead, silver and rare copper arsen-
ates; Mercur has in addition, orpiment
realgar calclte, cinnabar: Iron county
various iron ores; Washington adds
fossil trees containing argentite; the
Thomas mountains offer the topaz
crystals; many localities have pyrite,
Utah onyx and quartz and calcium
minerals In their several forms Many
Of the rarer minerals are encountered
in districts widely separated. TO col
lect cabinet OF these specimens, not
ing their locality. composition and use,
Is most fascinating ayocation, ANA
teur collectors will be Interested in an
enumeration OF the leading groups OF
Utah minerals.