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Show 66 FROM FORT LARAMIE TO FORT BRIDGER. the eternal sunshine without, that the imagination could desire. It is difficult to account for the river having forced its passage through the rocks at this point, as the hills, a very short distance to the south, are much lower, and, according to present appearance, present by no means such serious obstacles as had been here encountered. It is probable, that when the cafion was formed, stratified rocks obstructed it in that direction, and that these rocks have since disappeared by slow disintegration. The granite rocks of the pass were traversed in many places by dikes of trap, which were in some instances twenty feet thick, " whose direction was east and west. South of the pass, at its eastern extremity, stratified rocks, consisting of conglomerate, were observed, in a nearly horizontal position, without exhibiting the least evidence of having been disturbed by the igneous rocks around which they were placed; indeed, they could be traced in close contact with the granite, without any displacement of the strata, proving that their formation must have been subsequent to that of the granite, from the disintegration of which they were composed. The conglomerate is of the same character as that which was observed before coming upon the carboniferous rocks. The rocks were not observed to have any marked dip. It is highly probable that they belong to a period Subsequent to that in which the carboniferous rocks were formed, and that the eruption of granite took place after the latter formation, but before that of the conglomerate. No dikes of trap were observed in the granite, except in the immediate vicinity of the Devil's Gate. After passing this remarkable cafion, we enter upon a broad level valley, bounded on each side by ranges of mountains, their summits broken into curious peaks and eminences entirely destitute of vegetation. Between these winds the Sweetwater, with a current more gentle than heretofore, its banks covered with grass. An accident occurring to one of the wagons, the remainder of the day was consumed in its repair. Thermometer at sunset, 70°. Wednesday, August 1.- Ther. at sunrise, 33°. Frost during the night; morning clear, calm, and very beautiful. The road passing occasionally through deep, heavy sapd, continued up the right bank of the Sweetwater, which, for the greater part of the morning, flowed at the foot of a long, high range of granite bluffs, with here and there a stunted cedar growing from the crevices in the rocks. The valley is here nearly two miles wide, with roDing hills between |
