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Show PROSPECTING AND MINING. 559 how these mislead us when we reach the mines. Going on westward, then, we find various rocks coming to the surface in this order: In Eastern Indiana the Silurian, next the Devonian, and then the Car-boniferous, which extend to the Mississippi. After a short strip of older rock we again cross some carboniferous, in Missouri, and after getting into Kansas every day's travel for six hundred miles brings us over newer rock. First is a narrow strip of that limestone which, if all rocks are in place, lies just above the Coal Measures; then we pass rapidly over rocks of successively later eras, and near Wichita, enter on the " Chalk- stones" ( Cretaceous). All this was made at so late a day that we need not look for^ rue coal even much less for gold or silver but salt and alkali soon become disgustingly plenty. Still further on we find newer rock, and near the foot of the mountains are the fossil remains of huge creatures which lived just before man came on earth. And out of this very recent formation suddenly rises the Pike's Peak range, consisting largely of the oldest known rocks. So science has decided that long after Pike's Peak rose to mountain height its bases were washed by inland seas, and that the eastern one was among the last sections of America to become dry land. We enter the mountains and observe that we are now where the lower strata have been heaved up and split across, and therefore min-erals may abound. We examine all the streams carefully for " float" fragments broken off the croppings of some mineral vein and washed down. If the float shows silver or lead, good; if iron or copper, it is not to be despised; but quartz crystals, iron pyrites, and glitter-ing flakes of mica will certainly attract your eye, my gentle pilgrim. Even a mineral stain on the rocks is not to be passed without ex-amination, though we don't think much of it down here among the foot- hills. If we find good float, or even specimens of rock or ores usually associated with silver, we are encouraged and toil upward; for we do not hope to locate in the foot- hills or even near the base of the higher range. If there is a mine there, the chances are thou-sands to one that the outcrop is covered hundreds of feet deep by drift. Obviously the higher we get the less drift there is on the bed rock, till we reach a point where the real mountain protrudes its bare rocky points. Nevertheless we examine the lower slopes carefully, for we may find a " stream of float" which will lead us directly to the vicinity of a mine. It often happens that such a stream leads the prospector to a point half way up the mountain, then sud-denly ceases. Where, then, is the mine? The lode from which that stream was derived may be hundreds or thousands of feet fur- |
