OCR Text |
Show THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 43 are a characteristic, and near the Humboldt Range those of the Devonian age obtain. From Kobeh Val-ley to the Sierra Nevada the ranges are almost ex-clusively of igneous origin, and present few indica-tions of stratified rocks. The knowledge, geologically, of this extensive terra incognita, for the first time given to the government in the reports of Captain Simpson's assistant, Mr. Engelmann, and by Mr. Meek, the palaeontologist, is an interesting result of the expedition, and goes far to fill up the gap that remained to complete the geological profile of our country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on the line of Captain Simpson's explorations. These reports not only discuss the geology and palaeontology of the Great Basin, but also of the whole route through from Fort Leavenwort/ i to the Sierra Nevada; and to no two geologists probably could the work have been better assigned, since Mr. Engelmann, independent of his scientific and practical ability, was the geologist of Lieutenant Bryan's expedition to the Rocky Moun-tains in 1856, and of Captain Simpson's expedition, from Fort Leavenworth to the Sierra Nevada and back, in 1858 and 1859; and Mr. Meek's well- earned reputation certainly pointed him out as the most capable person to whom to refer the palaeontological discoveries of the expedition. In this connection it may be also proper to state that Mr. Engelmann, in his sub- reports, has devoted a great deal of space to the discussion of the meteorological phenomena of the Great Basin, and, illustrating as he does his views by accompanying diagrams, his report will prove of great value to science in this particular. |