OCR Text |
Show CHAPTER VIII. THE TTJSHAE. Sevier Valley from Gunnison southward.â€"The PaVant.â€"Salina.â€"Grandeur of the plateau fronts.â€" The northern end of the Tushar.â€"General structure of the northern part of the range.â€"Its intermediate character between the plateau and basin types.â€"Rugged and mountainous aspect of the higher parts.â€"Mounts Belknap and Baldy.â€"Eastern front.â€"Bullion Cafion.â€"The Tushar fault.â€" Khyolites and their numerous varieties.â€"Basalt upon the summit.â€"Succession of eruptions and the intermissions.â€"Southern portion of the Tushar.â€"The great conglomerate.â€"Progressive growth of the range.â€"Alternations of volcanic activity and repose.â€"Southern termination of the Tushar.â€"Midget's Crest.â€"Dog Valley.â€"Succession of eruptions in the southern part of the range.â€"General history of the Tushar. The road leading southward from Gunnison up the valley of the Sevier River lies along a smooth plain between the Pavant Range on the west and the great monoclinal on the east. The interval separating these uplifts is about 30 miles from summit to summit and about 8 miles from base to.base (see Plate 3, sections 4 to 13). To the east and northeast from Gunni-son is seen the Wasatch Plateau, just distant enough to afford a fine view of its grand proportions. Its southwestern angle is decorated with a huge butte perched upon a lofty pedestal and crowned with a flat, ashlar-like block, which is a conspicuous land-mark from every lofty point to the southward. This mass is called Musinia, and at once arrests the attention by its peculiar form, whether seen from far or near. Southward, at a distance of nearly 30 miles, loom up the high volcanic plateaus. The Fish Lake and northern portion of the Sevier tables present their transverse profiles towards us, and are seen to be separated by a depression called Grass Valley. Far to the south-southwest is seen a portion of the Tushar, the main mass being hidden by a very obtuse salient of the Pavant. The absence of Alpine forms and the predominance of the long and slightly-inclined profiles of the plateau type rob these great masses of their grandeur and beauty; for they produce an optical deception which carries the horizon up near their summits, while in reality it is far below. Yet some sense of the reality is awakened when from the plain below, in the 169 |