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Show I • I [ 243] 52 us through the ridge, in which the course of the river is north and south .. Here the valley opens out broadly, n11d high walls of the red formation present themselves among the hills to the ea!:>t. vVe cros~ed here a pretty little· creek, an afllucut of tbe right bank. It is well timbered with cottouwood in this vicinity, and the absinthe has lost its shrublike character, and become small trees ~ix and eight feet in height, and sometimes eight iuchcs 1n diameter. Two or three miles above tltis creek we m<Hle. our encampment, having travelled to -day t wenty-tivc miles. Our animals fared well lwre, as there is an abundance of gras~. The river bed is made ~1p of pebbles ' and in the bunk at the level of the water is a COlH!lOlllerate of coarse ~' pebbles about the :size of ostrich eggs, and. which l rcmarl<ed in the banks of the Laramie fork. lt is overlaiu by a soil of mixed clay and sand six feet thick. By astronomical observations our position is in lo11gitude L07° 29' 06", and latitude 4.2° 38'. July 30.- After travelling nbout twelve miles this morning, we renchcu a place where the Indian villnge had crossed the river. Ilerc were the poles of discanled lodges and keletons of horses !yin~ about. 1\lr. Garson, who had never been hirrher l•P than thi~ point on the ri\'cr, which has the character of being exceedingly rugged and walled in by p1 ecipiccs above, thought 'it advisable to ramp ncar this place, where we w ·re c rtain of obtaining o-rass, and to-morrow make our crossing an1ong the rugged hills to the weer. Water river. Accordingly we turned back and descended the river to un island near by, which wns about twenty acres in size, covered with a luxuriant growth of grass. The formation here I fouuJ highly interesting. Immediately at this island the river i:-5 again shut up in the rugo-ed hills, which come down to it from the main rid,re in a succession of spurs three or four hundred feet high, and alternateo with g-reen level pra·iriLLons or meadows, bordered on the river banks with thicket ' of willow, nnd having many plants to interest the traveller. Tlw islaud lies between two of the8e ridges,. three or four hundred yards aparL, of which that on the right bank is composed entire! y of red nrgillaccous sandstone, with tain layers of fibrous gypsum. On the left bank, the ridge is compo ed entirely of si liceous puddingstone, the pebbles in the numerous ~trata increasiug in size from the top to the bottom, where they are ns large as a man's head. So far as I was able to determine, these strata incline to the northeast, with a clip of about 15°. This puddingstone or conglomerate foi·mation I was enabled to trace through an exteuded range of country, from a few miles ea ·t of the meridian of Fort Laramie to where [ found it superposed on the granite of the Rocky Mountains, in longitude 109° 30'. From its appenruncc, the main cham of the Laramie mountain is cornposed of thi~ rock; and in a number of places I found isolated hills, which served to mark a former level, which had been probably swept awny. These conglomerares are Yery friable and easi ly decomposed; and I nm inclined to think this formation is the source from which was derived the ~reat deposite of r-<nnd and gravel which forms the surface rock of the prairie country west of the Mi~sissippi. Crossing the ridge of red Randstone, and traversing the little prairie which lies to the southward of' it, we made in the nftemoon an excursion to a place which we have called the Hot Spring Gate. This place has much the appearanc_ e of a gatP, uy which the Platte passes tlHoug-h a ridge composed of a wlute and calcar ~>u s :;and touc. The lengrh of the passag-e is about four hundred yards, \\ 1th a smoolh green pminc on cit IH~r "ide. Throngh this ~ ~ ~ ,_ VJ ~- '\:::l ..... I- '""· ~ . N . .t.!" n ~ ... (J'c, ~ ~ l"o.L. ~ I I I ! p I 1~1- -== I t ,... I j J I I .. \ ~, / I r ..f ---·------- ---- ----·--·------- |
