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Show THE ALOOVE LA.ND. 151 The scenic features of the country aro alike variable. On the cliffs about Green River City, towers and buttes are seen us you look from below, (}lways regarded by tho passing traveler as strange freaks of nature. Tho limestones, interstratifiod with shales, crivo terraced and buttressed characteristics to the escarpments of tho canons and narrow valleys. Immediately south of Bitter Crock, on the uast side of Groen River, there i a small district of country which wo have call d the AI ·ovo Lnnd. On the east, it is drained by Little Bitter Crook, a dry gulch much of the year. This runs north into Bitter Creek, a permanent stream, which empties into the Green. The crest of this water-shed is an inegular line, only two to four miles back from the river, but usually more than a thousand feet above it, so that tho waters have a rapid descent, and every shower born rill has excavated a deep, nan-ow channel, and these n~rrow canons are so close to each other as to be separated by walls of rock so steep, in most places, that they cannot be scaled, ~Lnd many of these little cailons are so broken by falls as to be impassable in either direction. The whole country is cut, in this way, into irregular, angular blocks, standing as buttresses, bc,nches, and towers, about deep water-ways and gloomy alcoves. The conditions under which the canons have been carved will Le more elaborately discussed hereafter. To the west of Groen River, and back some mile , between Black's Fork and llenry's Fork, wo have a region of bulf, chocolate, and lead colored bad-lands. This bad-land country differs from th Alcove Land, above mentioned, in that its outlines <.tro everywhere beautifully round <1, as the rocks of which it iM composed crumble quickly under atmospheric agoncie~:~, so tl1at an exposure of solid rock is rarely soon; but we have tho samo abrupt descent of the streams, and tho sam olubontte system of wutor channc~s. Hero we have loose, incoh rent san<htonos, hales, and clay~:~, carved, by a not-work of running waters, into domes and cones, with flowing outlines. But still thoro is no vegota.tiou, and tho loo~:~u •arth is 11akod. Ocoasionally, a thin stJ·atum of harder rock will bo found. uch strata will here and there form sheh·es or stops upon tho sides of tho mountains. Traces of iron, and rarer minerals, are fomul in these bed , and on ... |
