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Show 93 ellipse there is a very bold range of mountains, nnbroken, save in one place, by depressions, bnt throughont its course marked by exceedingly sharp, and in many places pinuacled, ridges and peaks of brown or bright- red color, and varying in height from 13,400 to 14.000 feet. The single break mentioned occurs at the head of a short branch of the North Fork of Mineral Creek, which flows down from the west about H miles above the junction of the two main branches of this stream. Here is a low place, reaching not far above timber- line, over which the range may be crossed to the bead of a tributary of the Lake Fork of the San Miguel. Elsewhere the range is impassable, save at . the southwest vertex of the ellipse, where a steep trail crosses to the trout lakes. At this southwest vertex is quite a group of lofty mountains, in which the Dolores also, in addition to the San Miguel, Mineral, and Cascade Creeks, takes its rise. Between this group and the eastern rim of the Animas Basin runs a very high ridge, broken only by two depressions, one at the head of Cascade Creek, the other west of Sultan Mountain, the double- capped peak which closes Baker's Park to the southward. Neither of these points are below timber- line, aud are not, practically speaking, passes, but wriggling trails pass over each. This portion of the rim is noticeable as presenting on its southern side the only stratified rocks in the entire inclosing- walls of the Upper Animas Basin, the gray and red limestones and saudstones of the Carboniferous series, the formation elsewhere being mainly rhyolite and trachyte, seamed with quartz and metalliferous veins. The eastern portion of the divide presents a clump of peaks about the head of Cunningham Gulch, including Kendall, Blair, Hazleton, and Galena Peaks, approaching or exceeding 13,000 feet in altitude. To the north of tbeae; until we reach the lofty group already mentioned south of Handle's Peak, the divide is rolling, of nearly even crest, cut through by the cation of the Upper Animas about Eureka Gulch, where bluff- like walls are presented. Within the periphery of this inclosing- rim the only peak worth mentioning is King Solomon's Peak, or Tower Mountain, a rude but symmetrical cone, rising from a broad base north of west of Howardsville to a height of 13,550 feet above sea level. Its nearly perpendicular slopes facing Howardsville are seamed with quartz veins, several of which are silver- bearing. Spurs and subordinate ranges. Between the streams flowing outward in every direction from the oval- shaped rim of the Animas Basin, extend short spurs and ranges of mountain- peaks, in some cases exceeding in beauty of outline, in height, and in boldness, any portion of the dome itself. Beginning at the northeast vertex of the ellipse, as before, we have, first, between the two main forks of Lake Fork of the Gunnison the Lake Fork range, trending north 85° east; next, the " Uncompahgre group, 17 the drainage- axis trending north 45° east, which, with minor ridges, such as the Ibex or Mountain Sheep spur, fill up the space between the Lake Fork and the Uncompahgre. West of the Uncompahgre, springing directly from the dome at the northwestern extremity of its shorter axis, and trend log north 75° west, is the Unaweep Range. From near the southwestern vertex the 8ierra San Miguel, separated from the dome by a low depression, trends to the west between the Dolores and San Miguel. From the southwestern vertex, trending 20° west, the rib forming the divide between the Animas and Dolores, and ending in the high group of the Sierra La Plata, extends for twenty- five or thirty miles. From the southeastern edge of the rim, and trending S.° east, the Needles, or Sierra Los Pinos of Newbury, extends about the headwaters of the Los Pinos and Florida, out by the canon of the former stream. On the eastern side the two prongs of the continental divide complete the circuit. Analyzing the topography of this division, then, without reference to geological axes or their origin, but regarding simply the topographical features as they exist, the seemingly confused mass of mouutains about the headwaters of the Auiuias River takes the definite form of an oval or oblong nucleus, with radial spurs as the frame or skeleton; secondary spurs, and long sweeping slopes of the original plateau cut by water and ice fill up the area with mountain- forms which at first confuse the mind and give rise to a feeling of bewilderment. Proceeding, however, in the survey of this area w ith a knowledge of the analysis above, it is comparatively easy to unravel the mazes of this labyrinth and to depict them. The epntral rim is first defined, and afterward, by winding in and out around the extremities of the radial- divides, the intermediate valleys and their liinitn, t. e., the spurs, themselves, may be defined one by one. The headwaters of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison and of Hensen Creek.- The Lake Fork Range. The Lake Fork heads in quite a wide and long cup- shaped valley on the west side of Handle's Peak, above timber- line, where, after collecting the numerous small rills which flow down the steep slopes surrounding the American Basin, it flows oat first in a northerly direction, then sweeping around to the southeast, and finally to the east and |
