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Show 289 bly are the palms and broad linear sedge like leaves* Bat in this particular, the region is almost absolutely unexplored, and what careful research would here reveal, we might be justified in entertaining extravagant conjectures from the results attending the more detailed explorations of the fossil flora in other quarters. THE MORENO VALLEY. The mouth of the Cimarron Valley rapidly narrows, and some three miles above the town the border- hills converge, confining the stream to a narrow gorge- like valley, which becomes narrower and more rugged as we ascend, and hemmed in by precipitous walls of Tertiary sandstone and steep slopes descending to the margin of the water. The valley, or lower canon, has a northwesterly course, and an average gradient throughout of about 75 feet to the mile. Perhaps four or five miles above its mouth, the last exposure of the Cretaceous shales, which hitherto outcrop in the foot of the hills, appears in the north bank of the stream, where they show a thickness of about 50 feet, reaching from the water's edge to the demarkation of the apparently not unconformable Tertiary deposits. The latter here consist, at base, of indurated arenaceous shales, light yellowish or buff in color. At this point, the road follows the south side of the stream, find a rise, to avoid a narrow, rock-bound gorge, takes us above the Cretaceous, before regaining the stream, a few hundred yards above the exposure. Thence to Ute Valley, six or seven miles, the entire height of the inclosing walls of the valley is composed of the Tertiary sandstone, great blocks of which are scattered over the less abrupt declivities or piled into the bed of the stream. Just before emerging into Ute Valley, through rifts in the pine- and spruce- forests, a glimpse of the park- like opening is gained; the long crest of Little Baldy, broken down to the south in the deep gorge through which the upper canon lies, filling the background framed between the steep Tertiary walls which hem in the foot of the valley. This little valley is the southernmost in this district of a chain of similar parks extending along the flank of the metamorphic belt at the base of the main range, and which reach far to the north into Colorado. Its southern or short side is bounded by the steep granitic slopes which descend to the south margin of the intervale- bordered Cimarron, and thence the open, terraced plain rapidly rises to the northwest, as it approaches the source of Ute Creek in Great Baldy, which lies at the • head of the valley, or some eight miles from its foot. The low, flat-topped Tertiary hills form the eastern border of the valley, the sandstone showing a slight dip in that direction. To the west lie the rugged granitic foot- hills, which rise in extensive " flats" up into the ridge extending southward from Great Baldy, and which just peers above timber-line in the crest of Little Baldy Monntaiu. It is very probable that the more or less metamorphosed and tilted Cretaceous and Tertiary formations intervene and rise np on the lower flank of these mountain- elevations. The mountains are intersected by pretty open glades, or " flats", affording pasturage for the stock belonging to the farms in the valley, which latter contains an area of about three thousand acres, much of which is adapted to agricultural purposes. Along the Cimarron, the valley has an altitude of about 7,200 feet; the rise to its head, in a distance of five or six miles, probably reaching above 8,000 feet Throughout its course, gold is distributed in the superficial deposits, and which is now being mined in the upper portion |