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Show IS1IITS IKE RESEARCHES IN HIGHRDCKIES European and American Geographers Study Formations Forma-tions of Towering Mountain Moun-tain Peaks in Colorado. DIVIDED IN THEORY. ABOUT METEOR CRATER Interesting Phenomenon in North Central Arizona Subject Sub-ject of Much Discussion; Pleased With Salt Lake. I Ira Special Correspondence of New York 0 Times and Salt Lako Tribune. M TpvENVEK, Colo., Oct. 12 In Col- HFj I orado, I ho members of ihe III I J American Geographical socio- Ha ty's tranaoon tinontal excursion M reached their highest altitudes. They H walked over Hagerman pass, which is H nparly 12,000 foot abovo sea level, aud H which is the dividing line between tho K waters flowing west. ward into the Pa- W cific ocean, by way of (ho Colorado H river, and tho.se flowing into the Gulf m of. Mexico through ihc Arkansas and M Mississippi rivers. Their train then flfj passod within a few miles of Mount gg Massive- and Mount Elbert, which are m the culminating points of the Rocky H mountains in tho United States, and M by a remarkable coincidence, are of tho same elevation, .U,40i feet, as nearly E as can bo determined by the most care- m Ail measurement. Tho noxL day they started from Denver on the Moffat vail- road and ascended to .its highest point, II '.'orona, 1 .1,0(50 feet above the sea. from jl which they climbed to a neighboring U peak on tho continental divide, at :iu elevation of more, than 12,000 .feet.- I At High Altitudes. As tho party included iu its ranks men who had climbed and studied H mountain:, in all quarters of the globe, I ihe da3's spent in the high country I of Colorado were full of interest and B cnjo3'mcnt. and there were many com- m parisons made between these inoun- W tains and the elevated regions in other parts of tho world. Professor 'Emilc Chaix, of tho University of Geneva, who was formerly presidont of the Swiss Alpine clubhand who is one of the strongest, pedestrians in the party, found the climbing easy as compared with many of tho ascents ho had made in his native- land. He said that the Colorado mountains ho had seen havo gentle slopes and- rounded forms compared com-pared with tho Swiss Alps, which have steeper slopes and sharp and serrated tops. Tn Switzerland wo could not have climbed to tho heights wc reached hero, without using our hands as well as our feci, and being aided by a ropo as well. The Colorado highlands have largo plateaus, whereas the level places in the Swiss mountains are small in cx-tcut cx-tcut anil are often used as pastures for cattle and goats. These mountain fields and meadows aro called "alps" by the Swiss peasants, who have little interest, in the rocky and snow- summits, sum-mits, and this word hns been transferred trans-ferred to the mountains thomsclvos until un-til now it is applied to mountainous regions re-gions in general. High Timber Line. Tn Colorado Professor Chaix was atrnclc by the elevated tree line. The trees grew almost as high as wo climbed, whereas in Switzerland they reached hardly half that elovation. He believed, be-lieved, however, that the Swiss tree line had been artificially lowered, for the borders on tho elevated pastuxoa, or ''Alps" had cut down the trees as they needed wood for fuel, and naturally natur-ally took those that wero ncarost at hand, or which were above them and could bo easily rolled down, and eo in tho course of centuries, tho upper forests for-ests had been gradually cut away. Stumps were still found on the bare mountain sides, showing whero treoa had formerly grown. Another aspect of tho Colorado mountains moun-tains appealed to ITorr Gohoimrath Joseph .Partseh, tho eminent professor of geography at tho University of Leipzig! Leip-zig! He. was astonished at Ihe enterprise enter-prise and engineering skill of tho mon who had built tho railroads in, through and over t.ho Jiocky mountains. The heights t.hero railroads reached were1 amazing to :t foreigner, and far surpassed sur-passed anything attained by tho standard stand-ard steam railroads 'of Europe. Railroads Amaze Scientists. Comparing them with roads in about tho same latitude abroad, ho said that in tho Pyrenees, between Franco and Spain, tlio only railroads woro built, close to the seacoast on tho oast and tho west, whore thn elevutiona wero very low, and .that there were no railroads rail-roads at, all iu tho e.ont.ral highor Pyrenees. Pyre-nees. Even in tho Alps, the groat fail-ways fail-ways pierced tho mountains by tunnels, at elevations of only a few thousand feet, while in Colorado sevoral of tho main lines reached heights of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, and tho Ttockies woro crossed aud recrossod many tinios by the e-teol rails. "Professor Partseh thought that the elevated situation of somo of the big mining towns, such as Leadvillo and Cripple Creok, had promoted the construction con-struction of t no mountain railways of Colorado, but oven without this incentive, incen-tive, Boveral of the railroads attained extraordinary altitudes, lie had doubts, however, about some of the economic aspects of the Colorado rnilway situation. sit-uation. Ho wondered if so many railroads rail-roads in a new and thinly populated country could paj, and "ho thought that the high mountain roads, with their heavy grades and sharp curvoB, must, be very expensive to operato. Instead In-stead of Bpcctacular "loops" and "horseshoo" curves, winding tip and around tho mountain, sides, ho believed that commercial considerations demand-the demand-the construction of tunnols at lower elevations. In Europe, he said, they mako a point of securing low grades by the use of tunnols, and after building a road up to both onds of tho projected tunnel, they keop traffic moving over tho mountains by meaus of a. cablo railway, or some other temporary expedient, ex-pedient, while tho tunnel is Doing constructed. con-structed. Tn. America, thoy soem moro apt to run tho main lino right over tho mountain, but even hero there is a growing tendency now to build tun-nods, tun-nods, and he had noticed that at Hag-ormau Hag-ormau pass, an old tunnel near the head of tho pass had boen abandoned in favor of one considerably lower down, thus saving a long length of track and a very hovovo climb for tho ongino. Ho was informed that there Is a project beforo tho legislature- to have tho state of Colorado build a tun-nol tun-nol through tho main range of the Hookies nenr Jamos' Peak. Theoretically Theoretical-ly this tunnel would be open to any railway in tho state, but practically, as it is directly on tho lino of tho Moffat road, the latter is tho only one which could uso it. Impressed With Zion. Salt Lako City and Dcuvor wore visited vis-ited just bofore and just nftor pausing paus-ing over tho Rockies, and both made an oxcellent impression. At tho former a stop of t ovor two days was made and the visitors had a chance to see tho city and tho surrounding country. Tho foreigners woro especially pleased with the very clean, wide streots and, with tho pure, dry air, and as many of them aro music lovors, thoy took great do-light do-light in an organ recital which was given in tho Mormon tabernacle. At. Denver only a few hours could be spent, and the weather was not favorable, favor-able, which is unusual for that city of sunshine, but, novertholoss tho brilliant illumination of the streets and buildings build-ings and the evidencos of prosperity and healthy growth and metropolitan life which wero apparent on all sides conviucod the visitors that Denver was very much "on tho map." Meteor Crater Interesting. One of the most interesting objects in tho Southwest, and one which has giyen. occasion for n great amount of scientific discussion, is the so-called Meteor crater, in northern central Arizona. Ari-zona. This natural phenomenon is a great pit nearly circular in shape and about 4000 feet in diamoter. Its bottom, bot-tom, which is moro or less lovol, is at an average depth below tho rim of 570 feot, and tho top of the rim is about 100 feet above tho surrounding country, coun-try, which is a rather luvcl rocky plain with a very thin covering of soil. The uppor stratum of rock in the immediate immedi-ate vicinity of the "crater" is red sandstono, horizontally bedded, and underneath un-derneath this are stratus of limestone and sandstone. "When tho crater was formed, by whatever moans it may have been, those level rock beds wero dislodged dis-lodged from their position and thrown up in the great mass which now forms the ridge around the pit, and whose woight has beon estimated at more than 800.000,000 tons. Thousands of pieces of iron, supposedly meteoric in character, charac-ter, and of all sires up to nearly a ton in weight, have been found within a radius of five miles of the crater, the larger number of them within a mile or two of the rim. but so far only small fragments of iron have been found by drilling within the crater itself. it-self. Thero appears to bo no volcanic material within a distance of nino miles from tho pit. Hole Made by Meteor. All these facts have led to the theory that the great hole in the ground was made by tho impact of a meteor, perhaps per-haps solid, but moro probably composed com-posed of a cluster of thousands of mo-tooritcs, mo-tooritcs, the greater part of which are now imbedded hundreds of feet deep iu the southorn part of the pit, or un- der tho southern wall, which is more displaced and which bus a larger amount of dislodgod material than any other part of the rim. This viow is held by D. M 3arrinjror, who has de-years de-years of study to the Meteor crater, and who was the host and guide of the Amoriean Geographical society's party on its visit t this interesting spot. But many of tho geographers could not agree with this theory, and had opinions of their own concoring the origin of the pit. Professor Eugene do Cholnokv, of Kolozsvar, Hungary, who has individual ideas 011 iuot subjects,' started off on an indeppndoitt investigation investi-gation as soon aH ho arrived on tho ground, and fouud beds of travertine on the western side of the rim, and other material which is aasociated with deposits made by hot springs. Takes Different View. Judging by this, and' also by tho positions po-sitions of tho beds of rock, both those which had been uplifted and those which comprised tho top of tho plain outside, he came to the conclusion that tho pit had boen made b' a steam explosion, ex-plosion, or a goyser on a gigantic scale. After the explosion tho siliceous do-posits do-posits from tho geyser had covered the dislodged rocks to a great oxtent an protected them from being worn away, while tho surrounding plain had been eroded down some distanco below the ancient level. After returning to the train, ho was greatly pleased to discover dis-cover that W. 1). Johnson, of the LTnit-'il LTnit-'il States geological survey, had also found travertine on tho eastern sMe of the ridge betweon one-quarter ami ono-half mile from tho edno of the rim and hnd very much (lie samo general opinion as to the cause of the formation of the pit. believing that water iji tlu-interstices tlu-interstices of the underlying rock had beon heated to the boiling point by volcanic artion still farther down, until un-til tlic acijuimilated steam burst out in the grand " explosion which made tho crater. The lava or other volcanic ma tcrijil itself was so far down in the depths of the earth, however, that no truces of it had been found. Parallel in Wurtemberg. In support of this hypothesis, Professor Pro-fessor Edward Brueckner, of the University Uni-versity of Vienna, told of nn enormous pit or caldor.i at Rics, in Wurtemberg, iu the Swabian Jura, which is about twelve, and a half miles iu diameter, and between 100U and lo00 feet deop. Thcro is no volcanic materia there, cither, but the dislodged blocks of granite, gran-ite, gneiss, and so on, which form the surrounding rocks, indicate pretty clearly that the force causing their displacement must have come from below be-low and was probably duo-to a geyserlike geyser-like steam explosion. Professor Chai.v, on the ether hand believed that if there had been big. enough teinporatur"S lo boil the watei in the tniidsone rocks, the rocks themselves' them-selves' would liuvo been affected, and would show some s'uros nf thoir hem treatment. ;uul ho .-lso thought f'al I' the internal (ires of tlio earth h." ' be on the ulliumte canst; of the exjdo si 011 . soup r''p: of volcanic action would bo visible at, 1 r wovr. the sur face. On .the whole therefore, he was inclined to (he meteoric theory. Professor J. V. Niennnvor. of Utredii . wiped J'h" point that if tho hole had been made Iv a elus'-M- of meteorites il would nol be (ircular. bit . would be elongated, as the meteorites wonM strike, the earth iu a 1on- until, owing lo their own and (hp earth's motion, lie also called attention to a paper bv Professor M K. Mulder, of ITolbmd. which had been published about a year ago, and which I reals of the explosion ' of meteors in general, and of tho ori gin of Meteor crater in particular. His theory ia founded 011 observtioua inado by Albert IaptC3rn on aeroplanes and projectiles, whero it has boon found that there is a maximum pressure on tho forward end and a minimum pressure pres-sure sometimes amounting to a negative pressure, or outward pull, at certain parts of the sides. Professor Muldcn believes that meteors which are in a plastic condition owing to their great velocity in tho earth's atmosphere, aro hollowod and often exploded by theso differences in pressure. Holds Meteor Theory. With regard to tho Meteor crater phenomenon, ho thinks it was duo to a great meteor which has hollow, but whoso walls were strong enough to resist re-sist explosion until it struck tho earth. It penetrated the upper standstone and limestone strata, but in doing so its internal in-ternal pressure was increased so that it exploded with terrific force, causing the uplifting of ihc rocks, and scattering scatter-ing its own fragments iu a wide ring about the pit. No definite conclusion regarding this most interesting phenomenon c.ouid bo arrived at, and it seems that tho only way to settle the question is to havo a large number of deop borings caroful-ly caroful-ly made in the crater, through tho rim. and iu tho surrounding country. Tt is to be hoped that, this will soon bo done in the iutercsts of scicuco. |