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Show Cleft Mountain, Featured in a Travel Volume in Middle IBM's, As Seen From Speeding Airplane L,... r '"" , , ... "-' In Millard County, near what we call Twin Peaks, slightly southwest south-west of Kanosh is a sharp, conelike cone-like mountain, taller than Pahvant Butte (Sugarloaf), which Is marked mark-ed on the larger maps as being "an extinct volcano". From the air it doesn't have the proper features of a volcano, as it lacks a vent or orifice, and ther is no ejected material around or near it. But it is a decided cone, sharp in outline on the side facing north. That north side is shown in the photo above, featuring the "cleft". It will be noted that the mountain moun-tain is somewhat light-colored, which in this region usually .signifies .signi-fies rhyolite. There is another intrusion in-trusion of rhyolite much farther to the west, what is called on the maps as "White Cone", but better known to us locally as "Crystal Peak.'The White Cone shows in its environment, which is markedly different, that it is an intrusion from below, a plutonic formation or vulcanism. Pluto was the Greek arid Roman god of the nether world, wor-ld, below, ruling the spirits of the departed: Vulcan was the god of forges, blacksmiting, welding and such work. So that either term means, according to which one is used, from below, from underground, under-ground, heat, melting. Also far to the northwest is Topaz To-paz Mountain, another up-rising of rhyolite when hot, plastic, and pliable pli-able enough to slightly run when pushed by pressure. " So here are three widely separated separat-ed masses of rock, shoved up from the heated interior of the earth, not erupting, not explosive, but . welling up in masses; two of them cone-like slightly in. appearance, and the other an immense mountain moun-tain (Topaz). Cleft Mountain resembles re-sembles a cone, and so is said to be a cone of an extinct volcano, though that is doubtful; Crystal Peak is less cone-like in shape; and huge Topaz Mountain not cone-like at all. But at Topaz, in one place the swirls can be seen near where blasting for topaz crys-. crys-. tals has been done, now fro sen into in-to hard stone, showing that once the material was plastic, like stiff hot tar stirred with a stick. A flowing appearance can also be seen on Crystal Peak, but less so. There the surrounding material is very opposite from the white cone intruded from below, so that this large cone stands up as plainly as a sore thumb tied up in a rag. It can be seen from the road as you climb out of Cove Fort to reach the summit; at one turn in April and November, the White Cone (Crystal Peak) is plainly discernible discern-ible in favorable conditions. As the housewife takes a knife : blade or other instrument, and "cuts a curlikew" in the crust of a pie to adorn it, imprinting her whim of the moment, so some genii, some huge master craftsman some enormous giant, drew his finger down from the very top to the very bottom of Cleft Mountain, Moun-tain, leaving a deep gap or furrow. He felt the whim, gave way to the ! impulse, and left his imprint on 'the big mountain. That gap faces north; hence in early spring, the snow melts on the sides, and all around the cone, but in the depth of this furrow, the warm sun can't hit it yet, and snow remains, leaving leav-ing a "twisting line of white, from top to bottom, very pretty. This Carvalho saw way back in the middle 1800's and idealized it in a book of travel incidents. Carvalho was an artist, hired by John C. Fremont to accompapny his expedition, and to record in sketch and water color, the beauties beau-ties encountered In the Far West. When Fremont's party got to Par-owan Par-owan in mid winter, they were a-bout a-bout used up; if I remember rightly one man died in the rigors of winter.cold, exhaustion, hunger, and Carvalho was just about all in. The others of the survivors, more robust than he, were soon on their way again, continuing the trek. But Carvalho had to be sent to Salt Lake City to recuperate. While in Salt Lake he made the acquaintance acquain-tance of Brigham Young, and soon was busy painting liknesses in Brigham's residence. In the spring Brigham had business down south, and invited Carvalho to join the party, which he did, and while in Fillmore, some one told him of this pretty mountain, and how nice it looked at that time of year, with the twist of snow form top to bottom. bot-tom. So Carvalho went to it, sketched sketch-ed it in, and later, at his leisure made a water color from that sketch; he idealized it somewhat, put in more and nicer trees than exist, and what he wanted he put in. When he wanted to "pretty it" he simply prettied it and let it go at that; Fremont didn't care, and valho's readers wouldn't know, and it formed a fine illustration in the old-time book. And he named it "Cleft Mountain", and showed snow in the cleft. The first accquaintance I had of Cleft Mountain was in this book by Carvalho; the next time I saw it was in the company of John Kozina and Emory John; and the last time when I took this photo from the air on the way back from going over Zion Canyon. The photo was taken through the glass window pane. The speed of the plane was 150 miles per hour. Not far from Cleft Mountain is the obsidian field from which the prehistoric Indians got their material mat-erial . for making arrowheads, scrapers, fleshers, spear point heads, and other cutting tools. So that all. the setting of the mountain shows vulcanism, heat, flow, and somewhat farther away, actual volcanoes near Meadow and Fillmore. |