OCR Text |
Show f Physical Features of The Uintah Basin f Restored Hronlosaurus. This animal lived In Uintah Hasin millions of yours u;o. Complete skeleton recently unearthed at Jensen quarry by Karl Douglass, of Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg, Pa. Twenty-six four-horse four-horse teams required to haul bones to railroad. Animal was 100 feet r long and 20 feet tall. (Py Earl Douglass) To those who have spent their lives in the Uintah basin Its physical features seem quite matter-of-fact The stranger sees it as a strange land indeed, a chaos of rocks, hills, buttes, badlands, valleys, canyons, benches, foot-hills and mountains. Those who have an ey for t lie wild and out-of-the-way, the beautiful and piMuresijiie, who are weary of cities and artificiality, revel in lis wlld-ncss. wlld-ncss. The pruclical man sees the billions in money-value In its gilsonite, as-phult. as-phult. and other hydro-carbons, in its prospects of great oil-outputs, in the forests and minerals of its mountains, moun-tains, and its great engineering possibilities pos-sibilities which will make "streams of water In the desert," causing them to "blossom as the rose,"' and in other oth-er sources of wealth and progress too numerous to mention here. The man whose thief interest is in human progress sees in vision a land transformed, sees hundreds of thousands thou-sands of farm sand pleasant homes, with the greatest diversity of farm products and home comforts, with fine slock and finer people, these homes threading the labarynths of the hills, spreading over the benches and climbing the mountain sides. Put in spite of the industry of man he M-es ever in the background of the mountains, bad lands, buttes and benches, the ancient bulwarks of primeval nature, which will ever appeal ap-peal to the feelings, instincts and imaginations of man and help to shape his character. "Put how does it appeal to the man who has made the structure of the earth his principal study?" This, virtually Is the question which the w.cj" ;Hi fm i ti i rj trnr jjhort sketch. He may see all that others see, and more. lie sees how an intelligent, common sense study of the physical ( haracteri.slic of a country, especially especial-ly like that of the Uintah basin, would save a vast amount of time, worry, and disappointed hopes, and would be un immense aid in the healthy growth of the country and the development of its unnumbered resources. If we are dealing with the earth and that is the source from which all our wealth comes we will be benefitted directly by knowing more about the earth. The occurrence of precious metals, oil, hydro-carbons, etc., are directly related to the rocky structure of the earth; and though prospecting often requires large expenditures ex-penditures of money, the amount expended ex-pended need be only a fraction of what it usually is if the prospecting were done on a true scientific basis. No one is more dependent on geological geo-logical conditions than the farmer in fact the whole future prospects of the country depend on its phyiscal and geological conditions, for its soil, local climate, the conditions for profitable irrigation, the division into farm and grazing land, what crops will grow best In certain localities, depend on geological conditions. Do you know that the Uintah ba- j sin stands by itself? that there is I no other region like it in topography, ! climate, physical, and geological con ditions? No other rocks In the world hae yielded the remains of fossil animals like those of the Uintah de- posits along Green and White rivers. I No other region has yielded such an ' abundance of nearly complete skele tons of the huge Dinosaurs, no other j country has such deposits of hydro carbons, and there is no other country coun-try which will give the same number num-ber and range of agricultural prod-! prod-! nets. The details of geology like those of other sciences are complex and it requires patient work and skill to understand them; but some of the riain principles are comparatively easy and are of great practical value besides giving zest and pleasant study lor every excursion out of doors especially es-pecially in a region like this. We can here give only a few principles 1 oping that in the near future it will be practicable to publish a booklet on tiie physical geography, and geology of this region, which will be interest-inr interest-inr and profitable to the pupil iu the schools, to be the laborer on the farm, fie promoter of great engineering 1 rojects, and all who are interested in the development of the resources of Ihe region and in making it their i hemes. If you stand on the Uintah mountains moun-tains In the region north of the Ashley Ash-ley valley and look to the southward you see a maze of rocks, buttes, benches, canyons, valleys, etc., that seem a chaos which admits of no rational explanation. Peneath your feet are red sandstones sand-stones or qiiaruitcs A little farther to the southward the outcrops of rock are of hard lime-stones which contain the shells of ancient sea-an-iin&ls. Still farther to the southward south-ward and forming the shoulder of slopes of the mountains are hard sandstones. Then come red beds a thousand feet or more which weather into cliffs and slopes facing the mountains. moun-tains. Peyond these are sandstones again weathering into buttes and massive achitectural forms in the foothills. Then there are sandy shales containing more marine shells then bad-land deposits, and sandstones containing bones and skeletons of huge Dinosaur then more sandstones and south of these a sea-deposit, of soft shale a mile or so in thickness which, weathering into 'plains give us the Ashley valley, then sandstones sand-stones and shales again beyond these beds of alternately soft and hard rocks containing asphalt, veins of hydro-carbons and the bones, teeth and skulls of fossil animals different from anything known today or found In any other part of the world. In glancing over this series of rocks you have been gazing all the time on newer and newer rocks. All are "older than the hills" into which the elements have rarved them, but newest are young compared with those which He at your feet. Here the roeks slope away towards; fire' southward, -Jfaning up against the mountains. Go to the north side of the mountains and you will find in places the same beds dipping the other way or leaning against the north slope at least you would If more recent deposits did not cover them. Evidently there has been an upheavel of the rocky crust of the earth in a great wave, and time and the elements have slowly worn off the crest of the rocky billow. Put the earth waves, like those of the sea are not perfectly simple long upheavels, but they are more or less complicated by smaller waves. If this were not so we would see straight line" of buttes, parallel with the mountains, carved from the heavy sanr'-stone layers, and cliffs of the rea beds extending like a red band from cast to west, etc. Put these 8..er folds or waves complicate matters and make formation that Soi"s to dodge in and out or turn lr southward to get around the smaller uplift. --ie rising of these waves which frrs' the Uintah mountains was evi-(ta.iv evi-(ta.iv on sudden dramatic catastrophe catastro-phe or it has risen across the course of Green river which, as the un- b'rt 'ose slowly cut its- way down inm its rocky beds keeping its right or vy without changing its course? "bat has the upheavel done? It hN -.-iised the altitude, increased the p. equitation of moisture thus, mak-!t. mak-!t. Hie streams that have cut canyons ii. the mountains sides and made Viwivs below. Soft rocks have been wasned away making valleys narrow nar-row nr broad, depending on the dip ."e rock. It has given the grade u. streams which makes irrigation irriga-tion and great utilization of water nowr possible. It has compelled Ljims to pass through a great se-r. se-r. . of rocks and carried down the n..MraI constituents of all and de-ow,h1 de-ow,h1 it in the valleys. It has nxac i thousands of combinations of sun of local climatic conditions and ci typographic features. |