| Show antiquities and coal dods A to the new york sun from castle valley castle valley is on the east side of the W gatch mountain gand about ninety miles long by fifty wide A person might travel the entire length of it and not know he wa in it unless told for it is covered with large rocky mounds have apparently parent ly slid off the main mountain range many of these hills present the appearance of ruined castles or towers hence the nime n ime the soil is very fertile where water can be brought upon it I have seen turnips raised there that weighed twelve pounds and otar vegetables in proportion the southwestern part of the valley is literally covered with remains of ancient pottery many pieces being finely ornamented there are man hieroglyphics on high rocks in different parts of the valley about sixty miles east ot salina canyon we came upon a plain covering several square miles to the eye it presented no unusual ap before we had proceeded tar one of our horses broke through into a subterranean cavern of several feet in depth whose wall were hung with a plaster of pa ris of a honeycomb formation in every conceivable shape on examination we found the entire surface of the aroun l at the depth of a few inches with this same substance retook many pieces which presented as fine an appearance as any coral I ever saw some of these peces were white others pink while others were of a green tinge this peculiar formation is some twenty feet in depth but the grandest grac dest feature of this valley is its extensive coal fields there is one stratum forty fett and ix inches of solid coal and there are hundreds of strata from three to nine feet in depth without exaggeration there is enough coal in that valley to last the world one hundred enclosed find some of the miner il we called plaster also some pieces of pottery what are they to this the editor of the sun replies the pottery is similar to that found in other localities in utah and arizona and is supposed to have been manufactured by some race ol 01 people those regions long beacie the discovery of this continent by europeans the soft white mineral plaster is a kind of magne aban limestone |
