REPORT OF THE EXPLORING EXPEDITION

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Page 97 - Scattered over the plain were thousands of the fantastically formed buttes to which I have so often referred in my notes; pyramids, domes, towers, columns, spires, of every conceivable form and size. Among these by far the most remarkable was the forest of Gothic spires, first and imperfectly seen as we issued from the mouth of the Canon Colorado. Nothing I can say will give an adequate idea of the singular and surprising appearance which they presented from this new and advantageous point of view....
Page 58 - Cretaceous sediments being deposited during the period in which a subsidence of several thousand feet took place. Fourth. At the close of the Cretaceous age a period of elevation began, which continued to the drift epoch. This was succeeded by a period of depression and again by one of elevation. Fifth. The great elevatory movement of the Rocky Mountains took place between the close of the Cretaceous period and that of the Miocene Tertiary.
Page 97 - ... far less variety and beauty of detail than this. From the pinnacle on which we stood the eye swept over an area some fifty miles in diameter, everywhere marked by features of more than ordinary interest: lofty lines of massive mesas rising in successive steps to form the frame of the picture; the interval between them more than 2,000 feet below their summits. A great basin or sunken plain lay stretched out before us as on a map. Not a particle of vegetation was anywhere discemible; nothing but...
Page 132 - ... shorter on the umbilical, having two short, unequal, digitate, terminal branches at the end, and some three or four short, irregular divisions along the oblique margin of the umbilical side; second lateral lobe small, or scarcely more than twice as large as the auxiliary lobe of the siphonal sinus, and somewhat irregularly bifid, the divisions being short, and, like the lateral margins, more or less digitate. " Greatest diameter of a specimen retaining only a small portion of the non-septate...
Page 132 - ... of nearly the same form as the latter, but more spreading, and the third pair are smaller, and merely provided with a few digitations; first lateral sinus (dorsal saddle of old nomenclature) as long as the siphonal lobe, but much wider, and deeply divided into two unequal parts, of which the one on the siphonal side is larger than the other; each of these principal divisions being ornamented by some four or five short, irregular branchlets, with obtusely digitate margins; first lateral lobe longer...
Page 69 - Arriving at the western border of this mesa, we looked directly down into the narrow but fertile valley in which is nestled the little Mexican village of Los Canones. Descending by a steep and tortuous path, we left our mules at the bottom and climbed a detached mesilla which stands at the junction of the two branches of the valley, and on which is situated an ancient and ruined pueblo, once a stone-built town of considerable size. Even its name is now lost, and of the inhabitants whose busy hands...
Page 132 - Shell discoidal; umbilicus shallow; somewhat less than the diameter of the last whorl from the ventral to the peripheral side, and showing all the inner turns; volutions increasing gradually in size, very slightly embracing, compressed so as to be nearly flat on the sides, but rounding into the umbilicus ; periphery rather narrow, nearly flat, and provided with a small mesial carina, which is very slightly waved in outline; lateral margins of the periphery each having a row of small compressed nodes,...
Page 125 - ... which bifurcate along the umbonal ridge ; marks of growth rather obscure. Upper valve flat, oval, apparently smooth or only having obscure lines of growth. Length from the most prominent part of the umbo to the ventral margin, 1 inch; transverse breadth, 0.72 inch; depth or convexity, about 0.42 inch. It is possible that this shell may be identical with E.
Page 5 - Appendix, p. 684. and, crossing the Rio Grande del Norte, followed up the valley of the River Chama, finally leaving it at the dividing ridge between the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and those of the Gulf of California. From here they struck across the headwaters of the San Juan River, passing along the junction of the Grand and Green rivers. Thence they proceeded southward to the San Juan River, which they followed up as far as Canyon Largo, passing thence down the valley of the Puerco to the old...
Page 133 - No. 228 be so held that its lower end dip not more than an inch or an inch and a half in...

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