Of the raptors the principal are the red-tailed hawk (B. borealis), the sharp-shinned hawk (A. fuscus), the sparrow-hawk, and the vulturine turkey-buzzard. Of game-birds there are several varieties of quail, called partridges, especially the beautiful blue species (O. Californica), and grouse, especially the sage-hen (T. urophasianus): the water-fowl are swans (C. Americanus), wild geese in vast numbers, the white pelican, here a migrating bird, the cormorant (Phalacrocorax), the mallard or greenhead (A. boschas), which loves the water of Jordan and the western Sea of Tiberias, the teal, red-breasted and green-winged, the brant (A. bernicla), the plover and curlew, the gull (a small Larus), a blue heron, and a brown crane (G. Canadensis), which are found in the marshes throughout the winter. The other members of the family are the bluebird (A. sialia), the humming-bird (Trochilus), finches, woodpeckers, the swamp blackbird, and the snowbird, small passerines: there is also a fine lark (Sturnella) with a harsh note, which is considered a delicacy in autumn.
Besides a variety of gray and green lizards, the principal Saurian is the Phrynosoma, a purely American type, popularly called the horned frog—or toad, although its tail, its scaly body, and its inability to jump disprove its title to rank as a batrachian—and by the Mexicans chameleon, because it is supposed to live on air. It is of many species, for which the naturalist is referred to the Appendix of Captain Stansbury’s Exploration. The serpents are chiefly rattlesnakes, swamp-adders, and water-snakes. The fishes are perch, pike, bass, chub, a mountain trout averaging three pounds, and salmon trout which has been known to weigh thirty pounds. There are but few mollusks, periwinkles, snails, and fresh-water clams.[155]
[155] Mr. W. Baird, in the absence of Mr. S. Woodward, of the British Museum, has kindly favored me with the following list of a little collection from the Great Basin which I placed in his hands.
“British Museum, August 3d, 1861.
“Dear Sir,—The Helix (with open umbilicus) is, I think, H. solitaria; the large Physa is very near, if not identical with the P. elliptica of our collection; the next largest Physa comes very near P. gyrina; the larger Lymnœa is L. catascopium, the smaller ditto L. modicella. There are two species of the genus Lithoglyphus, the one resembling very much the L. naticoides of Europe, but most probably new; the other I should imagine to be undescribed. There is a small Paludina looking shell which comes very near the Paludina piscium of D’Orbigny. There is a species of Anodonta which corresponds with a shell we have from the Columbia River, but of which I do not know the name. There is also a species of Cyclas which may be new, as I do not know at present any species from North America exactly like it. Believe me, yours truly, W. Baird.
“Capt. R. F. Burton.”
The botany of the Great Basin has been investigated by Messrs. Frémont and Stansbury, who forwarded their collections for description to Professor John Torrey, of New York: M. Remy has described his own herbarium. To these valuable works the reader may be referred for all now known upon the subject.
GEOLOGY OF UTAH TERRITORY.The rocks in Utah Territory are mostly primitive—granite, brick-red jasper, syenite, hornblende, and porphyry, with various quartzes, of which the most curious is a white nodule surrounded by a crystalline layer of satin spar. The presence of obsidian, scoriæ, and lava—apparently a dark brown mud tinged with iron, and so vitrified by heat that it rings—evidences volcanic action. Many of the ridges are a carboniferous limestone threaded by calcareous spar, and in places rich with encrinites and fossil corallines; it rests upon or alternates with hard and compact grits and sandstone. The kanyons in the neighborhood of Great Salt Lake City supply boulders of serpentine, fine gray granite, coarse red ochrish pœcilated crystalline-white and metamorphic sandstones, a variety of conglomerates, especially granitic, with tufa in large masses, talcose and striated slates, some good for roofing, gypsum (plaster of Paris), pebbles of alabaster and various kinds of limestones, some dark and fetid, others oolitic, some compact and massive, black, blue, or ash-colored, seamed with small veins of white carbonate of lime, others light gray and friable, cased with tufa, or veneered with jade. The bottom-soil in most parts is fitted for the adobe, and the lower hills contain an abundance of fossilless chalky lime, which makes tolerable mortar: the best is that near Deep Creek, the worst is in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake City. Near Fort Hall, in the northeast corner of the basin, there is said to be a mountain of marble displaying every hue and texture: marble is also found in large crystalline nodules like arragonite.
Utah Territory will produce an ample supply of iron.[156] According to the Mormons, it resembles that of Missouri, and the gangue contains eighty per cent. of pure metal, which, to acquire the necessary toughness, must be alloyed with imported iron. Gold, according to Humboldt, is constant in meridional mountains, and we may expect to find it in a country abounding with crystalline rocks cut by dikes of black and gray basalt and porous trap, gneiss, micaceous schists, clayey and slaty shales, and other argillaceous formations. It is generally believed that gold exists upon the Wasach Mountains, within sight of Great Salt Lake City, and in 1861 a traveling party is reported to have found a fine digging in the north. Lumps of virgin silver are said to have been discovered upon the White Mountains, in the south of the Territory, and Judge Ralston, I am informed, has lately hit upon a mine near the western route. Copper, zinc, and lead have been brought from Little Salt Lake Valley and sixty miles east of the Vegas de Santa Clara. Coal, principally bituminous—like that nearer the Pacific—is found mostly in the softer limestones south of the city, in a country of various marls, indurated clays, and earthy sandstones. In 1855 a vein of five feet thick, in quality resembling that of Maryland, was discovered west of the San Pete Creek, on the road to Manti. In Iron County, 250 to 280 miles south of Great Salt Lake City, inexhaustible coal-beds as well as iron deposits are said to line the course of the Green River, and, that nothing may be wanting, considerable affluents supply abundant water-power. A new digging had been discovered shortly before my arrival on a tributary of the Weber River, east of the City of the Saints, and upon the western route many spots were pointed out to me as future coal-mines. Timber being principally required for building, fencing, and mechanical purposes, renders firewood expensive: in the city a cartage of fifteen miles is necessary, and the price is thereby raised from $7 in summer to a maximum of $20 in the hard season per cord of sixteen by four feet. Unless the Saints would presently be reduced to the necessity of “breakfasting with Ezekiel,” they must take heart and build a tramroad to the south.
[156] Magnetic iron ore is traced in the basaltic rock; cubes of bisulphuret of iron are found in the argillaceous schists, and cubic crystals of iron pyrites are seen in white ferruginous quartz.