1871 Rocky Mountain Directory and Colorado Gazetteer, comprising a brief history of Colorado up to 1871 … together with a complete and accurate directory and history of Denver, Golden City, Black Hawk, Central City, Nevada, Idaho, and Georgetown.
Here, in the deep primeval forest, the brave aboriginal inhabitants searched for those medicinal treasures stored in the pharmacy of nature, and from these compounded the curative preparations for which the tribe has long been renowned. Here, upon the Saco river bank, the Sokokis built his bark wigwam, upon these waters he propelled his beaded canoe of birch with noiseless pad, die of ash, and in the pellucid depths saw the reflection of his dusky form. The adventuresome Vikings, reared in a land indented with intersecting voes, when they discovered our rivers upon which the tide ebbed and flowed, supposed … Read more
Anthropologists believe that mankind has lived somewhere in southern Florida for at least 12,000 years. Its sub-tropical climate, abundance of water and fertile peat soils produces a diverse range of animal and vegetative food sources for humans year round. However, to date no Paleo-American artifacts have been discovered in or along the shores of the lake. Such evidences of the past are probably buried deep under the peat in scattered locations. They have been found in abundance about 88 miles (110 km) to the northwest in two natural springs near Sarasota, FL.
Okeechobee is the Anglicization of the Itsate Creek (Miccosukee) words Oka chopi, which mean “Water Big.” Its aboriginal inhabitants called the lake either Maya-imi, which apparently means “Maya Water or Mayakaa, which means Maya People in several northern South American tongues. The Spanish called it Laguna de Mayaco or on some maps Laguna de Espiritu Santo. However, that name more typically applied to the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee River. In 1821, when Florida was ceded to the United States, the earliest English language maps generally retained the Mayaco name, but some called it Macaco.
Dr. Edwin James, botanist and historian of Long’s expedition, who visited the Pike’s Peak region in 1820, says of the principal spring at Manitou: The boiling spring is a large and beautiful fountain of water, cool and transparent and aerated with carbonic acid. It rises on the brink of a small stream which here descends from the mountains at the point where the bed of this stream divides the ridge of sandstone, which rests against the base of the first granitic range. The water of the spring deposits a copious concretion of carbonate of lime, which has accumulated on every … Read more
In General it may be said that the mountain ranges of Idaho are volcanic upheavals, the mighty bending upward of the crust of the earth’s surface when its inborn fires were lashed to unwonted fury in some stormy age of old eternity. The valleys were doubtless formed by this upheaval of its enclosing ranges, leaving the floor of the surface here comparatively undisturbed. This really rests on a foundation of aqueous rock of unmeasured thickness, on which the alluvial matter that forms its soils has been deposited. With this there are, in many places, deep deposits of water-worn pebbles and … Read more
Mineralogical And Geographical Notices, Denoting The Value Of Aboriginal Territory. 1. Wisconsin and Iowa Lead Ore A correspondent, engaged in the practical working of these ores, remarks: “By the box of specimens transmitted, you will be able to judge of the character of these valuable ores. The square broken mineral is taken from east and west leads; which is of the softest temperature and most easy to smelt; it also produces the most lead, yielding about 50 per cent, from the log, and about 15 from the ash furnaces. The dark smooth pieces are taken from deep clay digging hi … Read more
That species of action which is supposed to have brought the surface of the earth into its habitable condition is comprised in the era of physical revolutions which are long past. By what causes, and according to what laws, these changes were produced, and their effects on the superposition and relation of strata, constitute no small part of the considerations of geology. Seas, rivers, mountains, and plains, are conjectured to have been left by those ancient revolutions, all of which preceded the historical epoch. It has been observed that the post-diluvial action of rivers flowing into the sea, and carrying … Read more
1. The discovery of gold in California makes the year 1848 an era in the history of that country. It was accidentally found, in the Spring season, in the diluvial soil, by some persons digging the sluiceway for a mill. Specimens of the various kinds of the metal and its matrix were forwarded to the War Department by the chief military officer in command, in the month of August. These specimens were not received at the War-Office till early in December. I examined them in the library of that office, on the 8th of that month. They consisted of thirteen … Read more
In addition to various geological references scattered through these pages the following facts from an American Geological Railway Guide, by James Macfarlane, Ph.D., will be of interest. “The State of New York is to the geologist what the Holy Land is to the Christian, and the works of her Palæontologist are the Old Testament Scriptures of the science. It is a Laurentian, Cambrian, Silurian and Devonian State, containing all the groups and all the formations of these long ages, beautifully developed in belts running nearly across the State in an east and west direction, lying undisturbed as originally laid down. … Read more
Montana, mountainous or full of mountains is a name, as herein used, no less beautiful than significant. From the summit of its loftiest peak – Mount Hayden – may be seen within a day’s ride of each other the sources of the three great arteries of the territory owned by the United States – the Missouri, the Colorado, and the Columbia. From the springs on either side of the range on whose flanks Montana lies flow the floods that mingle with the North Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of California, and the Gulf of Mexico. The Missouri is 4,600 miles in … Read more
The territory of Idaho was set off by congress March 3, 1863. It was erected out of the eastern portion of Washington with portions of Dakotah and Nebraska, and contained 326,373 square miles, lying between the 104th and 117th meridians of longitude, and the 42d and 49th parallels of latitude. It embraced the country east of the summits of the Rocky Mountains to within fifty miles of the great bend of the Missouri below the mouth of the Yellowstone, including the Milk River, White Earth, Big Horn, Powder River, and a portion of the Platte region on the North Fork … Read more
No geological survey has been made of Todd County, and the State work is of such a general nature as to forbid the gathering of anything approaching a particular review of the geological features of this county from its pages. A brief general review is all that can be attempted in the time and space assigned to this topic here. The geological formations of Kentucky, in common with those of the other Western States, generally belong to that great system which extends from the Alleghanies on the east across the Mississippi and to the Rocky Mountains on the west. Throughout … Read more