(_e._) _Lake Bonneville._--Returning to Utah we are brought into contact
with phenomena of special interest, owing to the inter-relations of
volcanic and lacustrine conditions which once prevailed over large
tracts of that territory. The present Great Salt Lake, and the smaller
neighbouring lakes, those called Utah and Sevier, are but remnants of an
originally far greater expanse of inland water, the boundaries of which
have been traced out by Mr. C. K. Gilbert, and described under the name
of Lake Bonneville.[6] The waters of this lake appear to have reached
their highest level at the period of maximum cold of the Post-Pliocene
period, when the glaciers descended to its margin, and large streams of
glacier water were poured into it. Eruptions of basaltic lava from
successive craters appear to have gone on before, during, and after the
lacustrine epochs; and the drying up of the waters over the greater
extent of their original area, now converted into the Sevier Desert, and
their concentration into their present comparatively narrow basins,
appears to have proceeded _pari passu_ with the gradual extinction of
the volcanic outbursts. Two successive epochs of eruption of basalt
appear to have been clearly established--an earlier one of the "Provo
Age," when the lava was extruded from the Tabernacle craters, and a
later epoch, when the eruptions took place from the Ice Spring craters.
The oldest volcanic rock appears to be rhyolite, which peers up in two
small hills almost smothered beneath the lake deposits. Its eruption was
long anterior to the lake period. On the other hand, the cessation of
the eruptions of the later basaltic sheets is evidently an event of such
recent date that Mr. Gilbert is led to look forward to their resumption
at some future, but not distant, epoch. As he truly observes, we are not
to infer that, because the outward manifestations of volcanic action
have ceased, the internal causes of those manifestations have passed
away. These are still in operation, and must make themselves felt when
the internal forces have recovered their exhausted energies; but perhaps
not to the same extent as before.
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