....We are headed for the nearer of the workings but in route ask question about the origin of the interesting deposits. in response to these Mr. ford calls attention to the fact that the rock covering the country over which we are walking is sandstone and that beneath this is a thick deposit of oil shale. The shale in the form of mud, was the first in the form of mud to be formed in the bottom of a lake or sea that once covered this area and then on top of the mud came the thick deposits of sand. In the coarse of time the vast area of water dissapeared and the bottom of the lake or sea became elevated to form mountains now about us. In the meantime however, with the aid of heat nad pressure, the mud changed to shale and the sand to sandstone. In folding to form the long mountains, the more brittle sandstone cracked along the entire length of the ridges. Then as the masses of sandrock between the cracks slowly cooled they shrank and graduallymade the cracks wider and wider. The one we saw, recall, was about seven feet wide. The heat, still in the shale bed beneath the sandstone, vaporized the asphaltum of th shale and thus permitted the asphalt in the form of fumes to escape into the ever widening cracks in the sandstone. As soon as the fumes struck the cooler air in the cracks the fumes condensed and thus , in time, filled each crack with vertical deposits of solid, pure asphaltum. Such asphaltum is Uintahite or Gilsonite.
This interesting explanation makes the half mile walk to the working seem only half the distance. But now are attention is diverted from the ancient past to what is before us. We comment on the clean cut slit through thte mountain from which the Gilsonite has been mined and we intrest ourselves int he black, sooty complexions of the workmen. Presently we are climbing a short rail over bits of the shiny brittle, black ore and up to where the tram cars go in to the cut. We follow along the crack and in a moment or two find ourselves enclosed on both sides by vertical walls of solid rock. The noiseof workman far beneath us echo through the long cut and give us piculular feelings. These sounds attract our attention and we look down in hopes of seeing the miners at work, but the distance is too far and the air too dusty for us to see more than two or three dim lights moving from place to place. We go farther in tot he slitand the streak of light above us becomes narrower, the echoes more pronounced and the air more dusty. The plank walk is built on timber which span from side to side of the empty vein and as we saunter along we feel that we are walking in air. At places, however, the timvers are covered in rough boards and at others with wire netting that is stretched from timber to timber along the tramway. These we are told are placed there te keep rocks and other thing from falling down ont he workman below. The wire ntting also permits light to pass tot he men and affords better circualtion of air.
