File:The Pacific tourist - Williams' illustrated trans-continental guide of travel, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean - containing full descriptions of railroad routes across the continent, all (14758072441).jpg

Identifier: pacifictouristwi00will (find matches)
Title: The Pacific tourist : Williams' illustrated trans-continental guide of travel, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean : containing full descriptions of railroad routes across the continent, all pleasure resorts and places of most noted scenery in the far West, also of all cities, towns, villages, U.S. Forts, springs, lakes, mountains, routes of summer travel, best localities for hunting, fishing, sporting, and enjoyment, with all needful information for the pleasure traveler, miner, settler, or business man : a complete traveler's guide of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads and all points of business or pleasure travel to California, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Montana, the mines and mining of the territories, the lands of the Pacific Coast, the wonders of the Rocky Mountains, the scenery of the Sierra Nevadas, the Colorado mountains, the big trees, the geysers, the Yosemite, and the Yellowstone
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Williams, Henry T
Subjects: Union Pacific Railroad Company Central Pacific Railroad Company
Publisher: New York : H.T. Williams
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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(Note: the illustration of Church Buttes is on p.105, but almost all text on the page is about Granger and View of Uintah Mountains. The description of Church Buttes begins on the last 3 lines of the page, and continues on p.106. There seems to be no point in showing the text before and after the image, because most of it isn't about the image. I have replaced it with the description of Church Buttes. If this displeases someone, please let me know and I'll revert it.)
Church Buttes — 887.7 miles from Omaha; elevation, 6,317 feet. The particular buttes, from which the station derives its name, are about 10 miles south of the station, on the old overland stage road, but buttes rise up from the level plains in this vicinity in every direction. They are, however, fast washing away. The annual increase in rain-fall on this desert, since the completion of the railroad and the stretching of five telegraph wires, is remarkable, and is especially noticed by the old settlers. These rains, with the frosts of winter, are having a noticeable effect on the buttes. Isolated peaks have disappeared entirely — and prominent projections have been materially lessened. There are still a large number, however, chiseled by the action of frosts and rains into fantastic shapes which will excite the attention and rivet the gaze of the traveler, as he passes by; but, if their annual diminution continues, in less than half a century, they will have lost their interest. Near this station is the last crossing of Black's Fork, which now bears away to the left, while the road ascends another of its branches, called the Big Muddy. What has been said in reference to agates, etc., of the other stations, will apply to Church Buttes with equal force.
Curious Scientific Explorations — Church Buttes is a curious formation, located on the line of the old overland stage route, about one hundred and fifty miles east from Salt Lake, and at this point having an elevation of 6,731 feet. The formation is part of the Mauvaises Terras, or Bad Lands, and consists of a vast deposit of sedimentary sandstones, and marly clay, in perfectly horizontal strata, and contain within their beds, some very remarkable paleontological remains. The peculiar effects of stormy weather and flood, in the past, has carved the bluff-lines into the most curious and fantastic forms — lofty domes and pinnacles, and fluted columns, these rocks resembling some cathedral of the olden time, standing in the midst of desolation.
Professor Hayden, in speaking of them says, "Distance lends a most delicious enchantment to the scene, and the imagination can build many castles from out of this mass of most singular formation. A nearer approach dispels some of the illusions, but the mind is no less impressed with the infinite variety of detail and the scattered remains of the extinct life of some far distant age."
In this section are found "moss agates" in the greatest abundance, being scattered all over the surface of the country. Standing upon one of the summits of the highest point of the "Bad Lands", Hayden says, "as far as the eye can reach, upon every side, is a vast extent of most infinite detail. It looks like some ruined city of the gods, blasted, bare, desolate, but grave, beyond a mortal's telling." In 1870, a geological expedition, headed by Prof. O. C. Marsh, of Yale College, and known as the "Yale College Expedition of 1870" — visited the "Bad Lands" and made a geological examination. They were accompanied by Buffalo Bill, a military troupe, and ten Pawnee Indians, as guides. On the way, Professor Marsh endeavored to explain the mighty changes of geology and the grand discoveries they would make — and as Buffalo Bill intimated, some of them were "pretty tough yarns". The desolation of the country can only be imagined, not described — hour after hour the party marched over burning sand-hills, without rocks or trees, or signs of water, while the thermometer stood at 110° in the shade of the wagons. After fourteen hours in the saddle, one of the soldiers, exhausted with heat and thirst, finally exclaimed: "What did God Almighty make such as this for?" "Why," replied another more devout trooper, "God Almighty made the country good enough, but it's this deuced geology the professor talks about, that spoiled it all."

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