THE OVERLAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 



91 



Just before reacliing Gateway station the route passes abruptly 

 from the open valley into the narrow V-shaped gorge cut by Welder 



River through this great range of mountains. Pre- 

 cipitous, craggy slopes rise on both sides and the 

 scenery is varied and impressive. The river descends 

 rapidly in this canyon and the power furnished by it 

 is utilized hy hydroelectric plants. Soon after entering the canyon 

 the train passes to the left (south) of a diversion dam at which a 



turned into a pressure pipe 6 feet in 

 diameter. From this pipe it emerges about 2 miles downstream, 



Gateway. 



Elevation 4,804 feet. 

 Omaha 988 miles. 



large part of the water is 



at an altitude 172 feet below the intake, at the power house of the 

 Utah Light & Railway Co., from which 5,000 horsepower is trans- 

 mitted 35 miles to Salt Lake City. From the power house the water 

 is carried by a canal along the south wall of the canyon to the tur- 

 bines of a second power house, from which it is distributed for irri- 

 gating the lands of the valley below. The once wortUess desert has 

 thus been transformed to green fields and fruitful orchards which 

 support a tliriving community. 



Toward the lower end of the canyon the river makes a sharp turn 

 to the right through a rocky defile called Devils Gate. Instead of 

 passing through this defile, the railroad is built through a cut made 

 in unconsolidated gravel which fills a former channel of the river. 

 Apparently this old channel was filled during one of the stages of 

 high water in Lake Bonneville (see pp. 97-99), and when the lake 

 water withdrew the river was deflected to the right at this point and 

 cut a new channel in the soHd rock, making what the physiographer 

 calls a young channel due to superimposed drainage.^ 



Wasatch, constitutes the transition be- 

 tween the Rockj^ Mountain ranges — mod- 

 ified arches whose axes have a northerly 

 trend with a marked tendency toward 

 westward deflection — and the Basin 

 Ranges — tilted blocks, whose axes have a 

 regular northerly trend. 



^ The behavior of the river at this point 

 gives the key to an understanding of its 

 course across the "Wasatch Range. The 

 river rises east of this range, biit instead 

 ^f taking the seemingly easier course 

 around the mountains, as Bear River did, 

 it has cut its way directly through them. 

 West of Echo it leaves the open basin-l^ke 

 valley and enters a narrow gorge nearly 

 2,000 feet deep. West of Devils Slide it 

 enters a canyon cut to a depth of 4,000 

 feet or more through the Bear River 



narrow canyon within which it passes 



asatch 



Mountains. 



In Tertiary -time such valleys as may 



have 



gravel 



range 



it crosses 



Range. West of this 



another open space and once more enters 



practically the whole region was aggraded 

 or built up to nearly a common level. 

 Over this plain the streams established 

 their courses without regard to the kind of 

 rock beneath the surface. Weber River 

 chose the course of least resistance at that 

 time, and when it deepened its channel 

 and found itself flowing directly across 

 the ridgea of hard rock that now form the 

 Wasatch Mountains it was too late to 



The energy of the stream has 

 been sufficient to cut only narrow gorges 

 in the hard rock, but in the softer rock it 

 has excavated the broad valleys west of 

 Vnhfi and near Morcan. 



change. 



