DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 43 
day expand the rocks and melt some of the snow, and the water so 
formed sinks down in cracks and crevices and during the ensuing 
night freezes. The expansion and contraction of the rocks due to 
changes in temperature and the freezing of water in joints and 
fissures soon break to pieces even the most massive granite, as shown 
on the summit of the peak. 
The first railroad that was projected up Pikes Peak was an ordi- 
nary steam road. It was planned to follow a circuitous route with 
a maximum gradient of 250 feet to the mile and to reach the summit 
in a distance of 30 miles. Construction was started in 1884, and 
about 8 miles was graded when the scheme failed through lack of 
financial support. Surveys for the present road were begun in 1888, 
and the golden spike was driven on October 20, 1890. The maximum 
gradient of this road is 1,320 feet to the mile, and the length is 9 
miles. 
The automobile road reaches the same point on the summit that is 
reached by the Cogwheel Road. The length of the road is 18 miles ; 
its average grade is 370 feet to the mile, and its maximum grade is 
554 feet. The view from the automobile road is even more impressive 
than that from the Cogwheel Road, for, owing to the numerous 
bends, the traveler can see the ever-widening landscape on all sides. 
The route passes through Manitou and up the narrow defile of Ute 
Pass, at first over the edges of the eastward-dipping quartzite and 
then over the underlying granite. The road as well as the contact 
between the quartzite above and the granite below is well shown in 
Plate XXIV, B. At the village of Cascade the new road turns and 
climbs the west wall of the canyon, and as it rounds the point directly 
above Cascade the traveler can look down the pass to Manitou, far 
in the distance. The road follows Cascade Creek for some distance 
in a canyon hemmed in by granite walls, but these grow less and less 
steep as the automobile moves on until finally the road passes by a 
gentle erade from the head of the valley to the divide between Cas- 
cade and Catamount creeks. At this height, about 9,250 feet, the 
traveler gets a wide view, particularly to the north, and he may note 
that the sky line, as shown in Plates XV, A, and XXIV, A, is as level 
as that of the plain about Colorado Springs, except that here and 
there low knobs rise island-like above the level surface, and far away 
in the hazy distance he can just make out the blue outline of Tarryall 
and Mosquito ranges. Could the traveler, however, cross the ap- 
parently level plain at which he is looking he would find that it 1s 
smooth only in appearance from a distance, for it is really cut up 
into numerous ravines much like the one followed by the automobile 
road. Another feature which the traveler will probably notice on the 
