76 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, 
Although the rocks throughout the Royal Gorge are in general 
similar, they differ greatly from place to place, their character de- 
‘pending largely on the crushing stresses to which they have been 
subjected at great depths in the earth. In some places the rock is 
massive granite; it has never been crushed or disturbed in any way. 
In other places the rock (probably originally granite, or possibly 
sandstone and shale) has been so squeezed and crushed that it has 
been more or less changed. The minerals of the rock have been 
recrystallized, and in the process of change the crystals have been 
arranged in layers at right angles to the direction in which the 
force was applied, and the rock has become a gneiss. In some places 
' the process has been carried so far that all the rock material has 
been recrystallized, and the rock has become an exceedingly soft 
mica schist, composed largely of small flakes of mica, and it can 
be split like a slate: The structure is complicated also by dikes, 
which cut across the other rocks, or irregular intrusive masses which 
here and there break up the regularity of the banding. In places 
veins of quartz have been deposited from mineral-bearing waters 
that slowly circulated through open fissures. Finally all these masses 
have been turned and twisted, folded back upon themselves, and 
broken, until the result is a structure which is complicated almost 
beyond description. 
As the train moves on the canyon walls grow higher and some- 
what steeper, and through a side gulch here and there the traveler 
may catch glimpses of the most rugged towering pinnacles. Such 
a view may be obtained about half a mile above milepost 164, up 
a small canyon on the right to a wall of massive granite that stands 
at least 1,000 feet high. 
At the abandoned station of Gorge the Royal Gorge really be- 
gins. Below this point the railroad has had little difficulty in find- 
Gorge. ing a passage, but immediately above the old station 
Elevation 5,494 feet. : - 
Denver 163 miles, Darely 50 feet. The walls are massive and rise 
nearly vertically to heights of 1,000 to 1,200 feet. 
(See Pls. XXXVI, A, and XXXVII.) The train here plunges into 
the vast depths of this narrow cleft, and the traveler is free to enjoy 
the scene, without a thought as to how or where he is to emerge 
from them. He knows that he will be through the canyon in a few 
minutes, but the early explorers had no such knowledge. Lieut. — | 
the walls close in until the stream has a width of 
Pike, who visited the Royal Gorge about the first of January, 1807, _ 
had serious difficulty in exploring its narrowest parts. Can anything — 
more difficult be imagined than that attempt to find a passage through 
this unexplored gorge at a time of the year when the water was ice- 
cold? 
