126 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
be followed by the eye, and these indicate clearly the rise of the beds 
toward the west, but a still better marker of their rise is the Dakota 
sandstone, which lies below the surface in the central part of the . 
basin but which rises from stream level just below the station at 
Wolcott and from that place westward forms a battlemented wall 
along the canyon. 
The north side of the valley is marked by a high cliff of the Mancos 
shale, but the other side is nearly flat and can be cultivated, so that if 
makes an agreeable break in the line of canyons and narrow valleys 
through which the traveler has been passing. Until the building of 
the “ Moffat road,” in 1906, Wolcott, although but a small village, 
was one of the principal distributing points for the 
Wolcott. region to the north as far as the Wyoming line, and 
Elevation 6,975 feet. a stage was run daily between Wolcott and Steam- 
eee wie, boat Springs. At that time the region now in- 
“cluded in Routt and Moffat counties was noted 
chiefly as a stock-raising country and thousands of cattle were annu- 
ally shipped east over the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad from Wol- 
cott and Rifle. Since the completion of the “ Moffat road” Steam- 
boat Springs and the region round about receive their supplies 
directly from Denver, but a stage line is still maintained from Wol- 
cott to State Bridge, 14 miles distant, the nearest point on the 
“ Moffat road.” 
On leaving Wolcott the train plunges into another canyon, which 
extends for a distance of about 5 miles. The Dakota sandstone forms 
the cap rock of the walls of this canyon, especially on the north side, 
but the surface back of the rugged cliffs rises gradually to much 
greater heights. The sandstone appears above railroad level just 
below the station at Wolcott, where it consists of a brownish-yellow 
sandstone, about 80 feet thick. It abounds in impressions of stems 
and leaves of plants, which show that at the time it was deposited 
the country was covered with trees, many of them similar to those 
living to-day in the more humid regions of the United States. At 
that time there were no Rocky Mountains, and the deposition of this 
sand, which has since been hardened into sandstone, was followed 
a great invasion of salt water, which formed a sea that 
stretched from Iowa to Utah and entirely across the United States 
from north to south. In that sea lived animals that produced shells 
much like the shellfish of the present day, and on the death of the 
animals the shells dropped to the bottom and there became embedded 
in fine mud. To-day that sea bottom has been elevated thousands of 
feet above its former position, the sea water has drained away, and 
the limy muds have been hardened into shale in which the shells are 
preserved with all their beautiful ornamentation. The traveler can 
