DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 143 
the climate in this region was very different from that which pre- 
vails there to-day, as is shown by the kind of plants which grew at 
that time and furnished the material for the beds of coal. Palms 
then grew here luxuriantly, and many fragments of impressions of 
palm leaves have been found in the rocks that are associated with the 
coal. Plate LXIT, B, shows an usually fine specimen found by the 
miners at Newcastle. 
From Newcastle the trains of the Colorado Midland formerly ran 
to Grand Junction over the tracks of the Denver & Rio Grande West- 
ern. On account of this double use the roadbed between these points 
is treated as a distinct unit, and the mileposts do not conform to the 
general scheme of numbering consecutively from Denver but are 
independent, beginning at Newcastle and ending at Grand Junction. 
About 14 miles below Newcastle the traveler passes out of the Mesa- 
verde formation and into the overlying Wasatch. This formation is 
of Tertiary age and is the first rock as young as Tertiary that the 
traveler has seen since he left the vicinity of Denver and Palmer 
Lake. It is characterized generally by coarse conglomerate and iu 
places is composed of boulders many inches or even several feet in 
diameter. It is reddish or pinkish in color, or it is made up of 
bands of red alternating with bands of white or light green. It was 
not formed immediately after the Mesaverde, on which it rests here, 
but after the Mesaverde had been laid down, consolidated, raised 
above drainage level, and remained a land surface for a long time. 
At last the mountains were partly uplifted and great lakes were 
formed, and into these lakes boulders worn from the older rocks, as 
well as fine material, such as clay and sand, were washed, and the 
whole mass was‘finally consolidated into rock. The time which has 
elapsed since it was deposited and the pressure of the overlying rocks 
have not been sufficient, however, to make it very hard; it is much less 
coherent than the Mesaverde and consequently gives a greater width 
of valley than the older rock. The Wasatch beds near the out- 
crop of the Mesaverde dip steeply to the southwest, or into the great 
Uinta Basin, but at a greater distance from the hogback the beds 
flatten and become nearly level as they approach the middle of the 
basin. (See fig. 37 .p. 148.) From Newcastle to Rifle the most promi- 
nent surface features on the right are the sharp conical hills of the 
Wasatch formation, in which the beds apparently stand on edge. 
are not accessible by railroad or be- | The highest rank Eos aires rae 
cause the coal is so low in rank that { found near Crested Butte, a 
The quality of the coal differs greatly | manufactured south 
in the different parts of the basin. | Springs, Colo., and at Sunnyside, Utah. 
