190 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
flows in these washes, but occasionally heavy rains or cloudbursts 
in the foothills send down a torrent that sweeps like a wall of water 
down the valley. The flood crumbles the banks of soft shale and 
clay, sweeps away bridges, uproots orchards and crops, and produces 
general devastation, although the rain that caused all this destruc- 
tion may have been limited entirely to the foothill belt, none having 
fallen where the damage is done. 
Near the village of Loma the river, which has been in sight in 
many places on the south (left) at the foot of the upturned red 
sandstone, turns to the left and enters a canyon in 
the Gunnison formation. The High Line canal of 
Elevation 4,525 feet. the Reclamation Service has been constructed far- 
Population 7T08,* 5 othe . 
Denver 466 miles, ther west than Loma and provides for the irrigation 
of 35,000 acres by the gravity system and 10,000 
acres by the pumping system. North of Loma several of the pro- 
jecting points of the Book Cliffs are colored red and give to this 
part of the cliffs a different color tone from that which they have 
‘farther east. The red color is due to the burning of one or more 
coal beds and the consequent baking and reddening of the adjacent 
rocks. The Book Cliffs seem to have lost the abruptness that char- 
acterizes them near Palisade. They are broken into a number of 
terraces, which rise one above another until the height of the whole 
mass is about equal to that of the cliffs farther east. 
Although the river has entered the canyon in the pink rocks on the 
south, the valley formed by the erosion of the shale and followed 
by the railroad continues in a northwesterly direction. Some of the 
land is irrigated, but most of it is in its original condition and the 
general aspect of the country is not particularly promising until the 
traveler reaches Mack, the terminus of the Uintah Railway, a nar- 
ce row-gage line that leads from Mack northwestward 
<< SRP es the Book Cliffs and down to Dragon and Wat- 
Denear 80 nies Son, Utah. The region about Mack is barren and 
uninviting, but the grounds around the hotel built 
here by the Uintah Railway form an oasis in the desert. This quaint 
bungalow is embowered in trees, and on a hot day it makes an in- 
viting resting place for those who have been exposed to the scorch- 
ing sun or who are changing from one road to the other. 
The Uintah Railway is used largely to transport gilsonite from the 
mines in the vicinity of Watson, Utah, to the main line of the Denver 
& Rio Grande Western Railroad, for shipment to market. The veins 
and mines are described below by D. E. Winchester.** 
Loma. 
eer) ae 
* Gilsonite is a hard but brittle black ; places in northeastern Utah and i8 
hydrocarbon with a glassy luster, which | being mined extensively near Watson 
occurs in great vertical veins at many | and Bonanza. The pure gilsonite is 
