DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 195 
mud dwellings of swallows, which circle about such places in count- 
less numbers. In other places the rocks assume fantastic forms, 
especially on projecting points between the sharp bends of the 
stream or between tributary canyons, as if mighty buttresses were 
necessary to support the vertical walls, but a general and solid 
massiveness and the nearly vertical character of the walls make a 
stronger impression upon the mind of the traveler than any other 
feature. 
The granite disappears beneath the river bed near milepost’ 481, 
and the rocks below that point dip gently southwestward and the 
height of the walls gradually diminishes to the place where the 
ee canyon is crossed by the boundary Tine between Colo- 
a : : vn rado and Utah. The boundary is marked by a monu- 
Denver 484 niles Ment at the left of the track and by a line painted 
on the cliff at the right, with “Colorado” on the 
east of it and “Utah” on the west. - (See Pl. LXXX, @.) The 
canyon walls here are only about 200 feet high, and they decrease 
in height and impressiveness until the red sandstone passes below 
the level of the track near the point where the railroad crosses Bitter 
Creek, close to milepost 488. 
Below Bitter Creek the walls of the canyon are made up of the 
softer beds of the McElmo formation, and they recede from the 
river, leaving a broad valley which at one time was 
Westwater, Utah. elected as the site of a town that was to be named 
Elevation 4,340 feet. Westwater, but unfortunately for the founder his 
Opulation 94, ‘ 
Denver 488 miles. | dreams were not realized, and the town to-day con- 
sists only of section houses, a water tank, and one 
or two farms. At this point the Denver & Rio Grande Western 
leaves Colorado River, which the traveler will see no more on this 
journey. By looking to the left (downstream), however, he will see 
that the rocks rise again and that the canyon assumes large propor- 
tions. Indeed, its vertical walls seem to be even more pronounced 
than those that mark its course above Westwater. 
About a mile from Westwater the railroad crosses Cottonwood 
Creek, which heads in the foothills of the Book Cliffs. The road 
extends up one of the branches of this creek to the divide between it 
and some other small streams on the west. In climbing, however, the 
traveler sees the same rocks at the level of the ety cee hoe rocks 
rise toward the west in a great fo pdb cctelin les 
iene Saas the red sandstone again below Westwater. So, when 
steerer ein - ap the traveler reaches the siding of Cottonwood, 
which is at the summit, the beds which he sees are 
of the same age as those which he saw at the crossing of Cottonwood 
Creek, 4 miles to the east. , 
