94 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, 
removed by erosion over wide areas where the rocks are uplifted, 
but, on the other hand, it underlies a district of great extent in 
which it has not been sufficiently uplifted to be subjected to erosion.' 
West of Rito the San Jose Valley narrows considerably and the 
railway follows its very crooked course to Quirk siding. In this 
interval there are numerous exposures of the edge of the lava flow 
which ran down the San Jose Valley to and beyond Suwanee. Most 
of the lava is south of the railway in this vicinity; on the north side 
are bluffs of the buff Zuni sandstone above referred to. This sand- 
stone is also exposed in deep railway cuts west of Quirk, where it is 
overlain by light-colored shales and clays that extend up to a thick 
succession of sandstones (Dakota and higher). In the high mesas a 
mile or two north of the railway these sandstones are capped by a 
sheet of older lava (basalt). 
Laguna station is nearly a mile north of the Indian pueblo of 
Laguna, through which the railway passed prior to a 
Laguna. recent change of course to diminish distance and 
lipase grade. This pueblo is one of the most interesting and 
op 1,583.* 
Kansas City 988 miles, 2ccessible along the Santa Fe Railway and is visited 
many tourists, who find accommodations, if neces- 
sary, at the houses of some of the American residents of the small 
settlements adjoining the pueblo. 
The Indians at this place are a branch of the Keresan tribe, to 
which the Acoma Indians also belong, but according to their own 
1 The origin of gypsum deposits of this 
character is a problem of considerable in- 
terest, for the precise conditions of depo- 
sition are not known. Iti is believed that 
salt deposits have been discovered in 
connection with the gypsum in this por- 
tion of New Mexico. Very salty waters 
ably occupied a region of considerable 
extent in the central United States dur- 
ing later Carboniferous and early Meso- 
zoic time. The thickness of the deposit 
together with its freedom from admixture 
with the sand and clays which constitute 
the rocks overlying and underlying it is 
remarkable, doubtless indicatinz that the - 
that could bring mud and sand into the 
sea. For this reason it is believed that 
the deposit was laid down at a time of 
scanty rainfall, when the waters of the 
course of their evaporation the gypsum 
was first deposited and the salt later, as 
8 drying up continued. However, no 
most of this salt is in rocks that were laid 
down prior to the thick deposit of gypsum 
which is so animes at Rito, Rosario, 
and other place 
bcos red eda overlying the gyp- 
Rito, together with a thick body 
of latin buff sandstone, probably rep- 
, resents the lower part of the Zuni sand- 
stones. This buff, | Massive Ccanepeaiggs is 
east of Suwanee (see fig. 17), as well as in 
an 
a ae 
toward the south, 
