62 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
Branch railways connect Raton with Yankee and Sugarite, two 
mining towns to the east, where coal is mined from beds lying a short 
distance above the top of the Trinidad sandstone. The mines of Col- 
fax County produce about three-fourths of the coal output of New 
Mexico, which amounts to more than 3,700,000 tons a year, valued 
at nearly $5,000,000. The St. Louis, Rocky Mountain & Pacific Rail- 
way, a part of the Santa Fe system, has a branch running to Raton 
from Clifton House, afew miles to the south, parallel to the Santa Fe 
main line. 
From Dillon (see sheet 11, p. 66), 3 miles from Raton, a branch 
road extends up Dillon Canyon, in the mesa west of Raton, to coal 
mines at Blossburg and Brilliant. These mines were 
developed mainly to supply fuel for the railway and 
for many years yielded the greater part of the coal 
produced in the Raton field. Coke ovens at Gar- 
diner, 3 miles southwest of Raton, still produce a large amount of 
coke, used in smelters in the Southwest. From Raton southward for 
many miles the mesa of Trinidad sandstone and overlying coal- 
bearing rocks is a prominent feature of the view. 
Southwest of Otero (o-tay’ro), a siding 5 miles beyond Raton, the 
face of the mesa west of the railway is very precipitous, because it is 
formed of thick sheets of hard, igneous rock (basalt), 
which were intruded into the coal-bearing rocks in 
a molten condition. The heat of these intrusions 
‘has changed the coal into graphite in many placés 
in an area of several square miles. These highlands culminate in 
Red River Peak, a prominent pinnacle 3 miles southwest of Otero, 
which in the early days of exploration served as an easily recognized 
landmark for the “prairie schooners” traveling the Santa Fe Trail. 
This trail, after passing through Raton Pass, came down the mesa a 
short distance north of Red River Peak, assed south near its foot, 
and went thence southwestward to Cimarron. The peak owes its 
prominence to the presence of a chimney-like mass of hard intrusive 
rock forced into the shale in a state of fusion. Beyond Otero the 
route crosses the St. Louis, Rocky Mountain & Pacific Railway, a 
line 94 miles long that lies wholly in New Mexico. 
A mile southeast of Hebron is a large storage reservoir covering 
7,000 acres, to supply water to an extensive irrigated area about 
Maxwell. East of Hebron and Dorsey there are 
Hebron. great masses of volcanic rocks constituting wide- 
tere ar he spread platforms of moderate height, surmounted in 
places by high ridges and peaks, some of which were 
originally active volcanoes. One of the most conspicuous of these 
cones is Eagletail Peak, due east of Dorsey. Laughlin and Tinaja 
peaks are other prominent summits farther east. The sheet of dark 
Dillon, 
aaa ee 6,456 feet. 
ity 678 miles. 
Otero. 
Elevation 6,378 ~ 
