DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 



25 



Louviers. 



but a short distance from the upturned rocks along the mountain 

 front, these sandstones lie practically horizontal, 

 a fact which indicates that they are near the middle 



Elevation 5,675 feet, of the great dowufold of the rocks east of the 



Denver 21 iniles. 



Front Eange. Figure 6 represents the edges of 

 the upturned rock beds as they would appear if they had been cut by 

 a giant knife at right angles to the trend of the mountain range. 



The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, which has been on the 

 east (left) side of the train since it left Denver, passes over the Denver 

 & Rio Grande Western Railroad at the town of 

 Sedalia. The upland on the east is here nearer the 

 track than it is farther north, and it stands out as 

 a plateau with a steep or even vertical front. Some 

 of these steep slopes are merely projecting points of 

 the highland, but others are parts of hills that have been isolated from 



Sedalia. 



Elevation 5,835 feet 

 Population 365.* 

 Denver 25 miles. 





1.000 2.000 3,000 *.ooo 5,000 Feet 

 I 1 1 1 ■ 



FIG0EB 6. — Section at mouth of Platte Canyon. 



it by the cutting of the streams. Such isolated remnants of a once ex- 

 tensive plateau are very conspicuous on the west (right) of the road. 

 A hill of this kind in the East would not be called by any special name, 

 but in the West, and especially in the Southwest, a flat-topped hill is 

 almost universally called by the Spanish name mesa, meaning table. 

 Near Sedalia are the forks of Plum Creek, one of which comes from 

 the south and the other from the east. The one that comes from the 

 south offers the more direct course for the railroad, but the one that 

 comes from the east is the longer and has the better grade, so it was 

 selected, even though its course is more roundabout. 



The most prominent of the mesas is Castle Rock, which may be seen 

 far ahead on the right soon after the train passes Sedalia. Wlien 

 first seen it is so far away that it seems to be only a small hill, but 

 as the train proceeds it becomes more conspicuous, until at a siding 

 called Plateau it appears on the right as a very prominent conical 



