76 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



Although the rocks throughout the Royal Gorge are in general 

 similar, they differ greatly from place to place, their character de- 

 pending largely on the crushing stresses to which they have been 

 subjected at great depths in the earth. In some places the rock is 

 massive granite ; it has never been crushed or disturbed in any way. 

 In other places the rock (probably originally granite, or possibly 

 sandstone and shale) has been so squeezed and crushed that it has 

 been more or less changed. The minerals of the rock have been 

 recrystallized, and in the process of change the crystals have been 

 arranged in layers at right angles to the direction in which the 

 force was applied, and the rock has become a gneiss. In some places 

 the process has been carried so far that all the rock material has 

 been recrystallized, and the rock has become an exceedingly soft 

 mica schist, composed largely of small flakes of mica, and it can 

 be split like a slate. The structure is complicated also by dikes, 

 which cut across the other rocks, or irregular intrusive masses which 

 here and there break up the regularity of the banding. In places 

 veins of quartz have been deposited from mineral-bearing waters 

 that slowly circulated through open fissures. Finally all these masses 

 have been turned and twisted, folded back upon themselves, and 

 broken, until the result is a structure which is complicated almost 

 beyond description. 



As the train moves on the canyon walls grow higher and some- 

 what steeper, and through a side gulch here and there the traveler 

 may catch glimpses of the most rugged towering pinnacles. Such 

 a view may be obtained about half a mile above milepost 164, up 

 a small canyon on the right to a wall of massive granite that stands 

 at least 1,000 feet high. 



At the abandoned station of Gorge the Royal Gorge really be- 

 gins. Below this point the railroad has had little difficulty in find- 

 . ing a passage, but immediately above the old station 

 ^"''^^' the walls close in until the stream has a width of 



Elevation 5,494 feet. ^ gj^ 50 fget. The walls are massive and rise 



Denver 165 miles. "J 



nearly vertically to heights of 1,000 to 1,200 feet. 

 (See Pis. XXXVI, A, and XXXVII.) The train here plunges into 

 the vast depths of this narrow cleft, and the traveler is free to enjoy 

 the scene, without a thought as to how or where he is to emerge 

 from them. He knows that he will be through the canyon in a few 

 minutes, but the early explorers had no such knowledge. Lieut. 

 Pike, who visited the Royal Gorge about the first of January, 1807, 

 had serious difficulty in exploring its narrowest parts. Can anything 

 more difficult be imagined than that attempt to find a passage through 

 this unexplored gorge at a time of the year when the water was ice- 

 cold? 



