126 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



be followed b}-^ the eye, and these indicate clearly the rise of the beds 

 toward the Avest, but a still better marker of their rise is the Dakota 

 sandstone, which lies below the surface in the central part of the 

 basin but which rises from stream level just below the station at 

 Wolcott and from that place Avestward forms a battlemented wall 

 along the canyon. 



The north side of the valley is marked by a high cliff of the Mancos 

 shale, but the other side is nearly flat and can be cultivated, so that if 

 makes an agreeable break in the line of canj^ons and narrow valleys 

 through which the traveler has been passing. Until the building of 

 the ''Moffat road," in 1906, Wolcott, although but a small village, 

 was one of the principal distributing points for the 

 Wolcott. region to the north as far as the Wyoming line, and 



Elevation 6,975 feet, a stage was ruu daily between Wolcott and Steam- 

 DeS'vSmnel ^^^t Springs. At that time the region now in- 

 cluded in Eoutt and Moffat counties was noted 

 chiefly as a stock-raising country and thousands of cattle were annu- 

 ally shipped east over the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad from Wol- 

 cott and Rifle. Since the completion of the " Moffat road '" Steam- 

 boat Springs and the region round about receive their supplies 

 directly from Denver, but a stage line is still maintained from Wol- 

 cott to State Bridge, 14 miles distant, the nearest point on the 

 " Moffat road." 



On leaving Wolcott the train plunges into another canyon, which 

 extends for a distance of about 5 miles. The Dakota sandstone forms 

 the cap rock of the walls of this canyon, especially on the north side, 

 but the surface back of the rugged cliffs rises gradually to much 

 greater heights. The sandstone appears above railroad level just 

 below the station at Wolcott, where it consists of a brownish-yellow 

 sandstone, about 80 feet thick. It abounds in impressions of stems 

 and leaves of plants, which show that at the time it was deposited 

 the country was covered with trees, many of them similar to those 

 living to-day in the more humid regions of the United States. At 

 that time there were no Roclcy Mountains, and the deposition of this 

 sand, which has since been hardened into sandstone, was followed 

 by a great invasion of salt water, which formed a sea that 

 stretched from Iowa to Utah and entirely across the United States 

 from north to south. In that sea lived animals that produced shells 

 much like the shellfish of the present day, and on the death of the 

 animals the shells dropped to the bottom and there became embedded 

 in fine mud. To-day that sea bottom has been elevated thousands of 

 feet abo,ve its former position, the sea water has drained away, and 

 the limy muds have been hardened into shale in which the shells are 

 preserved with all their beautiful ornamentation. The traveler can 



