DENVER & EIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 



139 



rocks here are the red sandstone and the Gunnison formation, neither 

 one of which contains coah The mine is about 1|- miles up South 

 Canyon, in the Mesaverde formation, the great coal-bearing forma- 

 tion of western Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. In the old geologic 

 reports this formation was called "Laramie," a formation at the 

 extreme top of the Cretaceous system, but it is now known to be 

 very much older than the Laramie and has been named the Mesa- 

 verde formation, from the Mesa Verde (may'sa vair'day, Spanish for 

 "green table"), in the extreme southwest corner of the State — 

 a mesa that has now been set aside as a national park on account of 

 its ruined cliff dwellings. The coal is brought from the mine in 

 tram cars. 



For about 2 miles below the coal tipple the river follows in a gen- 

 eral way the outcrops of the formations, the alternating red and 



Figure 35. — Top of red sandstone (Triassic), forming crest of hill below South Canon 

 Coal Co.'s coal tipple. Beds dip southwest. 



white beds on the mountain side on the left and the beds of solid 

 red color on the right. The beds of sandstone dip steeply to the west, 

 and they stand above the railroad on the right in great slabs 20 or 

 30 feet high. The surface of these slabs is covered with ripple marks 

 identical with those now being formed in shallow water along the 

 coast, which indicates that the red sand forming these rocks was 

 washed into some shallow basin where it was distinctly rippled by 

 each passing wave. These ripples may have been made millions of 

 years ago, yet they are as perfect as if they had been made but 

 yesterday. 



A little below the exposure of ripple-marked sandstone the top of 

 tne bright-red sandstone (Triassic) is well shown in a hill across 

 the river. (See fig. 35.) 



