156 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



could not be reached by the existing gravity lines. One of these 

 plants supplies enough water to irrigate 2,300 acres of land and the 

 other enough to irrigate 6,000 acres. The canals and pumping plants 

 which the traveler has seen in Palisade Canyon are more extensive 

 than any that he has seen heretofore on this journey, and he may 

 Avonder why so much money has been spent to obtain the water of 

 Colorado River, but when he has passed out of the mouth of the 

 canyon and has seen the wonderful change that the water has made 

 in the one-time desert plain he will no longer question the wisdom 

 of the expenditure. 



As the railroad makes a great bend to the west at the mouth of 

 the canyon the traveler may notice some small coal mines that are 

 operating on the lowest or Palisade coal bed. This coal bed, which 

 ranges from 3 to 7 feet in thickness, overlies the sandstone that is 

 regarded as forming the base of the Mesaverde formation. The coal 

 bed and the sandstone are well exposed across the river, where a 

 number of small mines have been opened to supply the local demand 

 for fuel. Another small mine is also in operation just above the 

 station at Palisade. The rocks here rise more rapidly than they do 

 farther up in the canyon, and the lower slopes of the cliffs are com- 

 posed of the marine shale (Mancos) that underlies the coal-bearing 

 formation. 



Near milepost 63 the canyon opens, and here begin the orchards 

 of peaches, pears, apples, and other fruit that have made the town 

 of Palisade famous. Its situation at the foot of the 

 Palisade. Book Cliffs protects it from late frosts in spring 



Elevation 4,739 feet, and from early frosts in autumn, so that almost 

 Population 855. every foot of the land is under irrigation and has 



Denver 48( miles. -^ o t -\.^t-^tt 



been planted with fruit trees. (See PI. LXvTl.) 

 Every year hundreds of cars of fruit are shipped from this place. 



Here begins the great southward- facing cliff which in the early 

 days was named Book Cliffs because of the fancied resemblance of 

 the sandstone cap and the curved shale slope below to the edge of a 

 bound book. A typical view of the Little Book Cliffs as they appear 

 back of Palisade is given in Plate LXVIII. The Book Cliffs begin 

 at Palisade and stretch westward to Castlegate, Utah, a distance of 

 about 190 miles. They everywhere form the southern rim of the 

 great trough of rocks on the north known as the Uinta Basin. Just 

 west of Palisade the cliffs are formed and protected by a few beds of 

 sandstone at the top, below which the slope consists of shale (Mancos) 

 that was deposited there before the Rocky Mountains were in ex- 

 istence, when the entire region was below the waters of the sea. 



These shale slopes have been intricately sculptured by the rain, 

 and the traveler has many opportunities to examine them, for they are 



