DENVER & EIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 183 



grade. Within a short distance it rises above the grade, and below it 

 maj' be seen a dark shale. This shale also rises downstream, and at 

 milepost 388 the top of a brick-red massive sandstone (Triassic) 

 appears beneath it on the opposite side of the valley. AMierever it is 

 exposed this sandstone, on account of its deep and uniform color and 

 its massiveness, is the dominating feature of the canyon. As the 

 rocte dip toward the northeast (see PI. LXXVI, A) and as the 

 general course of the stream and of the railroad is toward the north- 

 west, the rocks exposed on the two sides of the canyon are not neces- 

 sa '^^' the same. Even if the stream followed a straight course the 

 Joer^ .t the same level on its opposite sides in the same stretch would 

 be different, but the difference is greatly exaggerated because the 

 stream swings from side to side in great meanders. At many places 

 a point on the outermost part of a bend to the left is more than a 

 mile from the outermost part of the next bend to the right. The 

 farther the stream swings to the left the lower or older are the rocks 

 in the canyon walls, and the farther it swings in the opposite direc- 

 tion the higher or younger are the rocks in the walls. 



Wherever the brick-red sandstone rises 100 feet or more above the 

 water there is an inner box canyon with vertical walls, but where 

 this sandstone is below the water the canyon walls recede by slopes 

 and terraces. This compound character of the canyon is shown in 

 Plate LXXVI, A. At milepost 400, 2 miles beyond Bridgeport sid- 

 ing, the railroad enters a tunnel that is excavated entirely in the mas- 

 sive brick-red sandstone, which is ideal material in which to drive 

 a tunnel, for the roof needs no timber to support it, and the portals 

 are equally durable. This tunnel is 2,256 feet long — nearly half 

 a mile. 



In places the walls of the canyon are about 500 feet high, but they 

 lack both the ruggedness and the regularity that characterize the 

 other great canyons on this route. Finally they begin to decrease in 

 height, until, half a mile beyond milepost 410, the traveler begins to 

 see open country, and soon he finds himself back in the same shale 

 valley that he left a few miles below Delta. A mile farther along 

 the train reaches the station in the small village 

 Whitewater. ^f Whitewater. Here Grand Mesa looms up on 



Elevation 4,665 feet, the right as the most conspicuous feature in the 

 Denver 4i2"m"iies. landscape. On leaving Whitewater the railroad 

 again enters the canyon, which, however, is no- 

 where so deep nor so interesting as it is farther up. Its walls are 

 composed entirely of rocks of the Gunnison formation, or of rocks 

 lying above it, and at no place does the brick-red sandstone again 

 make its appearance. The river meanders broadly, swinging first 

 to one side and then, to the other in sharp curves which make the 



