f.mmons.] GRAND JUNCTION TO QLBNWDOD SPRINGS. 409 



points, the baked and reddened rocks along the outcrops show that 

 coal seams have been similarly consumed near the surface. From 

 Coal Bridge station, a short distance beyond Newcastle, an inclined 

 tramway can he seen on the east side of the river, which brings coal 

 down from seams in the Laramie sandstones high up on the steep 

 northern face of the ridge.* These mines belong to the Elk .Mountain 

 Fuel Company. 



The monoclinal valley of Elk creek, which enters the (hand river 

 from the northwest at Newcastle, is cut in the clayey beds between 

 the sandstones of the Laramie above, and the Dakota-Jura below. 

 Some of these are shown in section in a railroad cut on the west side 

 of the river above Newcastle. The valley of the Grand, winch is here 

 crossing the beds, bends to the southeast when if reaches the Triassic 

 sandstones, following them irregularly with and diagonally across the 

 strike for about five miles (8 km.), and then, at South Canyon station, 

 bending again across the Strike in a narrow gorge, comes out into a 

 more open valley eroded out of the shaly limestones and gypsiferons 

 beds of the Lpper Carboniferous, which it follows eastward to Glen- 

 wood Springs. 



The sedimentary beds are here all upturned against the southwest- 

 ern flanks of the White Liver plateau, which is an elevated area of 

 Paleozoic rocks resting on Archean and capped by flows of basalt. It 

 is nearly circular in shape, :><) to 40 miles (IS to til km.) in extent and 

 10,000 to 13,000 feet (3,048 to :;,!)<;l> m.) above sea level. It is almost 

 completely surrounded by an encircling fringe of Rfesdzoic beds (for 

 the most part steeply upturned in monoclinal folds), some and probably 

 all of which once covered the plateau, but were eroded away before the 

 outpouring of the basalt. 



The pretty town of Glenwood Springs is situated at the mouth of 

 the Roaring Fork, an important stream (lowing southwest from its 

 sources on the west slopes of the Sawatch range, and on the south 

 bank of the G rand river, which has a general southwest course from 

 its head in the Middle park. It is also at the junction of two impor- 

 tant lines of railway, the Colorado Midland, which after crossing the 

 summit of the Sawatch range descends the valley of the Roaring Fork, 

 and the Denver and Rio Grande, which comes down the valley of 

 Eagle and Grand livers. Its owes its importance in no less degree to 

 its thermal springs and fine bathing establishment. 



'I'he springs issue from the Lower Garboniforous limestones which 

 here dip southward away from the flanks of the White River plateau, 

 while the open valley of the Roaring Fork above the town, and that 



" On )],(■ mapa of 1 1 1 « - Ha.vden Geological Atlas of Colorado, the color of the Fox 

 Hill Cretaceous is spread over many areas on the west Hanks of the mountains 

 ■which have since? been proved to he true coal-bearing Laramie. 



