DENVER TO ALBUQUERQUE. 465 



[By S. F. Emmons.] 



The route" between Denver and Colorado Springs has already been de- 

 scribed (p. 434). 



From Colorado Springs nearly to Trinidad the road crosses open, 

 unincidented plains of .Middle Cretaceous shales, in which the only 

 geological landmarks are occasional outcrops of the harder beds of the 

 Niobrara limestones carrying abundant casts of Inocerami. 



The road first runs south along the alluvial bottom of Fountain 

 Creek to Pueblo, then bends eastward and follows the bottom lands 

 of the Arkansas river to La Junta, from which point it takes a south- 

 west course, leaving the river bottom and following the gently rolling 

 plains and the beds of various streams which rise in the Sangre dc 

 Cristo range to the southwest. Over all these barren-looking plains 

 large herds of cattle and sheep are grazed, and, wherever there is suf- 

 ficient water for irrigation, the various cereals and many varieties of 

 fruits are successfully cultivated. 



Before reaching Trinidad the beautiful eruptive mountain group of 

 the Spanish Peaks can be seen about 35 miles to the westward. "■ 



They consist of two distinct peaks— an eastern (12,71*0 feet, 3,877 m.) 

 and western (13,620 feet, 4,151 m.)— which rise out of a platform of 

 Laramie Cretaceous and recently-discovered Eocene Tertiary beds 

 (known as the Huerfano beds), about 10 miles east of the Sangre de 

 Cristo mountains. They are of the laccolitic type, but not so regular or 

 symmetrical as the Henry mountains. The laccolite, which spreads 

 out in the softer shaly beds of the Colorado Cretaceous, is about 2,000 

 feet thick in its central portion, and sends out an intricate system of 

 dikes through the overlying beds, which are so thoroughly metamor- 

 phosed that they were assumed by the first observers in this region to 

 be of Carboniferous age. 



The San Juan branch of the Denver and Rio Grande road crosses the 

 Sangre de Cristo range into the San Luis park at Veta Pass just to 

 the right of the Spanish Peaks. 



At El Moro, to the right before reaching Trininad, are the coke ovens 

 of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. 



Trinidad owes its importance to the vicinity of most valuable beds 

 of excellent coking coal, admirably situated for economical exploita- 

 tion. 

 The thickness of Laramie measures, reckoning from the top of the 



sandstones to the Fort Pierre shales which outcrop at their base, is 

 estimated to be about 1,800 feet. They contain 32 coal seams, which 

 have an aggregate thickness of 105 feet, though the seams are by no 

 means continuous throughout the field. The areal extent of the coal 

 field is about a million acres." 8 The coal is either a slightly caking 

 451 GE 30 



