4GG GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 



or else a coking coal, differing thus from the coals of the Denver 

 basin at the same horizon, which are non-coking and quite porous and 

 hygroscopic. The Laramie sandstones lie in an approximately horizon- 

 tal position, and are capped, to the east of the road, by overflows of 

 basalt, the greater mass of which forms Fishers Peak (9,460 feet, 

 2,843 m.). which is about 3,300 feet above the town to the southwest. 

 This is the culminating point of the Raton hills, a broad, Hat topped 

 ridge which extends eastward fr..m the base of the mountains and 

 forms the divide between waters Mowing into the Arkansas on the 

 north, and those flowing southward through Xew Mexico and Texas 

 directly into the Gulf of Mexico. 



The difference between slightly caking and coking coal in this field 

 bears an evident relation to the magnitude of the neighboring eruptive 

 masses, the coking coal occurring in the portion underlying the Fish 

 era Peak overflow. In many parts of the tield the injection of lava 

 along a coal seam has produced either a dense natural coke or an 

 impure powdery graphite. The outcrop of natural coke near Trinidad 

 is probably tWO miles long. In other parts of the field outcrops of coke 

 have been' traced -1 and 5 miles. In a few places limited quantities of 

 semi-anthracite have been produced. The neighboring sandstones are 

 altered to quart zites. 



From Trinidad the road rises, in a valley bordered by bluffs of Lara- 

 mie sandstones and shales, to Starkville, at the west base of Fishers 



Peak. 



Between Morley and Lansing the boundary line between Colorado 

 and New Mexico is crossed. The edges of the coulees of basalt, cap- 

 ping the mesa, can be distinguished on the east. 



The road now descends rapidly to Raton, and passes out into the 

 broad, open valley of the Canadian river, eroded out ot Middle Creta- 

 ceous shales. 



At Maxwell the hills to the east are capped by basalt. This is on 

 the well-known Maxwell Grant, one of the grants of land made by the 

 Spanish authorities before New Mexico was ceded to the D nit ed States. 

 At the time these grants were made laud had little value, and the 

 boundaries of the grants were very loosely defined by natural features, 

 such as streams and watersheds, whose names have since been changed. 

 The treaty of cession provided that the U. S. Government should 

 confirm titles to lands thus granted. This particular grant, as sur- 

 veyed for the persons who purchased it from the original grantees, 

 covered in the neighborhood of a million acres. It was sold by them 

 to Dutch capitalists. Since the sale there has been long litigation, 

 based upon an asserted fraud in making the surveys of the boundaries. 

 As these surveys had been accepted by the U. S. Land Otlice, the title 

 of the present holders was finally continued. 



