File:Scenery of the Pacific railways, and Colorado (1878) (14740985466).jpg

Identifier: sceneryofpacific00ride (find matches)
Title: Scenery of the Pacific railways, and Colorado
Year: 1878 (1870s)
Authors: (Rideing, William Henry), 1853- (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
n distant descend into the canon at an angle of 80°, and loom, directly above us ;lateral ribs of rock project from the slopes, and some of them are of prismatic or fan-like formation.The Weber River flashes through the ravine, and breaks into a wrathy white as it leaps from ledgeto ledge; even above there is no calm, and the clouds are torn into shreds, and contribute to thegeneral tumultuousness of the scene as they drift to the east. The geology as well as the picturesqueness of the WahsatCH range, by which we are sur-rounded, is interesting. The basis rocks are a series in alternating layers of quartzose, mica, andhornblendic schists. Above these rests a heavy bed of quartzites, with very regular and distinctly-marked stratifications. Above the quartzites is a bed of ashen-gray limestones, probably of the THE PACIFIC RAILWAYS. 49 Silurian age, and a group of shales, clays, and quartzites, intervenes between this and another bedof limestone, which belongs to the Carboniferous age.
Text Appearing After Image:
Echo Canon, Utah. 50 THE PACIFIC RAILWAYS. In Weber Cafion, and onthe east side of the range fromOgden, there is a large groupof quartzites, passing up intosiliceous limestones and cappedwith red sandstones, and theseare overcast by bluish-graylimestones containing Jurassicfossils. In all probability, says awell-known authority, the vastarea usually described as theGreat American Desert, be-tween the Wahsatch Moun-tains on the east and the SierraNevada on the west, was onegreat lake, in which the moun-tains rose as islands, and thelakes, large and small, whichare scattered over the basinat the present time, are onlyremnants of the former inlandsea. The deposits which coverthe lowlands are mostly cal-careous and arenaceous beds,and these are often filled withfresh-water and land shells, in-dicating a very modern origin.The range extends, with intervals in its continuity, farnorthward of the railway into Montana and Idaho, and manyof the peaks are within the region of perpetual snow. Th

Note About Images