Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt:...forming cliffs or slopes on each side. After crossing the low divide on the plateau beyond Sandia siding the train descends by a tortuous route to the valley of the llio Puerco (pwair'co, Spanish for dirty). On the way it passes through many cuts in the Santa Fe marl that exhibit the characteristics of the deposits, which are mostly sands and loams, in some places consolidated into loose sandstones. The Rio Puerco is a long stream draining the mesa country to the northwest and emptying into the Rio Grande some distance southeast of the crossing. Its valley is excavated mostly in soft beds of the Santa Fe marl and underlying shales (late Cretaceous). To the west is the Mesa Lucera (loo-say 'ra), a plateau capped by a thick sheet of lava (basalt) lying on sandstones and shales. These strata dip steeply eastward in a low line of foothills extending along the east side of the mesa, but they are nearly level under the lava cap. A short distance south of Rio Puerco station there are several small knobs of volcanic rock rising above the wide valley bottom. West of Rio Puerco siding the old main line is paralRio Puerco. leled for a few miles by a new track diverging to the Elevation 5,049 feet. left for fae westbound traffic and rejoining the old Kansas City 953 miles. J. line a short distance beyond South Garcia (gar-see ah) siding. From Rio Puerco to the Continental Divide, a distance of nearly 100 miles, the railroad ascends the valley of the San Jose (ho-say'), which empties into the Rio Puerco at Rio Puerco station. age, capped on some of the plateaus and mesas by thick sheets of lava. At many places high cones or necks of older volcanic rocks rise above the platforms, and widely scattered cinder cones mark the orifices of later eruptions. The province is mark...