34(J Beyond the Sierras. 



Colorado plain. If you would get an idea of it^ appearance, you may con- 

 sult the photographs or visit the place yourself. I am wearied with the at- 

 tempt by means of this poor vehicle of human speech to convey to you, my 

 reader, in any proper sense, an image of what you see, or may see, among 

 the sunimit.s or aloiip the base line of the Rocky Mountains. I bid you go 

 thither alijo, and witness for yourself what nature, in her grander moods, is 

 able to display. 



For myself and ever-narrowing company of friend.s, we take the train 

 at evening and are away for Denver. They do say that the writer is expected 

 there on the evening of the anniversjiry of the Father of his Country, to 

 standi up behind a desk, after the manner of a mortal man, resuming the 

 attitudes and methods of the people in the Ohio valley, and to tell them — 

 that is, an audience — what lie knows about A Fight with Force and Catharine 

 the Orent. Meanwhile, he does not know whether the old currents of thought 

 and speech will come again, or whether they have disappeared forever among 

 the solitudes of the Sierras and the Rockies. 



A few words about my stay in Denver, and I have done. I was im- 

 mensely pleased with the city, and venture to express a judgment, which I 

 believe to be well warranted by the facts, to the etlect that Denver is one of 

 the most prosperous and promising cities in the United States. To begin 

 with, she is solidly built. Her streets are broad and straight. The level 

 plain round about gives opportunity for indefinite expansion. The river, 

 to be sure, is not good for much, and is at times exceedingly ill-behaved. 

 But it bears some water, and that is in the nature of a blessing. 



The industrial conditions of the city are exceedingly good. The two 

 principal lines of enterprise lie by way of the railroads and the smelting fur- 

 naces. At the head of the former stands the veteran millionaire, ex-Governor 

 John Evans, who has recently succeeded, after a long struggle, in complet- 

 ing his line from Denver, by the way of Fort Worth, to the gulf, at Galveston. 

 The first of the mining furnaces are the Grant works and the Argo. At the 

 latter I was greatly interested in observing as much as any outsider is per- 

 mitted to know of the new method discovered or invented by Superinteml- 

 ent Pearce, by which the combined ores, gold, silver, copper, lead, and 

 what not besides, are separated from each other, as if by natural ditierentia- 

 tion, on their issuance from the smelting process. 



By the courtesy of Mr. Pearce, I was admitted into the private rooms of 

 the works, and saw with my own eyes, but by no means understood, the 

 beautiful liberation of the precious metals by the superintendent's method. 

 I should not be surprised if it is one of the most valuable secrets known in 

 the practical arts of the century. It is not only much more expeditious 

 and cheap than the tedious and costly work of assaying by the old methods, 

 but the result is more valuable, in that the metal on its issuance, by Mr. 

 Pearce'a method, is exceedingly pure. Just before going into the bullion 

 room, a gold brick had bepn turned out, which I was permitted to inspect 

 and handle. It was about twelve inches in length, four and a half inches 



