THE SPANISH PEAKS. 



By J. J. Jewett, Topeka, Kan. 



"VV/'HERE glacier gleamed, a jeweled precipice, 

 * ' With torrents pouring from its blue abyss, 

 Before Niag'ra had begun to trench 

 Its channel through Ontario's rocky bench, 

 1 stand, and view a river's whirling flood 

 Fall seaward with its tinge of tribute mud. 



I marvel if, again, the ice will gleam 



A thousand feet above the turbid stream. 



A city rests upon the glacial grist,* 



With towers and spires the blessed clouds have kissed: 



Its smoke, and steam, and screeching sounds of power 



Proclaim its Kings of Toil rule every hour. 



I wait the dark, one-eyed, steam-spirit steed. 

 That dares essay the black tornado's speed: 

 I mount a carriage gorgeous with plush: 

 A bell is rung: a thousand people rush 

 This way and that: the city vista yields 

 To farms well tilled and ample pasture fields. 



The westward train th' ascending prairie streaks. 

 And far southwest reveals the Spanish Peaks, 

 That tower above the earth-curve of the plain 

 As shipmasts loom above the convex main. 

 While yet the bulky body of the ship 

 Lies hid below the dim horizon dip. 



In sooth they seem a ship in steady sail 



Across a swardy sea of swell and swale. 



Above the panorama, boundless stretched, 



Of moveless troughs and billows Time has etched 



With wind and water, froet and acid gas, 



And clothed in herbage decked with plumes of grass. 



*The situation is applicable to Topeka, Kan., or to Kansas City, Mo. 

 The Spanish Peaks are situated on the south border line of Huerfano county, in 

 southeastern Colorado. The west peak, on the authority of Hayden, is 13,620 feet high ; 

 but Wheeler found it to be 100 feet higher. The latter altitude is that which is gener- 

 ally accepted. The summit of the west peak is about 7000 feet above the low hills adja- 

 cent, and about 8000 feet above the surface of the plain fifteen to twenty miles distant. 

 The east peak has 1000 feet less altitude. The summits of the peaks are about three 

 miles apart. Owing to the absence of surrounding mountains the peaks are more con- 

 spicuous thau Pike's Peak, although the latter is more than 400 feet higher than the 

 west peak. The Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific roads afford westward tourists views 

 at a distance of ninety miles and under. R. C. Hills ( Proc. Colo. Sci. Soc, 1890) says the 

 peaks are "natural lightning-rods," and fulgurites abound upon them. He classes the 

 peaks as laccolithic eruptions, and states that the west peak carries a large mass of 

 metamorphosed sedimentary I'ock. Hayden and Endlich regarded the peaks as an enor- 

 mous dike. Prof. I. C. Russell ( Volcanoes of North America) says they are the " roots " 

 of vast, extinct volcanoes. All are agreed that they are the product of Tertiary times. 

 The coal-beds of the region are of the Laramie formation. — j. j. j. 



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