250 BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



grandeur, some just beyond the dividing canons, others 

 fifty, sixty, a hundred miles away, cyclopean, majestic, 

 infinite. Far to the north, Long's Peak lifts his seamed 

 and hoary pyramid, almost as high as the crest on 

 which we are standing ; in the west rise that famous 

 triad of peaks, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, their 

 fanelike towers, sketched against the sky, disputing 

 the palm with old Gray himself; while a hundred miles 

 to the south Pikers Peak stands solitary and smiling in 

 the sun, seeming to say, " I am sufficient unto myself ! " 

 Between our viewpoint and the last-named mountain 

 lies South Park, like a paradise of green immured by 

 guardian walls of rock and snow, and far to the east, 

 beyond the billowing ranges, white, gray, and green, 

 stretch the limitless plains, vanishing in the hazy dis- 

 tance. In such surroundings one's breast throbs and 

 swells with the thought of Nature's omnipotence. 



The summit of Gray's Peak is a favorable viewpoint 

 from which to study the complexion, the idiosyncrasies, 

 if you please, of individual mountains, each of which 

 seems to have a personality of its own. Here is Gray's 

 Peak itself, calm, smiling, good-natured as a summer 

 morning ; yonder is Torrey's, next-door neighbor, cruel, 

 relentless, defiant, always threatening with cyclone or 

 tornado, or forging the thunder-bolts of Vulcan. Some 

 mountains appear grand and dignified, others look like 

 spitfires. On one side some bear smooth and green 



