PARKS. 61 



"North/' ''Middle," "South," and "St. Louis" Parks. 

 Portions of them, thoroughly irrigated, remain beautifully 

 green throughout the year, and herbage over the whole region 

 is abundant. Sheltered from the blasts to which the lower 

 plains are exposed, these parks enjoy an equable climate ; 

 and old hunters, who have camped in them for many seasons, 

 describe life there as an earthly paradise. They abound in 

 animals of all sorts. Elk, deer, and antelope feed on their 

 rich grasses. Hither also the puma follows its prey, and there 

 are several other creatures of the feline tribe. Bears, w^olves, 

 and foxes likewise range across them. In some of them herds 

 of buffalo pass their lives; for, unlike their brethren of the 

 plain, they are not migratory. It is doubtful whether or not 

 they are of the same species, but they are said to be larger 

 and fiercer. 



The appropriate designation of the Rocky Mountain-system is 

 that of a chain. On crossing one of its basins or plateaux, the 

 traveller finds himself within a link such as has just been de- 

 scribed. A break in one of these links is called a " pass," or 

 "canon." As he passes through this break he enters another 

 link, belonging to another parallel either of a higher or lower 

 series. In some of the minor plateaux between the snowy 

 ridges no vegetation appears. Granite and sandstone rocks 

 outcrop even in the general sandy level, rising bare and per- 

 pendicularly from 50 to 300 feet ; as a late traveller de- 

 scribes it, " looking like a mere clean skeleton of the world." 

 Nothing is visible but pure rock on every side. Vast stones 

 lie heaped up into pyramids, as if they had been rent from 

 the sky. Cubical masses, each covering an acre of surface, 

 and reaching to a perpendicular height of thirty or forty feet, 

 suggest the buttresses of some gigantic palace, whose super- 



