raphy, — a two-hundred-mile front of shat- 

 tered, snow-drifted peaks. 



The peak is an enormous broken pyramid, 

 dotted with high-perched lakes, cut with plung- 

 ing streams, broken by canons, skirted with 

 torn forests, old and young, and in addition 

 is beautiful with bushes, meadows, and wild 

 flowers. The major part of the peak's primeval 

 forest robe was destroyed by fire a half-century 

 ago. Many ragged, crag-torn areas of the old 

 forest, of a square mile or less, are connected 

 with young growths from thirty to sixty years 

 old. Much of this new growth is aspen. From 

 the tree-studies which I have made, I learn 

 that two forest fires caused most of the destruc- 

 tion. The annual rings in the young growth, 

 together with the rings in the fire-scarred trees 

 which did not perish, indicate that the older 

 and more extensive of these fires wrapped most 

 of the peak in flames and all of it in smoke dur- 

 ing the autumn of 1850. The other fire was in 

 1880. 



Pike's Peak exhibits a number of scenic at- 

 tractions and is bordered by other excellent ones. 



297 



