xxxil] CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 177 



Here were a few patches of cultivated land and little rude 

 cabins. 



Entering Clear Creek valley, the country becomes 

 smoother, the hills more rounded and more clothed with 

 vegetation, like parts of Wales or Scotland, with some pines and 

 cedars. The occasional bare slopes show a covering of earth 

 and boulders, washed from above by the melting of the 

 winter snows. Here we wound in and out among the 

 mountains up to the heads of all the lateral valleys, then 

 returning on the other side so as to see the line we had come 

 by many hundreds of feet below us. Several short snow- 

 sheds were passed through before reaching the summit 

 between two branches of the Gunnison river, just short of 

 eight thousand feet above the sea. On the east side we again 

 wound about, in and out of valleys, sometimes round such 

 sharp curves that the train made almost a semicircle, till in 

 the evening we reached Cimarron, where we stopped the night, 

 as there is a fine gorge of the Upper Gunnison river through 

 which the line passes. 



Starting at 9 a.m. on July 16, we at once entered the 

 gorge, and for fifteen miles had a succession of very fine 

 scenery, the gneissic rocks forming grand precipices, sometimes 

 overhanging, or in picturesque forms with towers and pin- 

 nacles, at others widening into little basins with fine peeps of 

 mountain summits. Pines and firs clung to the rocks, increas- 

 ing the beauty of the scene. On emerging from the gorge, the 

 valley became wider with moderate slopes and table-topped 

 mountains. We reached Gunnison (7580 feet) at 11. 10 a.m., 

 situated in a rather bare open plain, with rounded hills ; then 

 entering an open upland valley with fine-looking meadows 

 full of flowers — a perfect garden speckled with pale and dark 

 yellow, pink, blue, and white flowers — the most flowery valley 

 I have seen during my American tour, and the only one that 

 equalled the finest of the European Alps. I could distinguish 

 great patches of dodecatheon, masses of lupins, and white 

 and pink gilias. Then we came to patches of pines and firs, 

 and reached Sargent, 8400 feet above the sea, and I should 

 think a fine station for a botanist at this time of the year. 

 VOL. II. N 



