• DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 



95 



conceals the main sharp peak, and the mountain looks like a great 

 round mass. Mount Harvard lies to the right of Mount Yale, and 

 this mountain, as seen from any point on the line, presents the ap- 

 pearance of a great mass without a definite or sharp top. 



Just before reaching Xathrop the railroad crosses Chalk Creek on 

 a high bridge. The traveler may look up into the great canyon 

 which this creek has cut in the Sawatch Range, whose base is only 

 5 miles away, though the head of the creek is 20 miles farther back. 

 The Colorado & Southern Eailway has a narrow-gage road in opera- 

 tion up this creek to the mining region about St. Elmo ; it formerly 

 crossed the range to Parlin and Gunnison, on the Mai*shall Pass 

 branch of the Denver & Rio Grande '"Western, but the long summit 

 tunnel has caved so badly that traffic beyond Hancock has been aban- 

 doned. This road may be seen on the left just after the train passes 

 the village of Xathrop. 



The gorge that Chalk Creek has cut through the mountains has 

 been scoured by a great glacier, which has greatlj- broadened its 

 bottom and smoothed its sides, but unfortunately the. railroad is so 

 far from the base of the mountains that the traveler can not see 

 how much the ice modified the shape and appearance of the canyon 

 nor the enormous terminal moraine, a mile long and several hundred 

 feet high, that it built. This moraine lies outside the mountains, but 

 it can not be seen from the train. 



The mountains on both sides of Arkansas Valley are included in 

 the Leadville National Forest, in the administration of which the 

 Forest Service has come into close contact and, at first, into con- 

 flict with the miners regarding their right to cut timber on the pub- 

 lic domain. The manner in which this subject has been handled 

 and an outline of the results obtained are given by Smith Riley, dis- 

 trict forester, in the footnote.^" 



"As the train goes up the valley of 

 Arkansas River from Salida to Buena 

 Vista the traveler sees the Collegiate 

 Range on the west and the Trout 

 Creek Hills and Buffalo Peaks on the 

 east. These hills and mountains are 

 all in the Leadville National Forest, 

 which covers an area of 935,566 acres. 



The celebrated Leadville and Sum- 

 mit County mining districts of Colo- 

 rado are almost, wholly in the Lead- 

 ville National Forest. The question 

 at once arises, What effect has the 

 establishment of these national forests 

 had upon the mining industry — are 

 they beneficial or detrimental to it? 



This question can be best answered 

 by giving a brief sketch of the prac- 

 tices and customs of the mining com- 

 munities in the State at the time the 

 forests were created as compared with 

 those prevailing at the present time. 

 In the early days, when " mineral " 

 was discovered, it was the practice to 

 stake as claims all the ground that 

 might become affected by the discov- 

 ery. One incentive for this action 

 was the desire to control the timber; 

 another was the desire to control all 

 possible mineral deposits found sub- 

 sequent to tlie discovery. No effort 

 was made to conform with the require- 



