356 Parks of Colorado. 
and salubrity of the atmosphere and landscape, whose unfail- 
ing beauty and tonie taste stimulate and invite the physical 
and mental energies to perpetual activity. ; 
Geology and Minerals.—As a geological basin, the San Luis 
park is in the highest degree interesting and remarkable. It is 
ound to contain, intermingled and in order, a complete epitome 
of all the elements of which geological science and research 
take note. Its intra-mural locality between the primeval crests 
of the Cordillera, on the east, and the Sierra Mimbres, (here 
led the “San Juan,”) on the west, multiplies this variety in- 
definitely. These primary Sierras, separated by the park, face 
Against this is lapped perpendicularly the second stratum, 
ess by many thousand feet in altitude, its top forming a brim or 
ben bench, being the rended edge of the erupted stra- 
tum, softer than the first and receiving the debris from above, 
has a deep, fertile soil, a luxuriant ‘alpine vegetation, forests 8 
fir and aspen, and is the highest region of arboresence and vege 
le growth. 
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Steps are themselves of mountain magnitude, It is here, at 
these uttaces of contact of the erupted plates of the vn 
terrestrial crust, that the thread of the “gold belt” is revealed 
and found. From this t as fro sii 
cious metals taper in quantity and become diluted in the 1™ 
po traeeg the rocks, of rock 
dissolv: in the immensity of the ocean, 7 
The top of this continuous bench is undulating, broad, 04 
