Parks of Colorado, 351 
Art. XXXVIL—The Parks of Colorado. 
[Tae “San Luis Park” of Colorado, in which the Rio Grande del 
Norte takes its rise, has recently been described by an anonymous 
writer, reported on good authority to be Hon. Mr. Gilpin, late Governor 
of Colorado. This description is so graphic and minute, and exhibits so 
good an acquaintence with a region which has been but little investiga- 
4 ted, that we are led to reprint it from the ephemeral pages in which it 
} __ has appeared.—Eps.] 
The San Luis Park,—The San Luis park is readily entered at 
the extreme north through the Poncho pass, penetrating the 
Cordillera from the Arkansas river. This park, of elliptical 
form and immense dimensions, is enveloped between the Cordil- 
lera and Sierra Mimbres. It has its extreme northern point be- 
_ tween these two Sierras, where they separate by a sharp angle 
_ and diverge: the former to the southeast, the latter to the south- 
| west. The latitude of the Poncho pass is 88° 30’, the longitude 
106°. It is one hundred and twenty-five miles southwest from 
a valley of great beauty, which rapidly widens to the right and 
left. On the east haaic the Cordillera ascends abruptly and 
ourteen : Agee 
Converge into the San Luis lake. The belt of sloping plain 
tween the mountains and the lake, traversed by so many paral- 
lel s bordered by meadows and groves of cottonwood 
