464 Scientific Intelligence. 
visiting on their way Chicago Lake, Bear Creek, the Platte Cafion, 
and the remarkable tracts of fantastically worn sandstone known 
thence to Denver and breaking up on the 5th of September. Pan- 
oramic views were taken from La Plata Mt. in the National Range, 
and from Whiterock Mt. in the Elk group. 
plates, and the rest the large 9X14 inch plates. They fairly cover 
the region traversed, in its various aspects. he interests of 
ters and deep gorges are on every hand, they are not precisely 
picturesque, in the proper sense; they are not manageable into 
se who have seen both, give the preference we 
pressive than ranges where lines of peaks and crests of immense 
but equal altitude ascend from bases already at 7 to 10 thousand 
feet; there are few summits in Colorado which are lifted more 
than 6000 feet above their immediate surroundings. The barren- 
ness of these mountains, too, as regards both white snow an 
green vegetation, in the mass, detracts from their effectiveness. 
Almost everywhere, the snow lies in summer only in lines and 
patches, which, though of no small absolute dimensions, are petty 
as compared with the great mountain masses. e only marked 
exception, this summer (when the snow was much less, to be sure, 
than the average), was the eastern amphitheater of one of the. 
great peaks of the Elk Mts., where there is an unbrok ahp 
full mile wide, and covering half a mile of downward slope. This 
does not appear among the views taken; the survey were able to 
