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Biographical notice of 

 archibald robertson marvine. 



By J. W. POWELL. 



(Read June 3, 1S76.) 



Mr. Archibald R. Marvine was born at Auburn, New York, 

 Sept. 26, 1848. When a youth he attended the military school 

 at Sing Sing, and subsequently the School of Technology at 

 Philadelphia. Leaving the latter he entered the Hooper Mining 

 School of Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1870, 

 when he was appointed instructor in the same school, a position 

 which he held until July, 1871. 



In 1869 Professor J. D. Whitney, of Harvard University, 

 conducted a party of students on a trip among the Park Moun- 

 tains of Colorado for the purpose of making practical studies in 

 geography and geology. On this trip Mr. Marvine, who was 

 one of the party, was instructed in both these branches. The 

 field of study was happily selected, being a portion of the Park 

 Mountain region including South Park and the lofty mountains 

 with which it is walled. The geographic features of the region 

 in its larger outlines are simple. On the north is the great Col- 

 orado Range, a wilderness of crags and peaks ; on the south the 

 great group of mountains of which Pike's Peak is the culmina- 

 tion; on the east the Front Range, a low, broad, flat- top moun- 

 tain mass; on the west the Park Range. 



The Colorado Range along its main course west of Denver 

 has a north and south axis, but near its southern end it sweeps 

 westward in a great curve and abuts against the Park Range, 

 and this southern curve forms the boundary between North and 

 Middle Parks. Just here where the Park and Colorado Ranges 

 unite, South Platte River heads in snow banks that even mid- 

 summer suns cannot destroy, and running eastward at the foot 

 of the Colorado Range, it breaks through the Front Range by a 

 deep, narrow canon set with crags and pinnacles. In the midst 

 of the Pai'k are low subsidiary ranges chiefly trending north and 

 south, and between these ranges there are long, narrow valleys 

 heading in the Pike's Peak Mountains and stretching northward 

 to the foot of the great Colorado Range, where the streams that 

 meander through these valleys yield their waters to the South 

 Platte. 



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