THE MOUNTAINS OF COLORADO. 67 
The best time to view this landscape is at early morn. The 
mountains then resemble a great cloud-bank hanging on the verge 
of the western horizon. As the sun comes up illuminating the 
peaks and projecting crags, the landscape resolves itself into defi- 
nite outlines. Over the whole are thrown broad masses of light 
and shade, and rock and tree and grassy slope are revealed with 
wonderful distinctness, while from the snow-fields are flashed back 
the tints of sapphire and gold. Bathed in that rare and clear 
atmosphere there is something in this scene ideal, unearthly. 
‘The Delectable Mountains” revealed to the vision of John Bun- 
yan were not comparable in grandeur to these. 
While in the distance, the mountains appear to present an im- 
penetrable barrier, yet when approached, they are found to be in- 
tersected by numerous canons which afford practicable routes to 
their very heart, and enable the explorer, without exhausting ef- 
fort, to scale their loftiest summits. Their arrangement en echelon 
affords passes which may be surmounted even by railroads. 
e have, very properly, incorporated into our vocabulary the 
Spanish term “cañon” as expressive of a torrent-stream walled 
in by mountains. Such is the character of all the streams which 
descend to the plains. Rock-bedded and often rock-walled, they 
rush and roar in their onward course, and only find repose after 
their escape to the broad undulating plains. 
Ascending a.summit from which a bird’s eye view of the eer 
can be obtained, the contour of the surface appears like a confused . 
mass of matter thrown up and corrugated when the elements of 
fire were in the wildest commotion. A tumultuous sea, instanta- 
neously arrested and petrified, would be a miniature representa- 
tion of what is here seen; and yet, when the geologist comes to 
carefully examine the structure of the mountains stratigraphically, 
he finds that they range in nearly conforming lines, whose diree- 
tion is N. N. W. and S. S. E. 
Another striking feature in the topography of this region is 
the series of high table-lands known as “ parks.” They are ver- 
dant valleys walled in by snowy mountains. The melting snows 
give rise to numerous springs and rivulets which sustain an al- 
most perennial growth of bunch grass, making these paska accord- 
ing to Fremont “the paradise of all grazing animals,” and these 
streams the favorite abode of the speckled trout. The antelope, 
the elk, the mountain sheep and the black-tailed deer still abound 
