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aE E E SERE IY E E ENO EIIE AS TT ERAS. NERE T a aT E NE a E 
. THE MOUNTAINS OF COLORADO. 71 
this head will be but an amplification of this train of thought. It is 
true that in midsummer even large snow-fields are to be seen, but 
it is the result of the winter’s accumulation in the ravines and 
other places sheltered from the sun. Above the snow-patches the 
grasses thrive and the delicate lichens in thin flat crusts adhere to 
the rocks which form the dominating peaks. The tree-line ascends 
to eleven thousand feet. Potatoes, beets and cabbages and the 
hardier cerealia, such as oats and barley, are successfully cultiva- 
ted at nine thousand feet; at ten thousand feet flowers bloom, 
often sending forth their petals close by a snow-bank. Thus Jan- 
uary and May are commingled. Thriving under such conditions 
is a wild columbine which clusters in large patches and bears a 
deep purple blossom fringed with white. This profusion of gaudy 
flowers arrested the attention even of the untutored savage, and 
the Utes gave to the plant the name of idaho or purple flower. 
The white explorers applied this name to a town, which they 
founded on the banks of Clear Creek in Colorado, and a band of 
miners swarming thenée to a region farther north, carried with 
them this name, which subsequently became attached to a territory 
of the United States. 
During the summer, day after day, the sun comes up without a 
cloud; but midday passed, there is an afternoon mist, often ac- 
companied by thunder and lightning. At Denver the phenomena of 
gusts of wind and thunder and lightning are of almost daily occur- 
rence, and yet without a drop of rain. During the month of July 
last, the precipitation was fifty-one one-hundreths of an inch. In 
the mountains there are ‘ cloud bursts,” when the rains fall in a çat- 
aract and filling the gulches sweep every thing before them. 
The electrical phenomena often occurring during a storm on the 
. summits of the mountains are most vivid, and dangerous to those 
caught in such exposed positions. There are authentic instances 
_ where the body becomes so surcharged with electricity that the hair 
stands out rigidly, and sparks are emitted from the person thus 
isolated when approached, and every metallic article becomes lu- 
minous. 
Statistics as to the amount of rainfall in the mountains have 
not been collected, but at Denver it only reaches about thirteen 
inches during the year. 
In that dry and -bracing atmosphere the thermometer may rise 
to ninety degrees F. and yet without producing those depressing 
