184 MY LIFE [Chap. 



wonderfully flowery, with the beautiful Aquilegia ccemlea and 

 the scarlet Castillejas, and higher up was a little moraine lake 

 where Prhrada Parryi and Arnica cordifolia were abundant. 

 Some account of the relations of the American and European 

 alpine plants is given in my chapter on " Flowers and Forests 

 of the Far West," in my "Studies" (vol. i. p. 217). 



The next morning, after gathering a few more choice 

 plants to send home to England, we bade farewell to our 

 kind friends the miners, walked down to Graymount and 

 took the train to Denver, noticing many fine plants on the 

 way, as well as the grand precipices of Clear Creek canon, 

 where the strata are seen to have been " twisted and tortured 

 into indescribable forms," as I noted in my journal. In the 

 evening I had a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Eastwood, and the 

 next day, at 8.30 a.m., left Denver for Chicago. For some 

 time I had the sleeping-car, eighty feet long, all to myself, 

 there being three alternative lines to Chicago, all starting at 

 the same time. I was now going by the northernmost, so as 

 to see the prairie country along a new line, about two hundred 

 miles north of that by which I had come. 



For some time after starting I had a fine view of the 

 range of the Rockies, Long's Peak, to the north-west, being 

 the most conspicuous object. At Julesberg, two hundred 

 miles from Denver, we stopped to allow the train for 

 California to pass us, and I took a short walk out on the 

 prairie. All around was a boundless expanse of slightly 

 undulating country, covered irregularly with short wiry grass, 

 with a few patches of weeds here and there, a purple and a 

 yellow cleome, and a dwarf entire-leaved golden rod. There 

 was also a yellow-flowered prickly solanum and a small white- 

 flowered asclepiad, with linear crowded leaves, like a mare's 

 tail. The soil was mainly gravel, composed of small crystalline 

 pebbles, not much rounded. The smallest of these, about the 

 size of very small peas, were gathered into many anthills 

 about a foot high. Coming near the North Platte river, the 

 fine blue Iris missouriensis was seen in the marshes. There 

 was good grass here, and plenty of cattle grazing. The river 

 was about a mile wide, but shallow and full of mud-banks. 



