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By .< . H. Holmes, of the Hayden iixplorinr SxpedJ i, 
jntil the middle of June the great front range of the Pocky 
Mountains had been Gr owned with an unbroken covering ox snow, and 
the higher peaks looked forbidding enough to cool the ardor of the 
most ambitious mountaineer, fte spent a few months on the plains 
and pine-covered foot-hills watching impatiently, the faces of the 
mountain® he marked how the snow line moved gradually upward, how 
the black rocks began to peep out making innumerable black patches, 
and how the snow finally occupied only small areas where it had 
filled depressions and accumulated in deep drifts. Our little party 
was not slow to take advantage of this growing weakness in our enemy’s 
front and steadily advanced up the valleys, into dense timber, up 
long, steers slopes, through swamps and torrents and treacherous snow- 
banks; and long before the grass and flowers of those upper regions 
had felt the touch of spring, we were there. And many days before 
winter had finally surrendered the lofty summits, from a peak more 
than 14,000 feet above the sea we looked around upon one of the 
grandest panoramas that the world affords. To the east the great 
plain gave a horizon entirely unbroken, to the west innumerable moun- 
tains notched the sky like saw teeth. From the ramparts of a con- 
tinent we looked out upon a boundless ocean, calm, motionless, in- 
ward | upon a waste of mountains whose heights and depths and mystery 
fairly confounded us. 
This was to be the field of our labors, and we summon dad our 
half-bewildered faculties to the task of identifying ; uch great 
landmarks as would be necessary to guide us in our future wanderings* 
An indefinite number of high, ragged ranges could be traced by their 
linos of lofty summits as far away to the north and south as the eye 
could reach. But one among all these summits caught the eye and 
fixed the attention. Far away to the westward, we discovered a peak, 
a very giant among its fellows, a king amidst a forest of mountains, 
that bore aloft on its dark face a great white cross, so perfect, so 
grand in proportions that at a distance of sixty miles we felt our- 
selves in its very presence. 
two months later we found ourselves approaching the region in 
which this mountain is located. On the 19th of August we stood on 
the ocean divide, from which the waters to the east are carried, by 
the Arkansas down to the Gulf, while those to the west sink 'away and 
are lost in the mysterious gorges of the "great Colorado of the west. T? 
On the on© side a narrow valley stretched away to the southeastward 
in a seemingly endless vista, while on the other the streams and 
I valleys were ahnost immediately obscured by a mass of irregular 
