136 
Ivla-y 29 
Wilbnr F. Parker, - - Editor and Proprietor. 
THE ONLY JOUK^^AL PUBLISHED IN THE EXITED STATES 
Devoted Exclusively to 
SHOOTING, FISHING. NATURAL HISTORY, FISH CULTURE, 
AND THE PROTECTION OF FISH AND GAME. 
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Persons sending money to this office, by means of Money Orders 
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Ad communications must be acoompanud by (he full name of the 
writer and addressed to 
THE ROD AND THE GUN. 
West Meriden, Conn. 
., t^^We earnestly request all our contributors to adopt the plan in 
regard to the use of scientific names which some of them have 
aiready adopted, viz; to PRINT all such names legibly in the manu- 
script, as this will prevent error by giving the compositor plain copy 
to follow. Above all things we say, do not venture upon the use 
of scientific names at all umess certain of their accuracy. 
SATIRDAF .RAY 29, 1875. 
CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. 
Page. Page 
Spring Work on a Trout Western Items 135 
Farm 129 Queries and Answers 135 
English Field Trials 129 The Editor on the M'ing 136 
Sparrows 129 The Watertown Convention. 137 
A Snow-Shoe Trip 13(1-131 The Benefits of Close Time 137 
Catching an Old Sportsman. . 131 The National Sportsman's 
The Rifie 132 Convention 137 
Pigeon Matches 1*3 Letters from Sportsmen . 13S-139 
Wilderness Sketches— No.fi. 131 Patents 139 
Library Table 1.35 
THE EDITOR 0.\ THE WI.\G— \0. 1. 
A visit to the Bate.s Brewery is worth mentioning. 
tVe found there Mr. Robert R. McCormick, a gentle- 
man filling many important financial positions, and a 
genial sportsman withal, with E.x-Mayor Bates, the pro- 
prietor, is justly entitled to the reputation of brewing 
the best lager beer west of the Missouri river, and their 
brewery is a marvel of capacity' and neatness, being 
fully as large as many of the largest eastern establish- 
ments. Our ne.\l call was on a veteran sportsman, re- 
nowned for the hospitalities he always e.vtends to his 
enthusiastic lirethren. Col. .lames Archer, President of 
the Denver Gas Co. M’e found Mr. Archer at his of- 
fice busily engaged in preparing for a trip to Europe to 
be present at the coming International rifie match in 
June next. After inspecting an enormous chest packed 
full of buftalo tongues and Colorado delicacies for his 
European friends, we visited his rooms which were 
handsomely furnished and decorated with fine oil paint- 
ings. Among the collection of arms shown us was an 
elegant Martini llenry rifle presented him by his friend, 
Mr. Waterhouse, who came out with the Irish team for 
the International match, and w.os a guest of Col. Ar- 
cher. He gave us letters to prominent men in various 
parts of the Territory, and requested Mr. Fay to take 
us out to his ranche, and in fact, did eviTj-thing in his 
power t* make our visit agreeable. We next dropped 
into the ticket office of the Union Pacific railroad for a 
friendly' word with the venerable ticket agent, Mr. 
Ball, who is always at his post, nnd one of the “livest” 
men in the business. Here we learned of the great 
break on the C. P. R. R., aud the next morning every 
hotel in Denver was crowded with passengers from 
Cheyenne who had come to see the wonders of Colo- 
rado. While waiting for the railroad company to re- 
pair damages, weelipped the following, from the 
Mountain Fews, which informed u<= of the arrival of a 
few of our friends. 
Harry L Hall, of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, is 
visiting Denver, with his wife. Harry got a taste of 
( Vilorado last fall, when a member of the conductors’ 
excursion, and has had a hankering after it ever since. 
Col. G. AV. Bradley', U. S. A., recently from Fort Un- 
ion, N. M.,is in the city, with his family', en route to 
Fort Yuma, to take charge of the quartermaster’s de- 
partment. B. P. Humphrey, well-known to Denverites 
as a former conductor of the Pullman Car Co., on the 
Kansas Pacific railway, now western agent of the To- 
ledo, WabAsh A AV'estern railroad, is in the city. It is 
I upon that road the fast lime is being made toXew 
York. Time from Kansas City to Xew York, forty- 
nine hours. Among the number of west-bound iravel- 
; ers stopping in Denver on account of the Union Pacific 
blockade, is a party of eastern capitalists, spending 
most of their time very pleasantly in looking around our 
flourishing city. April 20. — Whew! a blow, and such 
clouds of dust! The pure air of Denver is impregnated 
fairly brown with the dust of her streets. As I sit aU 
my window I find it impossible to even recognize a per- 
son a block away, or distinguish the houses 100 feet dis- 
tant. It is but a moment, and everybody is oft the 
street. These blows seem to be but a forerunner of a 
storm; they are of frequent occuirenee, and come up 
in an instant, lasting for, say houis, and “are the curse 
of the plains.” Xot very good air for consumptives to 
expand their lungs with. Even my room is filled so 
that “I taste it,” and the table is literally coated with 
it. Half an hour, and quiet reigns, the sun shines, and 
no storm. These blows have bewildered many a man 
on the plains, made him lose his reckoning and thus be- 
wildered, he looses life itself in a vain attempt to reach 
his destination. Well said; since writing the above the 
sun has been clouded up, and it rains. Budden changes 
these, but common here . 
April 21 we take an early start for the mountains via 
the Colorado Central, which is one of the greatest curi- 
osities in this country. Soon after leaving Denver we 
crossed the famous Platte river and then passed 
through a rich agricultural section to the mountain, and 
after running a short di.stance on the margin of Clear 
Creek, we arrive at Golden, which is situated at the 
base of the mountains at the mouth of Clear Creek can 
on, one of the most remarkable natural features of Col- 
orado. Immediately in front is the famous Table 
Mountain, which is here abruptly broken through to 
permit the passage of the waters of Clear Creek, and 
leaving suflicient room for two wagon roads, a railroad, 
and two irrigating ditches. After taking seats in the 
cosy little cars ws are soon moving away from Golden 
and up the canon where the road bed is cut in the 
edges of the precipitous sides of the mountains, and are 
soon running up grades from 100 to upwards of 250 feet 
to the mile, and around curves at angles from 25 to 42 
degrees. The scenery is amazingly grand; the moun- 
tains rise precipitouil}' on either side from a few' hun- 
dred to a thousand feet; below is the foaming torrent 
of Clear Creek with its waters one mass of mud and 
sand from the mining operations above. In addition 
to the romantic scenery, between Golden and Black 
Hawk, the traveler gets a perfect jianorama of gold 
mining. The gulch miners with their lung wooden 
troughs, the Chinese miners aud their villages, diigouts, 
log cabins are all taken in at a glance as the train passes 
up the canon. Arriving at Black Hawk we find a good 
stone depot originall}’ built for a mill hyFiiz.Tohu Por- 
ter, in connection with an immense mining scheme 
which had exploded some years ago, but the structure 
is wed adapted to its present use. This is the end of 
the road and we are in the midst of mines, mining, 
stamp mills, and the largest smelting or reduct on works 
in the Territoiy. 
From this point to Central City i he trip is made by 
stage, as the ascent isIlOfeet to the mile aud altogether 
too abrupt for railroading. Here we found the Teller 
House, a first-class hotel, standing in the midst of a 
busy busines.s center, at an elevation of S300 feet, and if 
anyone from the lower elevations desire to try the good 
qualities of their lungs, all that is necessary will be to 
walk up one or two pair of stairs. After dinner w'e 
started out for a short walk, but found that it w as all 
U]) hill and we had to make fretiaent stops in order to in 
flale the lungs with the raritied air, but after some exer- 
tion we reached the summit of the small mountains and 
found the miners hard at work excavating the ore from 
a shaft. They were very clever and w illing to give us 
any information they could. They pounded up the 
quartz in their mortars and from a small lump jjanned 
out quite a number of small particles of gold, showing 
us the whole process of pros, ecting and the manner of 
telling what the mine was yielding from day to day. 
We followed the lode upon which they were working 
for some distance, and visited other small mines in the 
vicinitv, among which was one located and formerly 
owned by Horace Greeley, but as it had not been 
worked sufliciently to make the claim good some enter- 
prising fellow had jumped the claim and now owns 
the mine. From our standpoint here we could see the 
mountains for several miles and, as they appeared to us, 
there was not a space of over 20 or 30 feet in any di- 
I rection that did not bear the. marks of the shovel and 
pick. Upon .reluming to the hotel we were introduced 
to the editor of The Register \rho was pleased to consider 
thp Rod .and Gcn one of the most valuable journals 
that come into the Territory. During t::e evening we 
met several gentlemen sportsmen, Mr. Bush, the land- 
lord, Messrs. Aichison, Lindsey, Reynolds, Collyer, Dr. 
Tolies, etc. and last, but not least, an old fellow-towns- 
man, Harley B. Morse, who is well known in the Terri- 
tory as Judge Morse. They all said they could not 
show us much game at this season, but made very bril- 
liant promises for the fall. We informed them th .t 
hunting was not the object of our visit, but to get them 
interested with their brother sportsmen in the protection 
of fish and game, and if we mistake not a good club 
will be organized at Central City. 
For a description of this famous city w'e quote from 
‘ Richard’s Summering in Colorado:” 
“The gold discoveries in Clear Creek, in 1859, near to Denver, 
led the pioneer prospectors to try new fields, in the hope of discov- 
ering greater riches than were even dreamed to exist in these moun- 
tains. One earnest man toiled no the creek to a point near where 
this city now stands, and made the discovery which has rendered 
his name .noteworthy. The Gregory lode, now a remarkable mine, 
was named in honor of this prospector. With his friends, new and 
rich discoveries were made, and it was not long before these 
gulches, right and left, were filled up and overflowing with a restless, 
striving, ambitions and greedy army of men, who, drawn from the 
States by the wonderful reports of gold discoveries, had come ont 
to try their luck and seek their fortunes in this new and compara- 
tively unknown land. To-day there are between fi(XX) and 7U00 in- 
habitants in Central City and Black Hawk. The cities are so close 
together that it is impossible for a citizen of one to tell where he 
lives without going out of doors and looking at some landmark. 
Central City and Black Hawk are built on auriferous foundations, 
and it is a point ihe local papers delight in making, for the aston- 
ishment of eastern readers, that the stone houses are made of gold- 
bearing quartz, and that excavations frequently yield enough ol the 
precious metal to more thau recompense the labor. These are some 
of the advantages of a habitation in this section. 
Central City and Black Hawk give the new-comer the idea that 
the towns might, at some former day, have been located on the 
mountain top, aud that some convulsion of nature had slid them pell 
mell 'nto the gulch. The streets are irregular in shape, their general 
direction being more the result of mine development than any original 
plan on the part of the founders to lay out anything like a comely city. 
The road that carries ns up the gulch, and through the two citn s, from 
the Black Hawk depot, runs, a portion of the way, along the side of 
Bobtail Monntain, like a notch cut for a passage way. Below, on 
the right, is muddy Clear Creek. Across the gulch, and up and 
down the mo'intain, are dwellings, and shapely schoolhouses, and 
handsome churches, in seemingly unapproachable places. Long 
staircases reach from streets below to houses above, which, like 
Babylon of old, have their banging gardens that seem to threaten 
the pedestrian iiiidernealh with instant destruction. Ueie and 
there the sombre shaft houses reach like stepping stones along the 
lode to the top of the hill, and, below, the ponderous machinery 
of the stamp mills beats and crushes the rich rock which yields in 
turn the anriferons standard of worldly value. Dark aud dank 
tunnels gape upon this little world, by the roadside, and lumbering 
w agons go here and there with tinkling bells, drawing quartz to the 
mills. Everything betokens the industry of the district. The 
mountains are spotted with dump piles and prospect holes, and 
seamed with rich mineral. The people are a mining people, earn- 
ing their worldly wealth, for the most part, uy deh ing in the bowels 
of the earth. 
There are several things that will attract the attention of every 
person of an enquiring mind who comes to this place. One of these 
is the abundance of children, and another thing their apparent 
healthfulness. Nowhere in the country do we see such rugged, hearty, 
bronzed and muscular children as in the Rocky Mountains, and no- 
where in the mountains do you find more of them than here. They 
are pictures of health. Monntain air, the exercise of climbing the 
steep roads and running oier the rocks, harden their physical na- 
tures and make them tough and sinewy. This is also a character- 
istic of older people, The young ladies are ruddy and healthy; the 
men muscular and hardy. A residence of a few' weeks or mouths at 
Central City is sure to tone up any shattered system, give the spirits 
greater buoyancy, increase the circulation of blood, and improve the 
general health. Sheltered in the gulch the winds are not strong, 
with rare exceptions, and the temperature is remarkably equable. 
Mining operations are comparatively little understood by the ma- 
jority of the travelling public. They do not know the difference be- 
tween gulch and lode mining, could not tell a sluice box from a fur- 
nace, and are perfeclly at sea on the definitions of back-slopping 
and drilting. As for the characteristics of qnartz, they invariably 
insist that iron pyrites is pure gold, and pronounce rock worthless 
if the auriferous deposit does not show to the naked eye. Sump 
mills are, to them, but so many machines for breaking up quartz 
and losing all the gold, while separation of base bullion from the 
precious metal is a mystery that passes all comprehension. Several 
days may be profltabiy spent in visiting these gold n.inet. aud stor 
ing knowledge of the tectuicai terms and operations and the bul- 
lion yield ol th<f country. 
From Central City we took a private carriage with a 
team good for mountain service, instead of the regular 
stage, and Messrs. Morse and Aitcheson accepted an in- 
vitation to accompany us to Idaho Springs. The route 
was one we shall not soon forget. The old stage road 
led right up the mountain side over a thousand feet in 
height, and then wound off on the top giving a view of 
several gulches and mining lodes In the distance. Here 
we left the road and drove towards Bellevue Pe^, as 
far as it was pas.sable for a team, then hdched the 
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