'Rocky fountain Trip 
16 
My tabled sketch may help to recall the character and details 
of tills fine group. The clouds were constantly hovering about 
arid dragging the summits and throwing deep shadows * A few points 
were clear but for a moment* The sun was behind and above, per¬ 
haps a little to the left, so that there was much deep shadow. 
The mn struck the gray smooth surfaces and a thousand points 
glittered like gems. The summits are almost needle shark and 
the crests are notched, not like ft saw teeth but like a comb 
and the steep sides of the immense precipices are scarred and 
seamed with the sinuous lines of the contorted but generally up¬ 
right crystaling strata, X have never seen* and perhaps never 
shall see again,* such a compact cluster of high* steep, ragged 
and totally naked mountains. The color is invariably gray and 
the great proportion of deep., blue gray shadow - prevailing al¬ 
most totally below - added much doubtless to the unusual degree 
of profundity in depth, etc. The low ridges in the middle dis¬ 
tance are somewhat bare above, but below are quite covered with 
grass and willows, with a heavy setting of dark pines below timber 
line* The course of the Rio Pinos could be traced down through 
the s.e. of this group and the Rio Grande was visible In a number 
of places throughout its crooked course * The high groups to the 
north and west of the quartslies were but little in view on ac¬ 
count of the clouds* TJncoripagiere loomed up as usual but much 
snowed in* The rocks of the pyramid are ail ir&ehytie, horizon¬ 
tally bedded. The group is small, this being the only aunmit of 
note. The upper valleys here are almost covered by a growth of 
scrub willows. It grows in a curious kind of cluster that from 
