mm

SELECTIONS FROM

THE YOUTH'S
COMPANION

ARRANGED FOR

Supplementary Reading
In Schools.

No. ii.
Among- the Rockies.

PERRY MASON & COMPANY,
Boston, Mass.

T

HE series of Selections from THE YOUTH'S COMPANION consists
of the following numbers:

No. i. A Book of Stories.

No. 2. Glimpses of Europe.

No. 3. The American Tropics.

No. 4. Sketches of the Orient.

No. 5. Old Ocean.

No. 6. Life in the Sea.

No. 7. Bits of Bird Life.
No. 8. Our Little Neighbors.
No. 9. At Home in the Forest.
No. 10. In Alaska.

No. II. AMONG THE ROCKIES.
No. 12. IN THE SOUTHWEST.

No. 13. On the Plains.

Other Numbers in Preparation.

The publishers cordially invite correspondence from all who are
interested in Supplementary Reading, and will be especially pleased if
teachers who are using THE COMPANION in their schools will kindly
mention those articles which have proved most helpful. Any suggestions
which will assist in making either this series of selections or the paper
itself more valuable to teachers will also be gratefully received.

PERRY MASON & COMPANY, Publishers,
201 Columbus Avenue. Boston, Mass.

SELECTIONS

FROM

The Youth's Companion

FOR

SUPPLEMENTARY READING.

Number 11.

AMONG THE ROCKIES.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE BIGHORN CANON . . . GEN. JAMES S. BRISB1N, U. S. A. 3

HUNTING ELK ON SKEES SHERWOOD DAVIS. 9

VISITING THE YELLOWSTONE PARK GEORGE S. ANDERSON, U. S. A. 14

IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK C. A. STEPHENS. 16

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BURROS J. H. LEWIS. 22

CHINESE RAILWAY LABORERS .... ERNEST INGERSOLL. 26

SOME ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANIMALS . . PROF. ARTHUR LAKES. 32

WHERE RAILROADS GO J. L. HARBOUR. 38

DIGGING UP A FOSSIL MONSTER . . PROF. ARTHUR LAKES. 42

A PETRIFIED BIG TREE PROF. ARTHUR LAKES. 48

THE HOLY CROSS AND TWIN LAKES . . . J. L. HARBOUR. 53

SIGNAL STATION ON PIKE'S PEAK J. H. SMITH. 57

Copyright, 1897.

PERRY MASON & COMPANY,

BOSTON. MASS.

it

i

«::-:-

The Bighorn Canon.

wn

The Bighorn Canon.

Though the Bighorn Canon is located within sixty miles
of Fort Custer, in Montana, where I am writing, I can find
no one who has ever been through it. Some men have been
in it, but did not stay long, and only a few have traversed it
for as much as twenty miles.

The only man I ever met on these plains who could give
a good account of the great canon was Iyieut. George P.
Belden, the celebrated trapper, guide and scout, who died
some years ago. Even old and thoroughly travelled scouts
and hunters have had to acknowledge that they knew nothing
about the Bighorn Canon.

Belden often told me about it, and said he had been from
its mouth to the top, and once had spent a portion of the
winter beneath the friendly shelter of its mighty walls.
Belden left some notes in a book giving a partial account
of the sunken plain, as he called it.

" We had been toiling up, up, all day long," says Belden
in these notes, "and at night looked far back and below us
to the Chetish or Wolf Mountains. They were to the north,
and fully forty miles distant. They loomed up from the
plain, low, broad, black and flat, and we could see that they
had no connection at any point with the giant Bighorn
Range. West of us was the Bighorn Valley proper.

' ' Wishing to strike the Bighorn Canon at its mouth and
go up it to its head, I told our Indian guide so to lead as to
bring us to the canon at its junction with the river.

" Early the next morning we set out nearly due westward.
Our Indian guide, although a Crow, and born in the country,
had great difficulty in locating the canon, so broken and
uneven was the land. At last he pointed to some pines on
a distant hilltop, and calling out, ' There ! there ! ' rode
smartly forward.

4 THE BIGHORN CANON.

1 ' At the foot of the mountain below the pines we found an
old trail, almost obliterated from long disuse. Taking this
the guide galloped swiftly forward.

' ' In about an hour he stopped on the brink of a
deep ravine, and told us that this was the great canon.
Dismounting, and going forward on foot, I looked over a wall
of rock hundreds of feet high. The Indian said that a mile
below was a trail leading down into the canon, and that we
could descend if we wished. He said it was twenty miles or
more to the mouth of the canon, and the descent was more
difficult there than by the trail just below us.

" I told him to go ahead, and we would enter the valley
at once.

" After rolling, jerking, sliding and tumbling, as it were,
down the side of the canon we suddenly found ourselves in a
little valley, from which the light was almost excluded by the
black walls of rock.

1 ' There was a bright streak of sunshine along the centre
of the valley, and a stream rippled by. The tall pines sighed
mournfully in the light breeze. Not even the tops of the
tallest trees ascended as high as the top of the canon. They
were extremely tall, for they had been sheltered from the
storms that had twisted and dwarfed their less fortunate
neighbors on the prairie above.

" The little stream was filled with mountain trout. They
were of the mountain brook species, and we could see their
golden bars flash as they darted through the crystal waters.

"Up the stream was a herd of a dozen elk, and below,
almost within rifle-shot, two black-tailed deer browsed.
There were many kinds of birds, and the cawing of hundreds
of crows could be heard up the stream where the timber was
thickest.

" When the sounds of the birds, the brook and the trees
ceased, the silence was intense. The valley seemed cut off
from the rest of the world.

' ' One has strange feelings in such a place ; and I wras not

THE BIGHORN CANON. 5

sorry when the Indian, who had been creeping down the
valley toward the deer, fired a shot and killed the buck.
The noise of his gun seemed almost as loud as a cannon,
and as the echoes reverberated far up and down the valley,
the birds rose screaming in the air, and circled far above us.

" Supping on trout and deer meat, we passed the night by
the side of the stream.

"Next morning, wishing to hunt, I set out with a
companion, our rifles on our shoulders, leaving the guide
and scout to pack and follow with the camp at their leisure.

"As we trudged along, many prairie-hens flew up. The
whirring of their wings and the loud call of the old cocks
attracted the attention of a fine buck. On seeing us, he
stooped low, and creeping away, hid in the nearest bunch
of pines. He seemed to suppose that we had not seen him ;
and Dan, my companion, laughed outright to see him tiptoe
into the wood.

"A mile farther up, as we turned a sharp angle of the
high wall on our right, we saw a band of over one hundred
elk grazing within easy rifle-range. The leader threw up his
head, whistled danger, and started up the valley.

"The excitement was too much for old Dan. Bringing
his gun to his shoulder he fired, and the leader fell, shot
through both fore-shoulders.

1 * The herd halted when the leader fell and gathered about
him. None except the wounded buck had yet seen us.
They looked everywhere about in a frightened way, but we
had hidden among the rocks. Finally they started up the
valley again. It was a beautiful sight. Nothing but a mass
of horns, tips of ears and flying feet could be seen as they
moved in a compact mass. The noise of their hoofs and
the glint of their red necks reminded us of a flight of birds
more than of animals.

' ' The Indian guide said the true name of this canon was
Elk Canon, and that elk were always to be found there in
great numbers, not only on account of the fine shelter it

THE BIGHORN CANON.

afforded, but of the warmth and good grass and water. After
looking at the buck, now quite dead, and taking his hump
and tongue, we pushed on up the valley in the rear of the elk.
' ' We soon began to notice that both the canon and the
stream were becoming narrower rapidly. The stream was a
mere rivulet, but still well stocked with red speckled trout.
The valley was so narrow that no animal could pass up or
down without coming in close rifle-range. The wall rock
on either hand became higher and higher. Little springs from

the side flowed in and bub-
bled up from the base of
the high walls. Pockets,
meadows, thickets and ra-
vines increased in numbers,
and the great hanging walls
above our heads closed until
the daylight was almost
excluded. Deer were very
abundant, but all other
game had disappeared.

' ' Selecting one of the
widest of the little pockets
or side valleys, we began to
climb a deer trail leading
up the mountainside.

" Since we left camp we
had travelled due east, and
now we went up the south side of the wall, and soon found
ourselves in the wildest of scenery.

11 On our right was the snow range, with glistening tops
flashing like polished silver. The valley had been very
warm, but the change to a colder temperature was perceptible
at an elevation of five hundred feet. We were going out of
summer into winter, and all within a mile or two.

"The air became so thin that one could not run at all,
and every few hundred steps our breath gave out, and a

The Narrow Valley.

THE BIGHORN CANON. J

short rest was necessary. We were entering the confines of
perpetual winter.

"Working forward over the snow line, we found the
stunted old pine-trees becoming more and more gnarled,
and most of them dead or dying. Here and there, in the
crevice of a rock, we found a bush growing which bore
brown berries that were sweet to the taste and not unpleasant
eating.

" Here and there little red and striped chipmunks frisked
about, and shot in and out of the rocks. They seemed larger
than the chipmunks of the East, but were evidently the same
animal. We also saw several large rock-rats, or mountain
squirrels, which inhabit these high regions. Some of them
were as large as small prairie-dogs, and were like them
except in their movements.

"These animals are sluggish, and shooting at them does
not seem to alarm them in the least. They drag themselves
lazily in and out of their holes and act as if they were deaf.

"Above the ground- vines rise ranges of granite rock,
gray, pink and brown, with veins of delicate purple and blue
running through them. There is a rose-colored granite on
these mountains that takes a high polish and is very beautiful.
I saw an almost jet black marble, the finest stone I had ever
seen, and there is much white marble.

" From the top of these granite walls the snow extended
over the mountain, hiding everything above from view.

" Standing at the foot of the great granite walls, our feet
pressing the snows of many winters, our teeth chattering in
the cold mountain air, we looked far down below us to
see the Black Canon with its green trees, grassy valley
and sparkling stream, which looked like a tiny thread of
silver.

1 ' With my glass I could see wild sheep on the opposite
hills, and far down the canon a band of deer playing at hide-
and-seek as they dashed in and out of the little thickets.

"I had been at the snow-line before, but never at so

8 THE BIGHORN CANON.

interesting a place as the Black Canon. Finding the night
coming on we began our downward course.

"About half-way down the mountainside, as we came
out from among a group of pines, we noticed a large mound^
upon which sparkled millions of bright little objects, having
the appearance of bits of broken window-glass. The mound,
we found upon approaching it, was a bed of gypsum ; the
thin scales and large slabs gave it the appearance of a huge
jewel set in the mountainside.

"Down, down we went, almost an hour and a half, and
then we came out into the little valley once more, and found
our escort awaiting us. The sun was still shining on the
hills, and we determined to go up the canon a little way and
camp for the night.

11 An hour's march brought us to the head of the stream
and some fine springs. Here, the guide informed us, we
must stop or go a long way to water. We accordingly
encamped, and after a good supper went out and gathered
bearberry leaves, to mix with our tobacco.

"We found many curious colored pebbles, some agates
and several other stones of value.

" We had explored only twenty miles of the middle
portion of the great canon, and in the morning determined
to climb out and go over to Bear Canon of the Bighorn to
hunt for grizzlies."

This is the only description of the Black Canon of the Big-
horn that I have ever seen. It is meagre and unsatisfactory,
but I hope to explore, map and photograph the entire region.

Gen. James S. Brisbin.

Hunting Elk on Skees.

Of all the pleasures which have fallen to the lot of an
amateur photographer with a taste for wild life and the
making of pictures of big game in its native state, probably
the keenest befell a young amateur whom we may call James
Brackett, for want of authority to use his real name.

Being in the Flathead country, in Montana, he was invited
to join a party of hunters who were going out into the Rocky
Mountains to take live elk with lasso and skees. He accepted
the invitation ; he had been accustomed to travel on skees in
taking winter views. But instead of a lasso he himself carried
his camera and a large revolver for emergencies.

At Columbia Falls, Montana, north of Flathead L,ake,
young Brackett joined the two hunters. They camped in
the hills and started out before daybreak up the mountain.
There was to be a long ascent before the sport began, for the
skee-hunters can take their game in this way only when they
have the advantage of descent upon them.

The skees used by the party were made of birch, and were
eight feet long, four inches wide, and about half an inch
thick. They were strapped to the feet, and the front ends
were slightly curved upward.

The two hunters carried no rifles. Each had at his belt a
strong lasso, sixty feet long, and a hand-axe, or large and
very sharp hatchet. Their hunting wras to include no
slaughter, and they needed no weapons except revolvers and
knives, for use in case of chance unsought encounters with
pumas or bears. They carried also a liberal lunch.

Though he knew how to walk on skees, Brackett found
the ascent of the mountain on them, over the deep snow, an
extremely hard task, especially when he had to keep pace
with these practised and hardened hunters. Two or three
times he was on the point of giving it up, but the hunters

IO

HUNTING ELK ON SKKKS.

good-naturedly paused to let him get his breath, though they
had no time to lose.

Toward noon the hunters declared that they had ascended
far enough. They had already found signs of elk, and knew
where to look for them on their descent. Here they lunched,
saving some of their food for the unlucky emergency of a
failure to get back to camp for the night. Then the rapid
descent was begun. The hunters' eyes commanded a great

sweep of the mountainside,
nor did they neglect the
details of thickets and
ledges. It was a wild and
craggy spot — precisely the
ground which the Rocky
Mountain elk seems to
enjoy.

As the three men were
swiftly but watchfully de-
scending on their skees,
Brackett finding it quite
easy now to keep up with
! the hunters, the latter
paused, put their fingers
to their hips and loosened
their lassos . It was evident
that they had caught sight
or wind of game. Brackett
saw no living creature, but
he nevertheless unlimbered his camera. Before them lay a
sharp and smooth declivity, glittering under the midday sun.
Here and there rocks cropped up, but for the most part the
space was clear. All at once, far below, Brackett saw an
animal shoot out into view from behind a crag, apparently,
though the creature had all the time been in front of the
crag. The unpractised eye of the photographer had not made
him out, so closely did the yellowish-brown of the elk's body

HUNTING ELK ON SKEES.

II

and the white of his rump approximate the color of the rock
and snow.

" Goodness !' ' Brackett could not help exclaiming,
" you're not going to try to get game so far away as that ? "

For answer the two hunters shot down the mountain, their
lasso coils held in their left hands, the noose in their right —
both hands in front of them, their knees and bodies gracefully
bent. They presented so fine a sight that Brackett took a
shot at them on the spot ; and by the time he had closed his
camera and was ready to start after them, they seemed to be
half a mile down the mountain! He gave up all attempt to
overtake them or to get a shot
at their operations with the elk,
but contented himself with the
picture he had already taken of
their seeming drop into space,
and with keeping them in view.

Meantime the elk was off in
a series of tremendous bounds ;
but his course lay almost later-
ally along the side of the moun-
tain, while the two hunters,
going at a speed which could
hardly be less than his, were
heading him off by a flanking
movement. Every second

brought them nearer together. At last the elk, which
Brackett thought was the largest horned animal he had ever
seen, seemed to realize that he was being headed off.

He turned sharply and plunged straight down the moun-
tainside. Brackett heard the two hunters shout to each
other ; they swerved apart in such a way that the plunging
animal appeared between them in Brackett's line of vision.
Then he dropped quite out of sight over a ledge, beyond
which Brackett saw nothing but blue sky.

The two hunters plunged straight on, and the young

12

HUNTING ELK ON SKEES.

photographer gasped, for it seemed to him that they were
whirling to certain death over a precipice. But meantime he
was himself advancing at an extremely swift rate of speed ;
and his path presently brought into view a bench of the
mountain below the ledge.

Over it the two men went. The elk came into view again,
plunging heavily in deep snow. The hunters, one on each
side, came up with him. Without a word or sound, the man
on the right cast his lasso ; it fell over the great animal's
horns, and was instantly drawn taut.

And now began a strange chase, comparable to that of a
whale at sea into which a harpoon has been thrown. The

second man could have thrown aiasso from the other side, but
both men could not possibly have held the elk on this descent,
which presented neither tree nor jutting crag, and where now
the creature seemed to have found firmer foothold. Away he
went, still down the mountain ; the man who had roped him
clung to the line, allowing himself to be drawn, the snow
flying from his skees. The other man made his best speed,
but was being left behind.

The elk was plainly headed for a thicket of pines some
distance below. He followed his instinct in this, and he also
did the worst possible thing for himself. It was what the two

HUNTING EIvK ON SKEES. 1 3

hunters most desired. On he went, and in less than a minute
had plunged among the trees, and in an instant more was
struggling in the snow, for the hunter had snubbed his line
around a tree and had the creature fast. He might, however,
have inflicted some injury upon himself if the other hunter,
coming up, had not thrown his lasso from the other side and
snubbed him to another tree. He was now completely at the
mercy of the men.

Brackett came up and with his camera took a shot at the
elk, which had given up its struggles. The hunt was over for
the day, for it was necessary to go down to the camp and bring
up the dog-sledge, on which to transport the captured elk to
Columbia Falls. Brackett and one of the hunters remained
on guard to protect the elk, now bound firmly with one of the
ropes, from the visits of unscrupulous wolves and pumas, which
would not have hesitated to take advantage of his situation if
he had been left alone. The elk turned out to weigh nine
hundred pounds, and was the most magnificent specimen taken
for several years.

Brackett remained two weeks with the hunters. In that
time they took but two more elk — for they had had
remarkably good luck to come upon their game so soon and
so successfully on the first day. All of their captives were
taken to the ranch of a gentleman farther down the mountain,
who has fenced in a considerable space for the purpose of
testing the question whether the elk cannot be domesticated
and made to draw loads, as the reindeer does. This gentleman
already has a well-broken elk team, which he has driven
about quite freely.

The animals in his possession appear perfectly tame and
gentle. Whether or not the American elk has any value for
draught purposes remains, however, still to be proved.

Sherwood Davis.

Visiting the Yellowstone Park.

The Yellowstone Park, larger than the State of Connecticut,
contains, perhaps, more natural wonders than any other tract
of equal area : the exquisite deposits of the boiling springs ;
the geysers, spouting water two hundred feet in the air ; the
canon, most beautiful and grand ; the many waterfalls of rare
loveliness ; the immense lake of unfathomed depth, eight
thousand feet above the sea, surrounded by mountain-peaks
covered with perpetual snow. But one should not suppose,
as some people do, that it is wholly a land of marvels, for it
presents many spaces of the most quiet and lovely scenery.

It is seldom possible to enter the park before the first of
June. In 1893 the lake ice did not break up until the
nineteenth of that month, and wheeled vehicles could not pass
from the Upper Basin to the lake until the twenty-second.
This was a very late season, but such may occur again.

In July there are flies, gnats and mosquitoes, — great
nuisances, to be sure, — but the nights are cold and the insects
vanish early in the evening, while many other conditions are
favorable. The earth is then covered with lovely wild flowers ;
the watercourses are running full, and their falls are at their
best ; the fishing is then extraordinarily good.

In August the mosquitoes and their kin have disappeared,
and there are no troublesome rains ; but the lovely flowers are
then no longer at their best ; dust has replaced mud, and the
fish are not so eager to take the fly.

September presents a constantly lessening list of attractions ;
fewer flowers, less water in the streams, fewer fish, less chance
of seeing large game, more dust and colder nights. Moreover,
the summer travellers have then littered the favored camping
spots with their unsightly leavings.

July, then, is the best month, but a start the last of June

VISITING THK YKU.OWSTONE PARK. 1 5

would be advantageous, particularly if the season opened
early.

A proper outfit of clothing is highly important. As the
days are generally hot and the nights very cold, thick under-
flannels are recommended. No overcoat is needed except a
mackintosh, which is very desirable. Brown or drab clothing
is most satisfactory.

As to the length of time and the amount of money required
for the visit, that depends on whether the party means to
glance at the tract or see it thoroughly. Cinnabar, the
terminus of a branch of the National Park Railroad, is the
point of entrance to the park.

Regular tourists who put up at the park hotels spend six
days in the tour. A camping trip might be made in that
time, but a month can be profitably devoted to it. The
regular circuit could be made slowly and on horseback in
about twelve days ; then there would be side trips off the main
roads, fishing excursions and numerous desirable delays that
would well occupy the entire month.

The details of the trip must of course depend on the time
allotted to it. A week used in going down to Jackson's Lake,
and a week or ten days in a visit to the wonderful hoodoo
country, would amply repay for the time and money spent.

Hunting trips are often outfitted here, but all the hunting
must be done outside the park. The thorough protection of
the game within the park has made it a reservoir from which
all the surrounding country has been fed, so that now this
region is the best hunting-ground in America.

Gkorgk S. Anderson, U. S. A.

In the Yellowstone Park.

When you go to the Yellowstone Park, certain notices

giving forcible hints as to your conduct will present themselves

to your eye from sign-boards nailed to the trees. They are of

this sort :

Extinguish Your Fires.

No Shooting.

Gather No Specimens.

Do Not Deface the Formations.

These are all very proper and necessary ; and the penalty
for disobedience may be a dusty walk out of the park, with a
soldier behind you. It may involve the confiscation of your
luggage, or even heavy fines and imprisonment if the offence
is a grave one. No shooting is allowed, except in defence of
one's life, and as a consequence of this wise restriction game
in the National Park is becoming not only delightfully plenty,
but unusually tame.

The ducks sit, quacking quietly, in the little lakes, as the
stage-coaches rattle close past them. Squirrels actually have
been known to run up men's trousers' legs, and deer are
increasing in numbers. It is said that the herd of two
hundred buffalo about the Yellowstone Lake show signs of
increased confidence in man.

Unusual vigilance will be practised by the park superin-
tendent to protect this bison herd, and if nature would but
kindly endow the poor beasts with instinct to remain in the
park, this last remnant of a once mighty race might survive
here for centuries, to remind future generations of the
countless herds which once roamed over the entire West.

Another and less pleasing result of prohibition of shooting
is the multiplication of bears. Black bears, silver-tip bears,
cinnamon bears and roach-back bears are found in the park

IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.

17

in greatly increased numbers, and some shooting may have to
be done to keep these creatures within proper limits.

This wise protection of life makes the park a paradise for
the smaller birds which naturally inhabit such regions. The
beautiful valley of the Yellowstone may become the happy

The Yellowstone Valley.

refuge of the songsters which the ruthless fowlers have driven
to the companionship of the bison.

One privilege is granted to the sportsman. He may find
as satisfactory fishing in the park as in any other region
frequented by tourists. A hundred pounds of trout a day is
no unusual catch for a single rod. That unusual fish, the
grayling, is also found in the park, in the Madison River.

1 8 IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.

But another prohibition is necessary, and tourists may
some time find a strange notice like this :

Do Not Soap the Geysers.

To soap a geyser is a very naughty act ; and for that
reason, perhaps, many tourists seem strongly tempted to
transgress in this manner.

An alkali dropped into the bowl of a geyser will frequently
cause it to act at once, and in a particularly frantic manner ;
and as certain of the geysers are somewhat tardy in exhibiting
their spouting powers, it is a temptation to many young
people, and to a few older ones, to drop a cake of soap into
the steaming bowl. Geysers, like human beings, have a
certain quite definitely limited lifetime. They do not go on
forever by any means. The pipe, or tube through which the
hot water and steam are ejected, the bowl, the caldron, and
the steam-chambers deep underground, have a well-marked
period of growth and decline.

The apparatus, by means of deposits from the hot water,
first increases in symmetry, form and efficiency as a spouter ;
then it gradually falls out of order and subsides into an
inactive hot spring. It can be said that a geyser is good for
only a limited number of spouting performances, through a
certain number of years, or decades.

The geysers of the National Park vary much in their hours
for spouting. Old Faithful spouts every hour, with great
regularity, and will probably be a short-lived geyser compared
with the Beehive, which discharges once in twenty-four hours ;
the Giant, which is in action once in four days ; the Giantess,
which only favors the public with a performance once a
fortnight ; the L,ion, which rouses into activity and roars after
long, uncertain intervals; or even the Splendid, which sends
up its beautiful column of steaming water and spray to a
height of two hundred feet once in three hours.

Manifestly it is in the interest of the general public to have
these grand and wonderful exhibitions of subterranean energy

IN THK YKLI.OWSTONK PARK. 19

endure as long as possible. It should not be beneath the
dignity of any tourist to wait patiently the normal time of their
grand displays. To cause a geyser to burst forth suddenly
by artificial means is to shorten its life, and hence to prevent
future tourists from enjoying it.

But many inconsiderate tourists go to the geysers with
cakes of soap in their pockets. Hence the government has
found it necessary to station a squad of soldiers in close
proximity to the geysers, to protect them from the sapo-
naceously inclined sightseers.

The Beehive Geyser is one of those which appear to be
especially sensitive to soap. The rogue who drops soap into
the Beehive barely has time to retire to a safe distance before
the performance begins, and it really seems as if the spouting,
foaming, frothing geyser would turn itself wrong side out in
its efforts to be rid of the obnoxious alkali.

Our party of eight was a very law-abiding one. We had
often said to one another that it was an exceedingly mean
trick to put soap into a geyser, or to attempt, as some previous
visitors had evidently done, to stir up the way-down stomachs
of the fountains — particularly the old, retired ones — with
long poles. Such vandalism we all denounced as disgraceful.

Nevertheless a strange thing happened. On the front seat
of our stage-coach rode two youths, fresh from college.

On our arrival at the Upper Basin we learned that the
Beehive, so called from the shape of its cone, would not spout
until the following morning, and the Splendid not much
before nightfall. But after watching a grand performance by
Old Faithful, we all went out to see the bowls of the other
geysers.

In the course of our walk, we crossed the little Fire-Hole
River, and after examining the pretty, hollow cone of the
Beehive, went up to the Lion and Cubs.

Presently, missing our two young friends, we looked back
and saw them still hanging over the Beehive cone, apparently
gazing into the funnel of the fountain.

1\ ">

m^'mmM

v v y^ ^^^ — |«j(ii«BBiajaa

' LP

ill t1 l,1 v,,.«

ill ill.1 ;^H'A;';'

. .! ^U-.^ -■■■;

IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK. 21

Within less than a minute afterward we heard a shout, and
saw our young fellow-tourists running away ; and immediately
the Beehive went off, favoring us with a tremendous display.

Jets of water played to a height of two hundred and fifty
feet. The roaring and frothing were frightful. The earth
far around pulsated and trembled.

It seemed to me that the geyser would burst and go
to pieces. Its extraordinary upheaval continued for some
minutes.

Meantime a considerable crowd collected, and two soldiers
came hurrying to the spot. As soon as the eruption had
subsided the soldiers examined the steaming ground about
the cone, and picked up several pieces of pink soap. This
circumstance, joined with the fact that the Beehive had
spouted out of season, aroused the suspicions of the military.

They made inquiries regarding us, and ascertained at the
hotel that five or six cakes of pink soap had disappeared from
as many rooms since the arrival of our coach.

For a law-abiding party we felt extremely uncomfortable.
There was no direct or positive evidence against any of our
number, but none the less the sergeant in charge telegraphed
the matter back to Mammoth Hot Springs. He appears to
have mentioned specially our two friends ; for on our return,
three days later, they were waited on very early by the young
lieutenant in command, who put to them many polite but
pointed questions as to their knowledge of the chemical action
and reaction of alkalies.

They seemed to be extremely ignorant upon the subject.
The lieutenant marvelled, but as there was no positive
evidence against the young men, they were advised to read
up in chemistry, so as to be able to pass a better examination
the next time they came to the park.

C. A. Stephens.

Rocky Mountain Burros.

Stupid, sleepy and slow-moving as he is, the Rocky
Mountain donkey, or burro, has been an important factor
in the development and growth of many mountainous districts
in the West.

He has anticipated the service of the railroad train and
the stage-coach in the transportation of freight and supplies
to the most remote mountain camps. He is one of the most
patient and faithful of all beasts of burden, although he is
seldom promoted above the position of a common drudge.

His slowness and sureness of movement enable him to go
up and over the loftiest mountain summits, around the
sharpest, rockiest curves, on the narrowest of trails. He
plods sleepily along at the very edge of the most frightful
precipices without once losing his head, or making a single
misstep. He goes fearlessly along where his bigger brother,
the mule, could not go, and where his other relative, the
horse, would not go if he could.

He is never skittish, his temperament is too phlegmatic
for that. He is serenely indifferent to the things that affright
the soberest horse.

At his very first sight of a locomotive under full headway,
the donkey might prick up his ears slightly, and the sleepy
look in his eyes might give way to one of mild curiosity ; but
all the puffing and screeching it could do would not make
him run away.

But this calm indifference is, I fear, more the result of
stupidity than of courage.

The traveller to the remote mining camps of the West is
likely to meet many burro trains going up long, steep and
winding trails, heavily laden with merchandise of every kind,
or coming down with bags of ore strapped to the animals'
backs.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BURROS.

23

It is surprising to see under what heavy burdens these
little creatures can plod along. I have seen a family moving
from one town or camp to another with all of their household
goods on the back of a single burro, and these effects included
a small cook-stove, a bedstead and bedding, two chairs, a
grindstone and frame, and many pots, kettles, pans and

The Stubborn Burro.

dishes. At the top of this prodigious pile was a baby, snugly
and securely fastened to the mattress of the bed.

Thus heavily and clumsily burdened, the patient little
donkey stepped meekly along, seemingly indifferent to the
lowliness of his estate, or quite satisfied with it.

24 ROCKY MOUNTAIN BURROS.

Nothing but actual necessity ever induces the traveller, or
any one else, to ride the burro from one place to another.
The little animal's usefulness in this direction is greatly
impaired by his diminutive size, and his unalterable
determination never to go faster than a slow walk.

Indifferent alike to blows, kicks, threats and pleadings,
he plods slowly along, even on the best of roads. His gait is
so tedious that the man who mounts him is soon glad to
dismount and go farther and faster on his own legs.

A tall man makes himself especially an object of ridicule
when astride a burro. His feet barely escape the ground, and
he is likely to hear many amusing but mortifying comparisons
and remarks.

" How do you find the walking to-day ? " is the ordinary
satirical salutation to a long-legged man thus mounted.

Children, however, do not seem at all out of place on
burro-back; and some of the Rocky Mountain boys and
girls, with plenty of time for such modes of locomotion and
childhood's capacity for enjoying it, find great pleasure in
riding over mountain roads or the streets of mountain towns
on the backs of these queer, stupidly submissive little
animals.

" Shaggy " was the name given to a very small burro
which was something of an anomaly among his kind. He
was very black, with rough, shaggy hair like a bear. He
was fleet of foot, tricky, treacherous and unwilling to work.

Shaggy belonged to a train of burros used in carrying
freight to a mining camp fifty miles from a railroad. He did
not have the sleepy eye of his mates ; he had a sly, comical
way of looking out of the corners of his eyes, and his driver
declared that there were times when Shaggy " laughed right
out loud."

He was always biting or kicking some of his mates, shying
from the road, racing madly on ahead, or lagging lazily
behind, or doing something else to bring upon himself the
lash and the reproaches of his master.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BURROS.

25

He made so much trouble, and his influence on the rest
of the train was so demoralizing, that Shaggy was finally
disowned by his master, and turned out to shift for himself
in one of the gulches through which the train was passing.

The children of a miner living in the gulch adopted this
incorrigible animal, and it is to be hoped that, under their
gentler influences, he reformed at last.

Docile and sluggish as he commonly is, the burro rises to
great heights of wrath and activity when engaged in battle
with one of his own kind. Then his dull eyes flame, his ears
lie back, all his shining teeth are revealed, his hoofs fly out
and he fights valiantly.

These combats do not often occur, however. At other
times the burro is one of the meekest and most faithful little
burden-bearers in the world.

J. H. Lewis.

Chinese Railway Laborers.

During the years 1880-84 the activity in railway-building
in the northern part of the Pacific Slope was very great.
Besides some lesser operations in Arizona, the Oregon Short
Iyine, the Northern Pacific, the Oregon California, the
Columbia Division of the Oregon Railway and Navigation
Company's roads and the Canadian Pacific were all under
construction.

There was great lack of laborers, and resort was had to the
Chinese, without whom, indeed, those roads could never have
been completed in the time and with the cheapness that they
were built. Not only were coolies picked up all along the
coast, but they came in immense ship-loads from Canton,
being hurried into Portland in anticipation of a prohibition
by Congress of their further coming.

Most of these coolies were spoken for before their arrival,
and were at once sent to the front of the advancing railways
far in the interior. They had scarcely time to recover from
their seasickness before their bewildered hands were grasping
the strange shovel and were flinging gravel, without any idea
what it all meant.

They were not hired, man by man, by their real employers,
but through agents of their own race, generally prosperous
merchants in the seaports. These merchants would agree to
furnish a railway-builder with say five hundred men, at so
much a day for a certain number of months. The men were
paid by the agent the whole wages offered, about twenty-six
dollars a month, in 1882, about one-half the wages white men
of the same grade were getting. This agent made his profit
in the transaction wholly out of the supplies his clients were
compelled to buy of him alone.

This system divided the coolies into gangs of forty, to each
of which were attached two cooks and one English-speaking

CHINKSK RAILWAY LABORERS.

27

Chinese as spokesman and leader. By this arrangement the
coolie completely lost his individuality, and formed one of so
many units to be furnished by a merchant, so many members
in a gang to be kept track of by the timekeeper. He was a
nonentity, and the most isolated and friendless being in the
world.

But though declined as associates, &nd held in a contempt
too good-natured to be scornful, the Chinese were not at that
time ill-treated by the Irishmen and other white laborers with

The Strange Shovel.

whom they worked. There were no demagogues in the camps
to stir up feuds, and the managers, who were not accustomed
to handling affairs with gloves, took care that there should not
be meddlers in their way. If a man didn't choose to mind his
own business there, he was compelled to do it.

Every man starting inland slung over his shoulders, from
the ends of a long stick, in baskets of split bamboo or bundles
of grass matting, all of the personal baggage he could get

28 CHINESE RAILWAY LABORERS.

through the custom-house, and took it into the woods with
him.

On arriving at the scene of work, the coolies would
set up the small tents given them by the railway people,
or make themselves ingenious " hoodoos " out of ties,
brush, bales of hay, or anything that came handy. These
might be picturesque in their setting, but sometimes, in a
desolate region, they only added to the natural ugliness of
their surroundings.

John Chinaman's camp-bed consisted of a board or heap
of boughs and the rush-mat in which his blankets had been
rolled, together with a more or less ornamental section of
bamboo for a pillow, which was also utilized as a box for
small valuables. The cook built a half-shed, half -tent sort of
kitchen, where he constructed two or three furnace-like stoves
out of stones and mud by walling in a square hole in the
earthen floor, and contrived a stovepipe out of castaway tin
cans.

John's breakfast is early and simple : dried fish, rice and
tea as a rule. He has an hour at noon for luncheon (rice),
and between meals consumes great draughts of weak, cold
tea, carried about, two cans at a time, on a pole balanced
across the shoulders, by youngsters not strong enough to do
heavy work ; for a great many of the later immigrants were
merely boys.

Along with his favorite rice and tea John brings from the
old country a custom of personal cleanliness which white
.navvies can never be brought to emulate. Each coolie has his
little wooden foot-tub, and his first move at the end of his
day's work is to get it full of the hot water which it is the
cook's duty to have ready, and then to take a complete bath.

Then follows supper, all sitting about on the ground and
chattering like schoolgirls to the rattle of chop-sticks and the
banging of tin cups. After supper appear the queer little
pipes for tobacco ; or perhaps a surreptitious whiff of
much-adulterated opium will be indulged in. Many may

CHINESE RAILWAY LABORERS.

29

then be seen reading or ciphering or playing native games
with their queer little cards.

The Northern Pacific in Idaho and Montana had some six
thousand of these Orientals in service during all of 1882,
besides many hundreds of white people and a few Indians.
Other Pacific coast roads employed similar numbers, the total
reaching about thirty thousand ; and it became a matter of

anxiety to the leading Chinese in San Francisco and Portland
as to how this influx should be provided for when the railways
were completed.

Certain kinds of work considered not fit for a white man,
chiefly because they required patience, were relegated wholly

30 CHINESE RAILWAY LABORERS.

to the meek foreigners ; but in general their work was
shovelling and rock excavation, always under white bosses,
toward whom they sometimes exhibited great animosity,
often with good reason.

White bosses were necessary on account of the dishonesty
of the Chinese in reporting hours of labor ; but they would
bribe so unblushingly and successfully that a special set of
independent watchmen, called time-takers, was necessary.

In many cases the foremen were inexperienced, so that
the older coolies knew better than they how things should
be done, particularly in regard to blasting. Hence gangs
frequently struck, under conviction that their foreman's
directions were wrong and dangerous. Through this, or
some other cause, the inferior bosses had a hard time, and
were in constant danger of open attack or secret harm.

Not being able to speak the language and constantly
irritated, they frequently clubbed the workmen, and on one
or two occasions even killed men in the way of discipline.
Yet it was not often that the Chinese, born with slavish
instincts and accustomed to oppression, turned in revolt or
self-defence.

The Chinese proved themselves very skilful in the
management of explosives, which were employed extensively
all the way through the mountains, and they had great respect
for expertness in this direction. I knew of one case where a
gang, one of whose number had been killed by its boss,
petitioned for his retention because ' ' he heap sabe (know)
powder — no kill whole gang o' Chinamans ! "

Though they were not able to get through as much work
in a day as white men, they were very valuable to the railway
contractor, not only because of their docility and handiness,
but because they could be relied upon to stay at work. Very
few of them knew of any alternative, and were never restlessly
inclined to quit and go somewhere else, which is the ruling
disposition in the white workmen of that region. More-
over, they were not inclined to break away on sprees, and

CHINESE RAILWAY LABORERS.

31

thus incapacitate themselves for labor for several days at a
time.

Near the growing end of every new railroad was an
itinerant town of liquor-sellers and all sorts of bad characters,
which continually bred delay, waste and riot among the
laborers. To these places the Chinese gave no patronage.
They had their own vices, the worst of which was gambling
among themselves. This was doubtless bad for them, but it
did no harm to the general progress of the work. This
disposition was a great comfort to the managers, and in fact,
was the salvation of the work.

Upon the completion of the railways in 1883 and 1884,
great numbers of Chinese, both old settlers and raw emigrants,
made their way to the large towns, whereupon alarmists
cried out lustily at the frightful evils to follow ; but they
were absorbed or went back to China, and the evils have not
occurred. A good many were retained as section-men along
all the lines, and since that time thousands of Chinese have
annually found employment in new railway construction and
in coal-mining.

Ernest Ingersoll.

Some Rocky Mountain Animals.

There is a peculiar charm and interest in Colorado
mountains when, after climbing a high peak, we emerge
from the forest. The desolate vanguard of skeleton trees,
with bleached limbs, which have perished in the forefront of
the battle with the elements, gives place to a soft turf that
completely clothes the upper part of the mountains from
timber-line to summit.

This turf is covered with dwarf Alpine flowers of exquisite
beauty. Here are soft cushions of tiny azure-blue stars, there
tufts of blue gentian ; and by the side of a rivulet whose icy
waters cut the rich moss rise the bright, majestic flowers of
Parry's primrose and the mauve bells of the Jacob's-ladder.

To botanist, zoologist and naturalist this ethereal zone
between timber-line and peak has peculiar interest, for here
he will find Arctic flowers, birds, insects and animals without
risking his life on an Arctic .expedition. For climate, rather
than distance, makes these changes in natural life. Hence
our eagerness as we step forward.

What shall we find? What birds, butterflies, plants and
quadrupeds live in this region all to themselves, so far above
the rest of earth and its inhabitants ? We were not long left
in doubt, for our appearance was the signal for a series of
shrill whistles, which were answered by a chorus of sharp
little barks coming from numerous unknown places among
the rocks.

After a careful reconnaissance, we caught sight of a
yellowish-brown animal like a woodchuck, with long, brown,
bushy tail. It lay flat upon a slab of rock like a squatting
lizard, repeating at intervals the sentinel whistles we had
heard, which were echoed by a chorus of teasing little barks,
cheep ! cheep ! from many invisible throats.

By closely watching the spot from which the sounds

SOME ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANIMALS.

33

appeared to come, we were rewarded by seeing a little animal
very like a young rabbit mount a rock, stand erect on his
haunches and pipe out his sentinel note, which was immedi-
ately answered by the cries of others, whom we now saw
peeping out from under the stones.

The shrill whistler is the Rocky Mountain marmot, and is
very like that cousin of his in the Eastern States which is

Rocky Mountain Animals.

known as the woodchuck, but is larger, yellower and with
longer tail. He lives under the rocks in holes, and is often
seen basking in the sunshine on the top of a flat rock or
alertly keeping sentinel wTatch. He lives on the succulent
herbage, and lays in a store for winter.

The other little animal that resembles a very young rabbit
is not so well known. Naturalists call him the pika, and
hunters have named him the coney. As a matter of fact,

34 SOME ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANIMALS.

he is identical with or closely related to the conies mentioned
in the Bible, and is found on the tops of the mountains of
Syria, as well as on the Himalayas. His resemblance to a
young rabbit is close, only he has no tail, and his ears are not
so large. There is also a difference in his rodent teeth.

The conies live in colonies among the loose rocks, and
always have sentinels posted while they are out feeding. The
shadow of a hawk or the bark of the sentinel sends them
speedily to their hiding-places, from which, almost with equal
speed, they emerge to see who the intruder is, and keep up a
perpetual barking. They are rodents, and feed, like the
marmots, on the roots and stunted herbage, laying up a store
of grasses, like little hayricks, against the long winter, when
they may be snowed under ten *eet deep.

As we walked down among the chaos of loose rock left
by an ancient glacier in its melting and retreat, a flock of
birds about the size of partridges rose with a whir that
startled us, and alighting again a few yards off, suddenly
became invisible.

These were the Rocky Mountain ptarmigan ; and their
invisibility is due to the close resemblance of their plumage to
the stones on which they stand. Either because their foes
and visitors are very few, or because they trust to their colors
for concealment, they are very tame.

These birds change their plumage according to the season
of the year. In summer they are gray like the granite, and
it winter, snow-white. Their nests are composed of leaves,
grass and feathers, lying on the ground. They feed on leaves
and seeds of mountain plants.

At the extreme top of the mountain, fourteen thousand feet
above the sea, the only living creature we could find was a
very active spider, living under the stones and apparently
doing well. Under the same stones, too, were the dead,
frozen bodies of hundreds of thousands of locusts, which had
doubtless been beaten down by a storm on to the peak, and
had perished from cold.

SOME ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANIMALS.

35

Ptarmigan

Butterflies, especially little blue and brown ones, were
plentiful. In one of singular delicacy and beauty, with large,
transparent white wings on which were purple spots, I
recognized an old friend which I had
first met in the Alps of Switzerland, the
Parnassus or Apollo butterfly.

A little gray-crowned finch, with
purplish wings, is another frequenter of
the peak. It is often seen in flocks
about the miner's cabin, picking up a
precarious livelihood. When a big
storm is coming on, these birds betake
themselves to the valley and prairie,
and so warn people of its approach.

An eagle may occasionally soar over
the peak and alight, and a bear may
find the mountain-top a convenient short
cut to some place he is bound for on his
travels. But neither of these animals is, like the rest, a true
denizen of the mountain-top, both in summer and in winter.

One of the most singular creatures in this region is the
Rocky Mountain rat. Not that anything is very peculiar in
his appearance, since he differs but little from a rather large
ordinary rat, except that his ears are larger, while his fur is
soft and brown, like that of the chinchilla, and his tail more
bushy. But ' ' for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain ' '
the mountain rat is decidedly " peculiar. M

When wandering among the rocks and canons, you may
often observe, in crevices high up the cliff, an accumulation
of sticks and rubbish, which you might suppose to be the nest
of an eagle, or even the couch of a Rocky Mountain bear, for
which it is frequently large enough. But it is neither of these.

It is the nest and home of a rat, or a colony of rats, which,
like a few other animals, have an extraordinary mania for
general accumulation, and in particular for collecting certain
things of a bright and shining appearance, seemingly of no

36 SOME ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANIMALS.

possible use to them. They are instigated by a veritable
spirit of thieving.

Nothing seems to come amiss to them, from watches, tin
plates and silver spoons, down to the bones and horns of wild
animals, and even pieces of stone and slate.

These precious trophies are dragged with infinite pains
up to the monstrous nest in the clefts of the rock, which is
composed of twigs, rubbish, and the flotsam, jetsam and
bric-a-brac of mountain, forest, stream and valley. As a
naturalist, I have found a mountain rat's nest as instructive
about the natural history of a neighborhood as a local museum
in a small town.

The rats do not confine their stealing to their natural
surroundings among1 the rocks. They are much given to
taking up their abode in the lofts and roofs of log cabins. In
the night they are heard from, by certain mysterious ghostly
rappings and tappings, and in the morning, perhaps, by the
absence of some bright article from the breakfast table, laid
overnight. When anything of this kind is missing from
certain cabins, the first place to be searched is the mountain
rat's nest.

The rats' industry is as remarkable as their thieving.
They spare no pains to convey away their booty, and the size
and weight of things they carry off, and even drag up a steep
hillside, are astonishing. In many cases the robbery must
involve the labor of a whole confederate band. When we
were engaged in geological explorations in Wyoming we had
an example of this.

We were digging out, at the time, the fossilized remains of
a gigantic lizard, and were in the habit of leaving our tools —
geological hammers, butcher-knives, brooms, etc. — in the
quarry or on the dump, when we went home to camp for the
night. One morning, returning as usual to our work, we
found that everything was gone, with the single exceptions of
a heavy spade and pickaxe.

Our first impression was that the quarry had been raided

SOME ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANIMALS. 37

by tramps, but on looking- around a little we espied our
long-handled broom lying on the side of a steep hill, some
fifty yards away. Not far from it were the geological
hammers. The marks of sharp little teeth on the handles
showed who the thieves were.

By following in the direction in which the articles had
been travelling, we came on a large mountain rats' nest,
sheltered in a wide crevice in a sandstone ledge. We
revenged ourselves on the little marauders by drawing daily
from their nest materials to build our noonday fire. Yet after
many such reprisals, the nest still held out.

I took a rough inventory of some of the materials
composing it. It consisted mainly of sticks, leaves and twigs,
and mingled with them were the bories of various wild
animals, the skull of a coyote, the feathers of an eagle, spores
of prickly pear, thorny branches of prickly greasewood, and
here and there, on the outside, pieces of slate, as if laid on
for a finishing touch.

In the heart of this rough mass were the cozy sleeping
apartments of the rats, made of soft moss. The motive of all
this accumulation seemed to me to provide warmth and
protection against the intrusion of other wild animals.

A mountain rat finds a large crevice. He makes up his
mind that this, no matter how big, must be filled, to keep out
wind, snow and other animals, and for this purpose he makes
use of any sort of material that comes to hand.

As regards his choice of shining and gay materials, it may
be that he has an eye for decoration and the beautiful, like
the bower-bird of the tropics.

Prof. Arthur Lakes.

Where Railroads Go.

The railroads of the Rocky Mountains present some of the
most wonderful examples of skilful engineering in the world,
and they carry passengers past scenery unsurpassed anywhere
in grandeur.

Even those who have gone through the Grand Canon of
the Arkansas in Colorado, on the Denver & Rio Grande
Railroad, and have been awed by its silent and gloomy
splendor, may not know that before the railroad was built the
narrow river filled the space between the rocky walls so that
neither man nor beast could enter. There was not even a
footpath by the river's brink, and no boat could navigate its
shallow but turbulent waters.

The construction of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad
was begun in 1870. It was a mighty undertaking. Entering
the canon from the little town of Canon City, at its mouth, one
is almost immediately shut in by two nearly perpendicular
walls, rising now and then more than two thousand feet.

The road-bed in some places is cut out of the solid rock ;
in others it lies on rocky grades made in the river-bed. At
times the laborers were lowered by ropes from the high walls
above to drill and quarry and blast out a line for the road, and
in the entire canon, which is about eight miles in length,
hardly forty feet of the track lie in a straight line.

The road winds around sharp curves under great over-
hanging rocks ; it crosses and re-crosses the noisy little
stream, made narrower and noisier by the road-bed which has
encroached on a right of way that was never before disputed.

Out and in the train goes among the deep shadows and
the tumbled rock piles, grim and red, of the Royal Gorge,
a part of the canon about two miles long, where the culmination
of rugged mountain grandeur and magnificence is reached.
One wonders if there are any limitations to the achievements

WHKRK RAILROADS GO.

39

of modern railroad engineering when trains go easily and
speedily through places once inaccessible to man or beast.

Another line of mountain railroad of great interest is the La
Veta Pass line, that runs over the Sangre de Christo mountain

range. Herein eleva-
tion of nearly twenty-
four hundred feet is
reached in thirteen
miles, and at one point
the grade is more than
two hundred feet to
the mile for a distance
of three miles.

Before the pass is
reached the Spanish
Peaks are seen rising above the other
mountain summits to heights of
twelve and thirteen thousand feet.
They stand apart from the other
summits, rugged and majestic.

The Denver & South Park line of
railroad, reaching to the Gunnison
country, passes through a tunnel
seventeen hundred feet long, at the
great height of eleven thousand feet.
What a victory over natural obstacles
this means can only be understood by
those who have gone over this line of
road. Passengers glancing out of the
car windows hold their breath in places where the train seems
clinging to the mountain wall, thousands of feet above the
dark and gloomy canons below. One cannot help thinking
of the frightful result if a wheel should leave the track, or
one of the overhanging rocks should come crashing down.

One may ride many miles on these wonderful railroads
without seeing a house, and the stations are often many miles

4Q

WHERE RAILROADS GO.

apart. The towns and cities, when reached, often consist of
a single house.

I remember one such city, away up on the summit of a
mountain ten thousand feet high. The engine behind which
I rode went panting and puffing up to it one bright day in
June several years ago. The last mile of the ascent was a
noble pull up the steep and flinty side of the mountain.

Snow-Sheds
n the Rockies.

Whirling suddenly around a curve, the ascent became less
abrupt, and we stopped before a tiny station, painted bright
blue, standing on a bit of level ground a few feet square.
There were bright red calico curtains with white lace borders
at the windows, in which were plants in bloom. Through the
open door one caught a glimpse of a tidy little room, with a
bright rag carpet on the floor, and with walls covered with gay
picture-cards.

A tidy little woman, with the whitest of aprons and the
starchiest of calico dresses, came to the door, on the step

WHERE RAILROADS GO.

41

of which a splendid old Maltese cat lay asleep in the sunshine.
A canary sang shrilly within, and just before we went on our
way a curly-headed baby came creeping across the floor and
was caught up in its mother's arms to wave
us a good-by with one of its chubby hands.
In another moment we were rushing
down the mountain-side to the gloomy
gulch below, leaving far behind us that
pretty picture of home life in the sunshine
of the heights. Perhaps railroads go
to more remarkable places in Colo-
rado than in any other State in the
Union ; but in California there are
railroad wonders scarcely less note-
worthy.

The passenger who, for the first
time, climbs the Tehachapi Sum-
mit Pass on the Southern Pacific
Railroad is astonished, after he
has left behind him the level lands
of the San Joaquin valley, and is
scaling veritable mountain heights,
to find the train crossing another railroad track, though at a
height considerably above it. "Can it be possible," the
passenger asks, " that there is another railroad running along
the top of this lonesome mountain in the wilderness ? "

Then he is told by some fellow-passenger, probably with a
smile, that he is crossing the track that he himself has just
ridden over. The road has made a loop upon itself ; and
while the train, in making the circuit of this loop, has not
progressed at all toward its destination, it has risen a good
many feet higher toward the summit which it must climb
before it starts on its descent.

J. Iy. Harbour.

Digging Up a Fossil Monster.

The Rocky Mountain region is a treasure-house of
curiosities, of minerals, crystals and fossils. Fossil shells,
fossil leaves, fossil reptiles and mammals abound.

The great upheaval of the Rockies has brought these
wonders to light from their sepulchres deep in the earth.
The upheaval of the granite core has tilted up and exposed
the deeply buried strata along its flanks in such a manner
that any one can study a thickness of a mile or so of them in
an afternoon's walk by passing along their upturned edges.
Thus he can see, as it were, a mile or more into the material
composing the bowels of the earth without accompanying
Jules Verne on an imaginary trip to the centre, or boring a
well a mile or more deep.

I was spending an evening at a country resort in a
picturesque locality among the upturned rocks of the foot-
hills. At the request of the guests of the hotel, I gave them
a brief lecture or sketch of geology, and whilst describing the
succession of periods and rocks composing the earth's crust,
and the succession also of the different animals that had lived
on those rocks, I happened to say that the rocks on which the
hotel was built belonged to those of the Reptilian period, and
that possibly strange reptiles might be sleeping in their tombs
beneath its foundations.

The next day the guests, fired with an interest in geology,
proposed an excursion among the rocks. After we had
climbed over ridge after ridge of red sandstone, limestone
and marls of the Triassic period, we reached the foot of a
very prominent hogback, or ridge, composed of variegated
marls, clays and sandstones, when one of the party in
advance called out that he had found the impression of a
fossil tree-trunk on a fallen slab of sandstone. As such a
fossil is not uncommon in this region, I was not surprised.

DIGGING UP A FOSSIIy MONSTER.

43

On reaching the spot I saw that the impression on the slab
was far too smooth to have been made by the rough bark of a
fossilized tree. It was more like the impression a stovepipe

-<:::*

The Atlantosaurus, as found and in life.

would have made on a soft bed of clay. In one corner were
little porous, pinked fragments adhering to the rock, which I
recognized as fossil bone.

44 DIGGING UP A FOSSIL MONSTER.

"This," I said, "is no tree, but the impression of the
bone of some prodigious monster."

Forthwith we clambered up the cliff to the spot whence the
slab of rock had evidently fallen from its parent ledge ; and
there at our feet lay three huge vertebrae, partially imbedded
in stone, each about a foot in diameter, and all united to form
the massive sacrum of the monster, to which the tail is
attached. Hunting among the bushes below the ledge, we
found the broken ends of limb bones, like Hercules war-
clubs, while other fragments could be seen still imbedded in
the sandstone of the ledge.

We sent to the village and procured a quarryman, tools
and blasting powder, and began opening up the rocks with
wedges and powder. This resulted in the discovery of many
other bones and some spoon-shaped teeth.

We watched for the results of the blasts with great interest.
Once when the smoke had cleared off, and an overlying slab
had been blown to pieces, there lay beneath it a perfect limb
bone, black as ebony, and five feet in length.

At another time the perfect skull of a crocodile, with teeth
complete in the sockets, was uncovered. It was doubtless the
skull of a creature which lived in the same swamp with the
larger animal. Bones and shells of turtles and fish-bones were
found with the remains, showing that the animal, whatever it
was, must have lived and died in the vicinity of lakes, or
rivers, or fresh- water swamps.

Large vertebrae were quite common, especially those
belonging to the neck and tail. These, which looked like
buffets when lying on the dump, varied in size from fifteen
inches in diameter down to three or four inches. Some
belonged to the neck and back, and others to the tail.
Sharp, black, scimitar-like teeth, belonging to some carnivo-
rous species, were occasionally found, mingled with the other
remains.

The largest bone found was a gigantic femur, or thigh-
bone, which, from the enormous proportions of the butt ends,

DIGGING UP A FOSSIL MONSTER. 45

was as first estimated to be nine feet in length, making
allowance for a portion of it missing ; but it turns out to have
been only six feet four inches.

Curious to know the nature of this prodigious creature,
we sent off a car-load of bones to Professor Marsh of Yale
College, a great authority on fossil animals. He informed
us that the bones were those of a gigantic land-lizard, or
Dinosaur, and he declared, from the size of the bones, that it
was far greater than any that had hitherto been discovered.
He named it forthwith the Atlantosaurus immanis, or the huge
Atlas lizard, as a compliment to Atlas, who is supposed to
have carried the world on his shoulders.

This is the greatest land animal that has ever been
discovered, and in all probability the greatest that ever
walked this earth. The only bones at all comparable to it
are those of the whale.

♦ The length of the animal is computed at between sixty
and eighty feet, or possibly even more. Its height, as it
strode along on its four stout legs, was between twenty and
twenty-five feet.

As the bones of the creature were not all found, or
complete, the length might be estimated by the size and
number of the vertebrae as compared with those of the
modern crocodile. As for height, perfect legs were found
whose length was upward of fifteen feet. Allowing five feet
or a little more for the space between the top of the limb and
the ridge of the back, twenty feet is a very moderate estimate.

It would be difficult to compare it to any living animal.
It was a gigantic lizard, mounted on tall, stout, elephantine
legs, with a long, thick, powerful tail, and a longish, thick
neck, tapering to a small, almost serpent-like head, far
smaller than one would expect for so huge a monster. The
skin may have been covered with shining scales.

The atlantosaurus appears to have been quiet and harmless
in habit, and dependent mainly upon his vast size for pro-
tection against other more formidable kinds. The character

46 DIGGING UP A FOSSIL MONSTER.

of the teeth imply that he was herbivorous, and his habits
may have been somewhat like those of the hippopotamus.

As a land animal, he walked proudly among the forests of
the Jurassic period, or baked and wallowed in the marshes
that then surrounded the young, low-lying Rocky Mountain
region, and stretched down to the sea, where sea-serpents

Ichthyosaur and Dinosaur.

and many strange reptiles held sway in the waters, while
reptilian-like bats and birds flew in the air.

On land there were many species of these dinosaurs, some
of which we discovered later in Wyoming. Some were
herbivorous and some carnivorous ; some walked upon all
fours, others hopped along on their long hind legs like
kangaroos, and others were very bird-like in appearance

DIGGING UP A FOSSII, MONSTER. 47

and gait. They were of all sizes, from that of the great
atlantosauri down to lizards no larger than a cat.

With these remains we found in Wyoming those of tiny
mammals, probably the first known, resembling kangaroo rats.

The question is sometimes asked, " How long ago did
these monsters live ? ' ' To this we can give no definite
answer, further than that it was very long ago — thousands,
perhaps millions, of years ago. Some idea of their great age
may be obtained by considering the thickness of rocks that
lie above them.

These rocks were slowly and gradually laid down, as sea,
river and lake are slowly laying down their beds of mud and
sand to-day, to become in time solidified into shale and
sandstone. There has lain above the tombs of these animals
as much as ten thousand feet of rock, all of which was formed,
of course, after they were dead and buried.

Much of this rock is a fine shale or clay, which must have
formed very slowly at the bottom of a deep sea. The rest is
sandstone, which may have formed a little faster. Some
geologists estimate the thickness of rock to have been formed
at the rate of from one foot in one thousand to five thousand
years. Multiply, then, your ten thousand feet by either of
these numerals, and you will see how very long, even at the
lowest estimate, it must have been since these bones were first
buried in the mud of the ancient Jurassic marsh.

These bones were quickly covered up and sealed from the
influence of the atmosphere. In this state they were soaked
through and through with water carrying minute particles of
quartz and mineral matter, and as the tissues of the bones
decayed, they were microscopically replaced by this quartz
matter, which in some of the larger bones is a beautiful agate
and, carnelian.

Prof. Arthur L,akes.

A Petrified Big Tree.

In a little meadow-park called Florissant, nine thousand
feet above the sea and in the heart of the mountains in the
state of Colorado, we came across half a dozen stumps of
trees from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, turned into solid,
hard stone.

One of the largest of these stumps had been partially
excavated from its bed by some enterprising people who had
intended to carry it to the World's Fair at Chicago.

It stood about twenty feet above its base, and was fifteen
feet in diameter. As it was too huge and heavy to transport
bodily, they tried to saw it up into sections ; but fortunately
for Colorado, its flinty hardness was more than a match for
thin stone-saws of soft iron, which are still sticking in the tree
as monuments of their discomfiture.

So wonderfully has the stony material replaced the texture
and grain of the original tree, and even in some parts
simulated its color, that but for its unusual size any one
might have passed it by as an old dead pine stump felled by
some early settler.

It was easily recognized as a fossil representative of
redwood. Not only is the rough texture of portions of the
thick bark preserved, but even the minutest wood-cells and
rings of yearly growth are retained. Sometimes a faint tinge
of iron-rust nearly restores portions of the wood to its redwood
color, but the prevailing tint is an ashen-gray, like that of
an old dead stump.

As you pick up one of the chips scattered around by the
hammers of tourists, its weight and hardness alone convince
you that it is really stone and not an old cedar chip left
by the axe of an early wood-chopper. To complete the
resemblance to certain parts of the living tree, sap-vessels
and veins are here and there filled with what appears to

A PETRIFIED BIG TREE.

49

be gum, but it is really semi-transparent agate, opal or
chalcedony.

When we make fine, thin sections of the fossil wood and
put them under the microscope, we find a peculiar pattern
of the wood cells which is the same as that of the modern
sequoia, showing that these lone trees, over a thousand miles

*A>

!,

_

A Petrified Tree-Stump.

from the Pacific coast, are the stony representatives of the
great living sequoias.

How was this tree so wonderfully changed into stone, and
how comes it here, almost alone in the Rockies ? Stone it
certainly is ; moreover, there is not a particle of the original
tree in it, any more than there is flesh and blood in a marble
statue or a plaster cast. It is a stone statue or restoration
of a once living tree, far more perfect than that of any statue
by the greatest sculptors.

50 A PETRIFIED BIG TREE.

It is not an uncommon notion that certain substances or
bodies have, after life is extinct, some mysterious power in
themselves of turning themselves into stone ; but such is not
the case. A buffalo dies on the prairie ; his flesh rots and
passes away into various gases ; his skeleton lasts a few years
longer and then passes into dust and soil. Similarly a tree
dies, rots, falls to the ground and makes soil for other trees to
grow on. Neither buffalo nor tree has any elements in itself
that can transform any part of it into stone.

Suppose, on the other hand, a tree like our sequoia to
grow near a marsh or lake. The waters of the lake encroach
on its roots, kill the tree, and bury its stump in mud while
the upper portion, falling into the lake, becomes water-logged,
sinks to the bottom and is entombed in mud, which arrests
rapid decay. In this condition petrifaction may gradually
take place.

Nearly all waters contain mineral matter, such as iron,
soda or lime. If the waters are acid and heated, as they are
apt to be in the neighborhood of volcanic action, they
generally contain quartz or silica in a dissolved state, which
they deposit in a gelatinous condition, like gum arabic.
This afterward hardens into agate or chalcedony as hard as
glass. If clayey matter is added to it it may form some kind
of hard stone like jasper.

Suppose a tree, then, in the bed of a lake to be saturated
through and through with such mineral-bearing water. The
larger pores and veins are quickly filled with agate, opal or
chalcedony, so like pine gum. Then a long protracted,
minute work goes on. As each tiny particle or wood-cell
rots away, it is replaced by a minute particle of quartz or
stony matter, till, when at last every living element of the
tree has vanished, a microscopically perfect restoration of the
tree, both externally and internally, is left behind in stone —
a monument for all time, of the tree that lived and died ages
and ages ago.

All trees that have fallen into lakes and rivers have

A PETRIFIED BIG TREE. 5 1

not been so preserved. Peculiar circumstances have been
necessary for such petrifaction. The most favorable cir-
cumstances are often the presence of acid and hot springs
in a volcanic neighborhood, such as we see in the geysers
of the Yellowstone, where there are whole forests of petrified
trees.

The surroundings of these fossil trees are no less interesting
than the trees themselves. The roots are imbedded in shale
and sandstone, the solidified mud of a primeval lake. This
is composed of grains and fragments of volcanic lava, often
as fine as the finest dust.

Opening the thin layers of this petrified mud with our
knives, we find numerous impressions of fossil insects, such
as ants, dragon-flies and tropical lantern-flies. A fossil
butterfly impression has also been found, one of the very few
ever discovered ; so perfect that the color-pattern on its wings
can be distinctly made out, and the species identified.

Mingled with these are equally perfect impressions of
fossil- leaves of a semi-tropical character, such as those of a
palmetto. A fossil bird and fossil fishes have been found.
All the remains indicate the existence at the time of the lake
of a semi-tropical climate, very different from that of this
neighborhood to-day.

From such remains and other discoveries we can get some
idea of the history of the lake and its fossil trees.

Some thousands of years ago a small mountain lake
nestled among these hills. Its banks were surrounded by
luxuriant semi-tropical vegetation, among which, close to the
edge of the lake, towered the great sequoia. Volcanic
eruptions took place along the shore of the lake, and by
violent explosions filled the air with lava dust and ashes,
which fell in showers into the lake and formed its mud.

L,eaves of trees that had been blown into the lake, and
insects that perished on its muddy flats or in its waters,
together with the water-logged stumps of trees, were
periodically buried beneath these eruptions of volcanic mud.

52 A PETRIFIED BIG TREE.

Hot, acid springs accompanying or following the eruptions
assisted in the process of petrifaction.

The eruptions in time ceased, the lake dried up or was
drained off, glaciers and floods cut ravines in the old lake
beds and exposed their fossil treasures.

The sequoias are probably the oldest, as well as the largest
trees, now growing on this planet. They are survivals of an
age long past. They were, geologists believe, among the
earliest genuine forest trees to appear on this planet.

Before that time there were but seaweeds and gigantic
ferns, rushes and mosses, till about the middle of the earth's
history, at the time when the great lizards appeared. With
them came the great sequoia-tree. Around it were strange,
gigantic forms of animal and vegetable life ; and its survival
among us to-day seems almost as strange as it would be to
see one of those terrible, gigantic lizards walking among the
trees of Central Park and passing from branch to branch.

The sequoia saw the age of great reptiles fade away and
give place to that of almost as great and formidable mammals.
The sequoia, or rather its descendants, saw man arrive upon
the earth, and doubtless witnessed what, if we knew it, would
clear up the mystery of the missing link. To-day it sees the
railway train fly through what is left of its forests, and has
the telegraph wire pinned to its thick bark.

In the present age there are but two varieties of sequoia,
and these are confined to the Pacific coast. In geological
times there were twenty-six varieties, scattered over the world
from the extreme Arctic Circle to Australia. This wide
distribution accounts for our finding the fossil stumps in
Colorado.

Prof. Arthur Lakes.

The Holy Cross and Twin Lakes.

The progress made by railroads during late years has
rendered accessible many points of interest and beauty in the
Rocky Mountains that could be reached before only by long
and wearisome journeys on horseback and in wagons.

One of the most remarkable points in northwestern Colorado
is the Mount of the Holy Cross, about which little has been
written. This mountain is nearly three miles high, very
rugged and barren.

Away up above the great gray rocks, above the lofty
pines, amid the barren boulders, the Holy Cross lies outlined,
on summer days, beneath the blue sky.

The mountain derives its name from this cross, which is
formed by the deep snow lying in two depressions nearly at
the summit of the mountain ; these depressions, or ravines,
are so formed by nature that they cross each other at right
angles.

They are very deep, and become filled with snow during
the winter months. In the summer the snow melts from
around the ravines, and leaves the great white cross distinctly
revealed against the gray rocks.

Under the light of a full moon, in which all the splendors
of the mountain are enhanced, the Holy Cross lies gleaming
in its snowy purity, and awakens in the beholder's heart
thoughts of the sacred cross on Mount Calvary upon which
our Saviour died. Even the rough class of men found in this
newly settled part of Colorado regard the Holy Cross with a
kind of awe.

The cross is not visible in the winter, when the whole
summit of the mountain lies buried under many feet of snow.
It is, indeed, a singular work of nature, and well worth the
long ride you must take to either of the points from which
the finest views of the cross are to be had.

The Mount of
The Holy Cross.

The most impressive view of the

Cross is by night at the time of the

full moon.

THE HOLY CROSS AND TWIN LAKKS. 55

With the present railroad facilities the journey from the
Mount of the Holy Cross to the Twin Lakes can be made in
a day. You go through the picturesque little mining town
of Red Cliff, over Tennessee Pass, and across' Tennessee
Park to Leadville.

The lakes are fifteen miles southwest of L,eadville, and lie
in an elevation of over nine thousand feet above the sea-level.

They cover an area of about four miles in length by one
and one-fourth miles in width, and are separated by only a
narrow strip of land. They are surrounded on three sides
by lofty mountain heights that slope down to the very water's
edge.

On the other side is the wide valley of the Arkansas,
beyond which rises another lofty range of mountain-peaks,
clearly defined against the sky, although they are many miles
distant. On their summits the snow lies during all the bright
summer days.

The lakes contain great numbers of the pretty speckled
mountain trout that are so great a luxury in their season.

Fishermen are generally very lucky, although the water is
so perfectly clear that the fish in the depths below can see the
human monster at the other end of the line.

The speckled beauties can be seen darting here and there
far below you as you glide in the gaily-painted little boats
over the ever placid water. In some places the water is very
deep; it has been sounded to a depth of eight hundred feet,
and it is probable that the lakes are not deeper than that in
any place.

Boys who take delight in thinking what a good time they
wrould have swimming in these beautiful, tempting lakes,
would be very likely to jump out of the clear waters more
quickly than they jumped into them, for in this altitude the
water is several degrees too cold for bathing, even in the
warmest August days.

In summer the air is delightfully clear, bright and cool.
Persons accustomed to languish in the terrible heat of the

56 THE HOIvY CROSS AND TWIN LAKES.

East would at the lakes enjoy the novelty of snuggling up
under several blankets during the warmest summer nights.

Here is found a sure and safe retreat from Old Sol's
fiercest rays. It is one of the highest summer resorts in
America, if not in the world.

Since L,eadville came into existence the lakes have become
a very popular place of resort, and a number of good hotels
have been erected.

Tourist and camping-out parties come here during the
summer months, and add to the picturesqueness of the
surroundings by pitching tents all along the shores, and
roughing it in a healthful, if not entirely comfortable, manner.

Students with a fondness for geological investigations
could not find a better locality in which to gratify their
inclinations. Some of the formations are very singular and
interesting to study.

Mining is carried on to some extent near the lakes. The
adjacent gulches and ravines are well worth a visit, which
rarely fails to reward the explorer by the discovery of some
strange and wonderful freak of nature. Here it is a
remarkable formation of rock, there a rare mineral, and
again the visitor sees how even the trees and the shrubs
adapt themselves to the situation in which they are placed.

A short distance above the upper lake is a beautiful
waterfall, where the clear water comes roaring and foaming
down over a bed of boulders.

J. L. Harbour.

Signal Station on Pike's Peak.

When the United States signal service, which most
people call the weather bureau, although there is no warrant
for so doing, was first established in November, 1870, it was
a very small affair, and even so late as 1873 it had not grown
to very large proportions. In the summer of that year it was
determined to establish stations on the summits of one or more
of the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and Pike's Peak was
selected for the site of the first station.

There were several reasons for this choice. Along the
eastern fringe of the mountains in Wyoming and Colorado
there are at least a dozen isolated peaks, each about fourteen
thousand feet in height, and as far as the climatic conditions
were concerned, any one of them might have been chosen.
But several of these peaks are almost inaccessible except to
daring climbers, and others, although accessible even to
horses, were too far from any inhabited point.

Pike's Peak was found, on examination, to be the most
eligible, possessing peculiar advantages over all others. It
is on the end of a spur of the range and overtops any peak
within fifty miles. It is very easy of access, pack-mules and
equestrians easily reaching the extreme summit.

The object of establishing the station on the summit of the
peak was to study the constitution of the upper stratum of the
atmosphere. A great many observations at heights varying
from one to three miles above the sea have been made at
different times and at different places by means of balloons,
but such observations, although furnishing very interesting
data, are of very little practical value.

Now Pike's Peak is two and three-quarters miles above
the level of the sea, and observations taken there would be
many and continuous.

It has been known for many years that there are upper

IJPB

SIGNAL STATION ON PIKE'S PEAK. 59

currents in the atmosphere moving generally from the West.
This was determined by the balloon observations before
alluded to, and by occasional observations taken on the tops
of mountains, but more particularly by noting the drift of
clouds, such as the cirrus variety, which prevail only in the
upper regions. It was believed that the summit of the peak
was high enough to be in this current.

Of course there were also many other problems, interesting
and important, which it was hoped this station would solve.

The first step was to look at the ground, and in July two
observers of the signal service were sent from Washington
to Colorado Springs. Mr. George Boehmer, later of the
Smithsonian Institute, was one, and I was the other. When
we arrived at Colorado Springs we rented an office, and
prepared for a trip to the summit.

There were two routes to the top of the peak. One steep
and tiresome trail about nine miles in length led from
Manitou, the celebrated watering-place, from which a railway
to the top of the peak was completed in 1891. The other trail
was much longer, across the foot-hills from Colorado Springs,
up the Bear Creek Canon for eight or nine miles to Mystic
Lake, thence through the timber and, above it, along the
bare and rocky ground to the summit.

Boehmer and I started to walk up to the peak, taking with
us a burro to carry our coats and some necessary camping
supplies. It was a beautiful day, with such fresh and pure
air as one meets with nowhere but in mountain regions, and
we felt that we could walk to the summit with the greatest of
ease.

That was our first mistake. Colorado Springs, our starting-
point, is about six thousand feet above the sea, or nearly as
high as the summit of Mount Washington, the highest of the
White Mountains, and you know that the air is more and
more rarefied as you ascend above sea-level.

Our lungs were not used to this air, and we had hardly
started before we were compelled to stop and rest. Indeed,

60 SIGNAL STATION ON PIKE'S PEAK.

the journey was a constant succession of rests, and it was
high noon before we reached the mouth of Bear Creek Canon,
where the real ascent begins.

From this point the way is up, up, without cessation. The
trail was a mere foot-path, crossing and recrossing the shallow
creek twenty-one times in eight miles, and for the entire
distance hemmed in by lofty mountains from one to five
thousand feet in height. It is a beautiful stretch of scenery.

It was quite dark before we reached the lake, which we
afterwards called Mystic Lake, and camped for the night.
This little sheet of water is only a few acres in area, and is as
placid as glass, having no visible inlet or outlet. By a simple
calculation with an aneroid barometer, we found the elevation
of this lake to be about ten thousand feet above sea-level.
That meant that we had over four thousand feet more to
climb, and nearly five miles more to walk.

I shall certainly never forget this night, the first I had ever
spent in the open air of the wilderness, although I had had
some experience on Mount Washington in the spring. It
seemed so far away from the rest of the world, the silence was
so profound, the starry sky so sparkling, and the lowering
mountains which surrounded the lake so massive and gloomy.

After awhile I fell asleep, and it seemed only about an
hour before I was awakened by Boehmer and informed that
it was two o'clock in the morning, and that if we wanted to
see the sunrise from the peak we must lose no time. I was in
favor of postponing the trip, but Boehmer, more enthusiastic,
dragged me upon my feet, and away we went, stumbling up
the steep path in the darkness. It was a toilsome journey.

Although it was in the month of July, it was excessively
cold and raw, and we shivered and shook as we stood on the
bleak summit and looked out toward the east, in which the
day was beginning to break.

Above our heads the sky was clear and starlit ; but
beneath our feet, stretching out for a hundred miles, lay a
bank of snowy clouds looking like a frozen ocean. Away

SIGNAL STATION ON PIKE'S PEAK. 6 1

off in the east a narrow rim of gold appeared, and when a
handbreadth of the sun arose the ocean began to move. The
billowy clouds gently rose and fell while athwart them the
sun shot long arrows of gold and silver light. It was a
gorgeous and impressive sight, but it did not last more than
five minutes. The mass of clouds dissipated as the sun rose
higher, and in an incredibly short space of time the sky was
entirely clear.

The view was magnificent. In the west the great main
range of the Rockies, two hundred miles away, loomed up
with snowy heads ; in the north lay Denver, seventy-five
miles distant, while away beyond was a white speck which
we knew to be Cheyenne, in Wyoming. In the south Pueblo
lay on the plain, and almost at our feet Colorado Springs, in
which it seemed as if we might have cast a stone, while away
beyond stretched the great Colorado plains, with the Platte
River winding through them like a silver thread.

The trip down to the Springs was made in a very short
time, and by noon we wTere safe in our office, and completely
prostrated. The report which we sent to the chief signal
officer was truthful, but dispiriting. We were perfectly
willing to go up on the peak and take observations, but how?
A house was necessary, and where was the house to come
from ? The chief signal officer, who knew nothing about the
difficulties in the way, replied to the report by sending out
three men, with directions for us five to build the house
ourselves !

Fancy our predicament ! Five men, not one of whom
knew anything about building, all from the East, expected to
go up into an altitude of fourteen thousand feet and build a
house ! It was a preposterous idea, but Boehmer, who was
the observer-in-charge of the party, prepared to obey orders.

We purchased for each man one pick, one shovel, one
trowel, one axe, one hammer, and then laid in a full camping
outfit for the party, including a large A tent. The supplies
and provisions loaded down five pack animals, and as each

62 SIGNAL STATION ON PIKE'S PEAK.

man was mounted we made quite a cavalcade as we started
out on our foolish venture.

We travelled up the Bear Creek trail and pitched our camp
in a canon just below timber-line, and about two miles from
the peak, and the next day we lugged our tent up to the
summit, and that was as near as we ever came to building the
house. The chief signal officer had a vague sort of an idea
that we might build a log house of some kind, not knowing
that the timber was two miles away. We did build a
log house, but it was in the canon where we had our camp,
and it was a very substantial affair, but would not have
answered at all for winter quarters.

Here we lived for a month or so, while Boehmer was
explaining to the chief signal officer that it was an
impossibility for us to build a log house, or indeed a house
of any kind, on the summit in any time less than a year or two.

Finally, Lieutenant Jackson, the disbursing officer of the
service, came out from Washington to see what the trouble
was. He went up on the peak, looked at it about five minutes,
and decided that the project was absurd. If the house was
built at all, it must be by skilled mechanics. So a contract
was given out to a builder in Denver, and the house was built
inside of four or five weeks.

The daily routine of observations in the signal service at
that time included seven observations of the instruments.
The first observation had to be taken at about half-past five
in the morning, and the last at nine o'clock in the evening.
In addition to the observations, there was, of course, the usual
amount of office work, but not more than enough to keep one
man steadily employed.

The telegraph line was, however, our greatest trouble. It
extended from Colorado Springs to the summit, following the
trail to the timber-line, and then made a bee-line for the peak.

This line, erected by private contract, was of thin and
inferior wire, and very poorly constructed. Trees were used
for supports for the greatest part of the route, and they were

SIGNAL STATION ON PIKE'S PEAK. 63

continually falling down. Above the timber-line, the wire,
being exposed to the air, would become encrusted with frost
until it was fully six inches in diameter.

When the wind blew strongly, which was nearly an
every-day occurrence, the wire would sway backward and
forward until it snapped. The only way to obviate these
breaks was to thoroughly insulate the wire and lay it on the
ground. When the line broke .some one had to go out and
repair it, and the task generally fell to me. It was not only
disagreeable, but dangerous.

The most disagreeable portion of our life was, of course,
the monotony. No words can describe the loneliness of such
a life ; with the exception of ourselves, there was not a living
thing in sight. Of plant life, even in summer, there was
none, not a shrub or a speck of moss, and in the winter, when
the entire mountain range was covered with snow, the scene
was desolation itself.

Winter set in with the utmost rigor about the first of
November, although even summer on the peak would have
been called winter in other localities. Snow-storms were of
almost daily occurrence, and the temperature fell steadily.
By the tenth of November the thermometer touched zero, and
-from that time it was intensely cold. The wind began to blow
with great velocity, fifty, sixty and seventy miles an hour.
The cold and the snow were not so much to be dreaded, had
it not been for the wind. When it was calm and clear, no
matter how cold, we thought nothing of taking a stroll in our
shirt-sleeves ; but when the wind blew we could not put on
enough wraps to keep out the cold.

Christmas week was very stormy, but we managed to
celebrate the holidays by gorging ourselves rather more than
usual. On New Year's day there began a storm of seven
days' duration, and on the sixth day the telegraph line broke
somewhere — where, we had no means of judging. After
breakfast I started out to find the break, and repair it.

It was about ten degrees below zero when I started, a light

64

SIGNAL STATION ON PIKES PEAK.

snow falling and a brisk wind of twenty miles an hour blowing
from the west. The temperature soon began to fall and the
wind to blow a perfect gale. In mending the break, which
occurred near the timber-line, I was obliged to remove my thick
lamb's wool gloves, and when I replaced them I was painfully
conscious that both hands were frozen.

On my way back to the peak I had a terrible struggle
against the gale, and was nearly exhausted when I came in
sight of the station. There the trail was very steep, and I
went up literally on all fours. Staggering to the door, I fell
into the room at full length in a swoon.

I did not lose my fingers, but my sphere of usefulness was
over there, and in a short time I bade farewell to the peak.
As a souvenir of m}^ experience I carried one of my hands in
a sling for more than a year, the fingers of which tingle even
now with each recurring winter.

James H. Smith.

THE special character of THE YOUTH'S COMPANION admirably
adapts it for use as supplementary reading in schools. It supplies
fresh reading every week. It instructs and informs. It awakens
ambition. It presents only high and healthy ideals. It acquaints pupils
with the important questions and leading issues of the present day. Its
carefully edited articles, by the most eminent writers on both sides of
the sea, are models of pure English. It can be used in connection with
nearly every branch of school work, and in such subjects as Geography,
Natural History, Biography and Science it offers a particularly rich store
of material.

THE COMPANION has already been widely adopted for supple-
mentary reading and its use is constantly increasing.

The publishers will gladly send sample copies of THE COMPANION
without expense, and full particulars of the reduced rates for introduc-
tion, to any teacher who wishes to make a trial of the paper in actual
school work.

PERRY MASON & COMPANY, Publishers,
201 Columbus Avenue. Boston, Mass.

/; mm

THE YOUTH'S COMPANION is an illustrated Family Paper.
It is published weekly. Its illustrations are by the best artists.

Its stories represent real life and aim to interest readers of
all ages. They are stimulating, healthful and helpful, but never
sensational. Their great number and variety, together with
their markiijL excellence, give THE COMPANION acknowledged
preeminericrFamong literary publications.

Its miscellaneous articles are read by young and old with
equaf eagerness. Its letters of travel present the picturesque
features of foreign life. Its articles on health and etiquette are
of real practical value.

No man or woman, however intelligent, can fail to find in
its editorials upon current topics facts that are not ordinarily
found in other papers, and that it is a pleasure and a benefit to
know. Young people, especially, should possess the informa-
tion they give.

Its biographical and historical articles are very valuable to
those who appreciate the elements of progress. Successful men
and women in many branches of business and professional life
give their experiences to the readers of THE COMPANION.

The paper aims both to entertain and to instruct. Not a
sentence to which the most careful parent would object is
allowed to appear in its columns. It seeks to become a family
friend, bringing help and cheer to every member of the
household, and to influence directly the conduct and issues
of daily life.