CHAPTER IV

SUMMER WANDERINGS IN COLORADO

"_God only knows how Saadi dined;

Roses he ate and drank the wind._"

EMERSON

Deep in the heart of the Rocky Mountains lies Glenwood Springs, a

fashionable watering place, where a great hotel, bearing the name of

the Centennial State, with every pretty decorative device imaginable,

allures the summer idlers, and where various kinds of springs and

baths furnish excuse for occupation. All varieties of invalidism,

real or fancied, meet their appropriate cure. One lady declared that

the especial elixir of life was found in a hot cave that yawns its

cavernous and mysterious depths in an adjacent mountain. Another

continued to thrive on (or in) the sparkling waters of "the pool,"

which is, for the most part, a dream of fair women, relay after relay,

all day and evening, swimming about after the fashion of the Rhine

sisters; and those who do not take kindly to the pool or the dark and

"hot" cave fall upon some particular geyser and appropriate it for

their own. Woe to the woman who interferes with another woman's geyser!

The whole region around Glenwood Springs is phenomenal. A hot sulphur

spring boils up at the rate of twenty thousand gallons a minute. The

"pool"--where the Rhine maidens are forever floating, morning, noon,

and night--covers over an acre, and is from three to six or seven feet

deep. Two currents of water are constantly pouring into it,--the hot

(at one hundred and twenty-seven degrees) at a rate of ten thousand

gallons a minute, and the cold from a mountain stream. A stream

constantly runs from it, a part of which is utilized as a waterfall in

the centre of the large dining-room of the hotel. On one bank of this

pool is a colossal stone bathhouse (costing over one hundred thousand

dollars), where every conceivable variety of the bath is administered,

and from which "the pool" is entered. In warm evenings, when the full

midsummer moon peeps over the mountains, the groups of girls, one after

another, begin mysteriously to disappear, and in reply to a question as

to the destination of this evening pilgrimage one bewitching creature

in floating blue organdie, as she flitted past, laughingly answered,

"Come to the pool and see." There was no time to be lost. The moon in

silver splendor was climbing over the mountains, and the girls emerged

from their dainty evening gowns to array themselves in bathing suits.

A few minutes later they were to be seen at this mysterious trysting

place at "the pool," the only difference being that some were outside

and some inside. Surely those inside had the best of it. How can the

scene be pictured? From the broad piazza of the hotel a terraced

walk ran down through the greenest of lawns, with shade trees and a

fountain resplendent in colored electric lights. The pool lies in an

open glade. Not far away is one of the ranges of the Rocky Mountains,

over which the August moon was climbing. Tall electric lights mingled

with the moonlight, giving the most curious effects of chiaroscuro

through the glade and the defiles of the mountains. On one side of this

immense natatorium rose the vast stone bathhouse,--a beautiful piece of

architecture. Near by the round sulphur spring boiled and bubbled in a

way to suggest the witches' rhyme:

"Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble."

A high toboggan slide in one place descended into the pool, and was

much used by the young athletes,--the men, not the girls. In the pool

a natural fountain of cold water shot high in the air. The swimmers

abounded. Those who were unable to swim would cling to a floating

ladder. Here in the moonlight the girls--clinging two and three

together--circle around in the water, needing only the melody of the

Rhine sisters to complete the illusion of one of the most enchanting

scenes in the entire Wagner operas.

Rev. Frederick Campbell wrote of this unique place:

"There is but one word to utter at Glenwood Springs--'Wonderful!'

If one enjoys life at the most luxurious of hotels, here it is at

Hotel Colorado. Built in the Italian style of peach-blow sandstone

and light brick, lighted with electricity, a searchlight reaching

from one of its towers at night and lighting the train up the

valley, a powerful fountain supplied from the mountain stream up

the cañon pouring the geyser 170 feet straight in the air, and

views, views everywhere."

The hot cave is as wonderful as anything around Sorrento or Amalfi.

In fact, all Colorado reminds the traveller of Italian scenery. It

has been called the Switzerland of America, but it is far more the

Italy. It has the Italian sky, the Italian coloring, and the mysterious

and indefinable enchantment of that land of romance and dream. The

volcanic phenomena is often startlingly similar to that of Italy. This

hot cave at Glenwood Springs is of the same order as those on Capri

and the adjacent coasts of Italy. In this cave at Glenwood hot air

continually comes up from some unknown region, and it is utilized for

curative purposes. The two or three caves have been made into one,

a cement floor laid, and marble seats with marble backs put in (the

ancient Romans would have found this a Paradise). Here come--not the

halt or the blind, but the people who take "the cure." The process

is to sit on the marble seat with a linen bag drawn completely over

the entire form, with a hole for the head to emerge. Around the neck

is placed a towel wrung out of cold water. To see a cave filled with

these modern mummies, sitting solemnly, done up in their linen cases,

like upholstery covering, is a spectacle. The men go in the morning,

the women in the afternoon. One lady obligingly gave the data of her

"cure." Twice a week she migrated in negligée to the hot cave, and

sat done up in her linen covering, bathing in the hot air at one

hundred and twenty degrees or so. Other afternoons were devoted to the

hot sulphur water bathing, and what with the various gradations of

temperature and the work of the attendants, the cup of Turkish coffee

and the siesta, the process consumed the entire afternoon. It is bliss

to those who delight in being rolled up like a mummy and sitting still.

But if it were chasing a star that danced, if it were riding on a

moonbeam, if it were dancing with the daffodils,--if it were anything

in all the world that was motion,--then it might have some fairer title

to charm. The felicity of lying about in a state of inertia is in the

nature of a mystery. And one questions, too, whether the spring of life

is not, after all, within rather than without. Let one take care of

his mental life and the physical will, very largely at least, keep in

spring and tune without elaborate and expensive processes of propping

it up. To disport one's self in the pool,--there is a delight. Who

wouldn't be a Rhine maiden under the midsummer moon in the heart of the

Rocky Mountains?

[Illustration: THE WALLS OF THE CAÑON, GRAND RIVER]

In nearly all the cañons and caves of this surrounding region are found

traces of the prehistoric peoples who inhabited them. Fragments of

pottery, in artistic design and painted in bright colors, are numerous;

relics similar to those found in the cliff houses are not unfrequently

chanced upon in walks and excursions and the stone implements abound.

The ethnologist finds a great field for research in all this Glenwood

Springs country. There are carriage roads terraced along the base of

the mountains where drives from five to twenty miles can be enjoyed

in the deep ravines where only a glimpse of blue sky is seen above,

and the saunterer finds a new walk every day. The mountains branch off

in every direction, and the lofty peaks silhouette themselves against

the sky. It is like being whirled up into the air. The sensation is

exhilarating beyond words. If people could take "cures" getting up into

sublime altitudes like this, where the views are so heavenly that one

does not know where earth ends and Paradise begins,--that would be a

cure worth the name. Really, it is vitality and exhilaration that one

wants, and it is to be found in the air far more than in any other

element.

"'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant;

'Tis life, not death, for which we pant,

More life and fuller that I want."

The Denver and Rio Grande Railway is well called "the scenic line of

the world." From Denver to Pueblo it runs almost due south, across a

level valley, with perpetually enchanting views of the mountains and

curious rock formations, between Denver to the region below Colorado

Springs. From the great smelting city of Pueblo, "the Pittsburg of the

West," the road turns westward, on an upward grade, till it reaches

Cañon City, and from there to Glenwood Springs this road is a marvel of

civil engineering. Up the narrow, deep cañons of Grand River, through

the towering granite cliffs, it winds, on and up, passing Holy Cross

Mountain, offering at every turn new vistas of sublime and wonderful

beauty. To take a day's ride through such scenery, with the luxurious

comfort of the most modern Pullman cars, and a good dining-car

constantly with the train, is to enjoy a day that lives in memory. Not

the least of the attractions of Glenwood Springs is the enchanting

route by means of which one arrives in this picturesque region. As the

train climbs up to plateau after plateau in the mountains the scenes

are full of changeful enchantment. The formation is interesting,--a

deep cañon, with rock cliffs apparently towering into the sky, and then

the emerging on a great level plateau. All along this route, too, are

those wonderful sandstone formations that have made the "Garden of the

Gods" so marvellous a place. Between Cañon City and Glenwood Springs

the very dance of the Brocken is seen in Sandstone sculptures.

[Illustration: THE "FAIRY CAVES," COLORADO]

Near the summit of Iron Mountain, which is in the immediate vicinity,

the "Fairy Caves" rival the famous "Blue Grotto" of Capri in

attraction. These caves (less than a mile from the Hotel Colorado)

are a most intricate and wonderful series of subterranean caverns,

grottos, and labyrinths, with translucent stalactites and stalagmites,

and they are all lighted by electricity,--a great improvement on the

sibyls' cave, where the sibylline leaves were read. The oracles of that

time were sadly lacking in conditions of modern conveniences. The sibyl

had not even a telephone. We do things better now, and run electric

cars up to the Pyramids. Nor did the sibyl of old have a tunnel two

hundred feet long, by which her votaries could approach the scene of

her oracles; but visitors to the Fairy Caves may pass by means of

this tunnel to one of the grandest and most awful precipices in the

Rocky Mountains, where they step out upon a balcony of stone into the

open air, with a perpendicular wall of rock one hundred feet high,

above, and an almost perpendicular abyss, down, twelve hundred feet

below. Standing on this balcony, nothing can be seen behind but sheer

perpendicular ascent and descent of rock; but in front and far below

may be seen the Grand River, appearing as a brook, winding in and out

among the projecting mountains, visible here like burnished silver, and

lost there, only to reappear again at a point far distant.

At this high elevation the opening of the cañon of the Grand is seen

in all of its majesty,--the massive mountains projecting against each

other in their outlines, and the lofty peaks reaching to the skies. The

Denver and Rio Grande Railway is at the foot of the cañon,--a mere

winding line, as seen from this Titanic height.

The Colorado Midland Road also runs through Glenwood Springs, whose

phenomenal hot caves and luxurious and elaborate bathhouse have given

it European fame. The twin towers of the hotel remind one of Notre

Dame, and the views from these are beautiful. The design is after the

Villa Medici in Rome,--the same motive repeated for the central motive

of this superb Hotel Colorado with its towers and Italian loggias and

splendid spacious piazzas, and its searchlight from one of the towers,

illuminating the evening trains that pass in the deep cañon of Grand

River. Here is a region that might be that of Sorrento and Capri.

In Glenwood Springs the traveller may meet Mrs. Emma Homan Thayer, the

author of "Wild Flowers in Colorado," published in both London and New

York. Mrs. Thayer was a New York girl, one of the original founders

of the Art League, and the daughter of an enterprising and well-known

man. She is an artist by nature and grace,--sketches, paints, and

writes, and in both painting and literature she has made a name that is

recognized, and she has charmingly perpetuated in her book the unique

and wonderful procession of Colorado wild flowers.

[Illustration: MARSHALL PASS AND MT. OURAY, COLORADO]

Lookout Mountain, rising some twenty-five hundred feet above the

town, has an easy trail to its summit; the driving is picturesque

and safe on terraced mountain roads with perpetual vistas of beauty,

and many lakes in the vicinity--Mountain, Big Fish, Trappers' Lake,

and others--offer excellent fishing. The hotel grounds at night are

transformed into a veritable fairyland. The fountains shoot their

jets of water up hundreds of feet into the air, with a play of color

from electric lights thrown over them until they are all a changeful

iridescent dream of rose and emerald and gold mingled with blue,--the

very rainbows of heaven reproduced in mid-air.

The journey up the "scenic route" has one point especially--that at the

base of the Holy Cross Mountain where the train climbs from plateau

to plateau--that enchants the imagination. The vast mysterious cañons

lie far below, steeped in the twilight of the gods. The air shimmers

with faint hints of color. Above, the towering granite walls seem to

cut their way into the sky. The faint plash of a thousand waterfalls

echoes from the rocky precipices, and the faint call of some lonely

bird hovering over a pinnacle is heard. The mysterious light, the

dim coolness and fragrance, the glimpses of blue sky seen through

the narrow openings of the cañons above all, combine to produce that

enchantment--the "Encantada,"--that Vasquez de Coronado felt when he

first beheld this marvellous country.

Emerson asserts that life is a search after power,--

"Merlin's blows are strokes of fate."

It is apparently a twentieth-century Merlin who has dreamed a dream of

wresting electricity from the mountain currents to utilize as power to

create a new field for industrial energy. The electrical engineer, who

is the magician of contemporary life, demonstrates that not the volume

of a stream, but rather its "fall," is the measure of its possibilities

of power, and no country is so rich in water that comes tumbling down

from the heights as is Colorado. The wild streams that precipitate

themselves down the mountain-sides are as valuable as are the veins of

gold that permeate the mountain. Science has now taken them in hand,

and will not longer permit these torrents and waterfalls to run to

waste or to display themselves exclusively as decorative features of

the mountain landscapes. The General Electric Company is utilizing

these falling waters, and is already achieving results with their

transformation into power which are beyond the dreams of imagination.

The Silver Cascade, which for ages has had nothing to do but leap and

flash under the shimmering gold of the Colorado sunshine, suddenly

undergoes

"a sea change

Into something new and strange."

It becomes an important factor in the world's work. For instance, in

lovely Manitou,--the little town that dreams at the foot of Pike's

Peak and which seems made only for stars and sunsets and as the stage

setting of idyllic experiences,--in lovely Manitou an hydro-electric

plant has been for more than a year in successful operation; and an

opportunity is thereby afforded the interested observer to see the

practical working of an enterprise that draws its energy directly from

nature's sources. The power is obtained from water that is stored in a

reservoir situated far up on the side of the peak. Three and one-half

miles of pipe were used to carry the water from the reservoir to the

plant. The water has a fall of twenty-three hundred feet, which is much

more than is needed to turn the giant wheels that furnish the power to

be distributed to Colorado Springs, Colorado City, and the surrounding

country. The mills at Colorado City use this power exclusively, and the

cheapness at which it can be furnished is a potent factor in making for

the success of their operation.

At Durango the Animas Power and Water Company has installed a plant

for hydro-electric energy which will furnish power to the entire San

Juan county. The plant comprises two three-thousand horse-power current

generators and the station appliances that correspond with these; and

from this plant extend fifty-thousand volt circuits to all the large

mines near Ouray, Silverton, and Telluride. The "Camp Bird," the "Gold

King," the "Silver Lake," the "Gold Prince," and the "Revenue Tunnel"

mines all draw from this plant for their entire milling and mining

work.

To harness the cascades, which for ages have known no sterner duty

than to sparkle and frolic in the sunshine, to force the water sprites

and nixies to perform the work of thousands of horse-power, is the

achievement of the modern Merlin.

The Platte River Power and Irrigation Company are about to establish

two electrical power enterprises most important to Denver, one of which

is to supply all the power that is necessary to turn every wheel now

in motion in the city, and the second is to secure electric power from

the water that is stored in the Cheesman dam and transmit it to Denver.

Responsible men are working for the success of the enterprises, and

it is anticipated that Denver will soon enjoy the advantage of power

furnished at a minimum of cost.

The Denver inter-urban service for transportation will be carried on

entirely by electricity within the near future. All the railroads that

centre in this City Beautiful are preparing estimates and making ready

to conduct experiments. The recent tests in the East of electrically

driven locomotives indicate that Colorado, with Denver as a centre,

will one day be a network of electric lines traversing productive

regions and connecting all the prosperous towns of the state by this

most ideal form of transit.

In Colorado it is one of the unwritten laws--a law from which there

is no appeal--that nothing which is desirable is impossible. This is

one of the spiritual laws, indeed, and he who holds it as an axiom

shall perpetually realize its force and its eternal truth. The entire

physical world is plastic to the world of spirit. In that realm alone

realities exist. For "the things which are seen are temporal; but the

things which are not seen are eternal." The faith that stands--not

"in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God"--is that which shall

be justified by the most profound actuality. It is that hidden wisdom

"which God ordained before the world unto our glory." Science has

already discerned the connection between organic form and super-space;

and speculations already begin to emerge from the dim and vague region

of conjecture into hypothesis and theory out of which are developed new

working laws of the universe which are as undeniable as is that of the

law of gravitation.

In harmonious accordance, then, with that unwritten law of Colorado

that nothing which is desirable is impossible, it was realized that the

Gunnison River, a powerful stream thirty miles east of the Uncompahgre,

afforded an abundance of water to reclaim these desert wastes to the

traditional blossoming of the rose. The Gunnison River, however, flows

through a box cañon three thousand feet deep. Were it at the bottom of

a gorge three thousand miles deep, that fact would hardly daunt the

Colorado spirit. Immediately some invention, incomprehensible to the

present mind of man, would be made by which the desirable issue should

be achieved. As has been remarked, failure is a word not included

in the vocabulary of Colorado. That state has a "revised version" of

its own for the resources of its language, laws, and literature. Its

keynote is the invincible. Ways and means are mere matters of minor

detail. If an achievement is desirable, it is to be accomplished, of

course. It is not even a question for discussion. There is no margin of

debatable land in the realization of every conceivable opportunity.

A stupendous work in development is that of this Gunnison Tunnel

under the Vernal Mesa to Uncompahgre Valley,--a desert waste whose

area comprises some one hundred thousand acres of sand, sagebrush,

and stones. Yet even here irrigation worked its spell, and while the

Uncompahgre River held out a water supply, the land reached proved

fertile beyond expectation. But the Uncompahgre had its far too

definite and restricted limits; no other water supply was available

for this region, and there lay the land--a tract of potential wealth,

but destined to remain, so far as could be seen, an unproductive and

cumbersome desert region unless irrigation could be achieved.

To the constructing engineer of the reclamation service there came

a telegram from the chief engineer in Washington asking if it were

feasible to divert the waters of Gunnison River to Uncompahgre Valley

by means of a tunnel under Vernal Mesa? This implied building a tunnel

from a point totally unknown. No one had ever succeeded in passing

through Gunnison Cañon. But the past tense does "not count," any more

than Rip Van Winkle's last glass, in any estimate of the present in

Colorado. Professor Fellows, an engineer of Denver, selected his

assistant; they prepared their instruments, their provisions, and

their inflated rubber mattress, and set forth on this expedition in

which their lives were in constant peril; in which hardships beyond

description were endured. The topographic map, for instance, was

made by Mr. Fellows in the delightful position of being lowered

with ropes into the deep cañon where, should the slightest accident

occur, he would never return to the day and daylight world again. The

establishment of precise levels for both ends of the tunnel, one of

which must, of course, be lower than the other to induce a flow of

water, was another matter requiring a delicacy of adjustment beyond

description. Of their wonderful and even tragic experiences a local

report says: "It all ended by Fellows and his companion saving two

things,--their lives and their notebooks. Everything else went down

with the flood. When the men emerged at the Devil's Slide, weary,

bruised, and bleeding, friends who had been waiting to pick up their

mangled bodies hailed them as if they had returned from the dead."

Of all this story there was no hint in the cheerfully laconic telegram

despatched to Washington,--"Complete surveys for construction." The

tunnel will be five or six miles in length, of which over two miles

are already completed. The work proceeds night and day with the drills

like mighty giants eating their way through the solid granite of the

Vernal Mesa that lies between the two rivers. This desert region which

will thus be reclaimed comprises portions of three counties,--Ouray,

Montrose, and Delta,--the region being at an altitude of five thousand

feet. It easily produces fruit, alfalfa, and grain, and it is also well

adapted to the culture of potatoes, celery, and the sugar beet. The

land when irrigated is estimated to be worth five hundred dollars per

acre. The tunnel will have a capacity for conveying thirteen thousand

cubic feet of water per second, and there will be connected with it

an elaborate system of lesser canals and ditches that will carry the

water all over this desert tract. It is estimated that this enterprise

will add thousands of homes to the valley of the Uncompahgre, and that

it will increase by at least ten millions the taxable property of

Colorado. The cost of the Gunnison Tunnel will be some two and a half

millions.

Uncompahgre Valley, lying between the Continental Divide on the east,

and the Utah Desert on the west, comprises the greatest extent of

irrigable land west of Pueblo in the entire state; but the need for

irrigation and the possibilities of supplying that need were so widely

apart that even Merlin the Enchanter recognized the difficulty, though

by no means defining it as an impossibility. The Uncompahgre River

was soon exhausted, and only this apparently impracticable scheme,

now happily realized, offered any solution of the problem. Hon. Meade

Hammond of the state legislature of Colorado secured the appropriation

of twenty-five thousand dollars to meet the expenses of surveying

and preliminary work. Hon. John C. Bell, the representative for that

district in Congress, gave untiring devotion to the project, and to

his efforts was due the zeal with which the reclamation service took

up this vast work; and when Professor Fellows was appointed as the

government district engineer its success became the object of his

supreme interest and unremitting energy, and its achievement adds

another to the remarkable engineering works of Colorado.

In this Land of Enchantment almost anything is possible, even to

yachting,--a pastime that would not at first present itself as one to

be included among the entertainments of an arid state which has to

set its own legislative machinery and that of Congress in motion in

order to contrive a water supply for even its agricultural service;

nevertheless, on a lake in the mountains, more than a mile and a half

above sea level and some one hundred miles from Denver the Beautiful,

a yacht club disports itself with all the airy grace and assurance of

its ground--one means of its water--that distinguishes the delightful

Yacht Club at old Marblehead on the Atlantic Coast. There was, however,

no government appropriation made to create this lake, as might at

first be supposed, nor any experts sent out commissioned to prepare

the way. There are numerous forms of summer-day entertainments that

are more or less in evidence in the inland states; but yachting has

never been supposed to be among them, as preconceived ideas of this joy

have invariably associated it with oceans and seas. Still, it must be

remembered that Colorado is an exceptional region in the universe, and

creates, not follows, precedents. It is the state, as has before been

remarked, to which nothing conceivable is impossible.

Grand Lake is in Middle Park, sixty miles from the nearest railroad

station. (With the incredible celerity with which life progresses

in the Centennial State, of course by the time this description is

materialized in print Grand Lake may have become a railroad centre--who

shall say? It is not safe to limit prophecy in Colorado.) At present,

however, a railroad journey of forty miles from Denver, supplemented

by sixty miles of stage, brings one to the lake, a beautiful sheet of

water two miles in length and more than a mile in width, whose water

is icy cold. The locality has become something of a summer resort for

many Denver people, and also, to some extent, to those from Chicago

and Kansas City, and a group of cottages have sprung up. Some seven

years ago the Grand Lake Yacht Club was duly organized, with Mr. R.

C. Campbell, a son-in-law of Senator Patterson of Colorado, Mr. W. H.

Bryant, a prominent citizen of Denver the Beautiful, Major Lafayette

Campbell, and other well-known men, as its officers. The club has

now a fleet of yachts; it has its regatta week, and altogether holds

its own among nautical associations; it takes itself seriously, in fact

with what Henry James calls the "deadly earnestness of the Bostonians,"

which is paralleled by this inland and arid-land yachting club.

[Illustration: THE WONDERFUL HANGING LAKE, NEAR GLENWOOD SPRINGS,

COLORADO]

Besides the joys of yachting in an arid state where that nautical

pastime is apparently carried on in mid air, is the local diversion of

climbing mountain peaks that are pronounced impossible of ascension.

This is one of the favorite entertainments of Colorado young women,

who have conquered Long's, Gray's, Pike's, and Torrey's peaks, Mount

Massive, the "Devil's Causeway," and various lesser heights, which they

scale with the characteristically invincible energy of their state. The

summit of Mount Massive is fourteen thousand five hundred feet above

sea level, and of one of these expeditions a Denver journal says of

this party of several ladies and gentlemen:

"Camp was struck at Lamb's ranch, where, in the early morning, the

wagon was left with all the outfit not absolutely necessary. The

trail sloped steadily to the boulder field, where the party stopped

for lunch. They were now at an altitude of twelve thousand feet.

A cold wind swept across the range and chilled them, so that the

climb was soon renewed.

"The boulder field is two miles long and seemed five, for walking

over the great stones is a wearisome business. At the end of the

boulder field, which is much like the terminal range of an old

glacier, is a great snowbank. From a long distance the mountain

climbers saw the keyhole,--a deep notch of overjutting rock through

which goes the only trail to the summit of Long's. It is a gigantic

cornice to a ridge that extends north from the main cone.

"After passing the keyhole, which had loomed up before them through

weary miles of tramping, a great panorama of mountains stretched

before them.... There was a precipitous slope of rocks jammed

together in a gulch. This rises for about seven hundred feet, every

inch stiff climbing.

"The danger at this point was that some climbers might dislodge

rocks which would come bounding down on the heads of those in the

rear. For this reason the orders of the leader were urgent that the

party should not get separated. The trail at this point led up the

sharply sloping eaves of the mountain roof, from which the climber

might drop a dizzy distance to the depths below. Clinging to the

rocks and hanging on by hands or feet, the party pushed up to a

ledge from which they looked over an abyss several thousand feet

sheer down."

In Southern Colorado the cliff-dwellers' region offers some of the most

remarkable ruins in America, and their preservation in a government

reservation, to be known as the Mesa Verde National Park, has been

assured by a bill that has been recently passed by Congress and

which is one of the eminent features of latter-day legislation. It

is Representative Hogg who introduced this bill providing for the

permanent protection of those cliff-dweller ruins which, with those

in New Mexico and Arizona, constitute some of the most valuable and

interesting prehistoric remains in the United States. Already much of

this archæological treasure of inestimable scientific value has been

carried away by visitors, while, instead of permitting this region to

be thus despoiled, it should be made easily accessible to tourists

and held as one of the grand show places of the great Southwest.

Like the Grand Cañon and the Petrified Forests of Arizona, like the

Pike's Peak region in Colorado, Mesa Verde would become an objective

point of pilgrimage to thousands of summer tourists. In the winter

of 1904-5 Representative Lacey, of Iowa, the eminent chairman of the

House Committee on Public Lands, made in behalf of his committee a

favorable report on the Colorado Cliff-dwellers' Bill, presenting, with

his characteristic eloquence of argument, the truth that the permanent

preservation of these wonderful and almost prehistoric ruins is greatly

to be desired by the people of the Southwest, as well as by those

interested in archæology elsewhere. "The ruins are situated among rocky

cliffs, and may be easily preserved if protected," said Mr. Lacey, and

added:

"With the exception of two or three small, fallen, and totally

uninteresting ones, all the ruins of the Mesa Verde are in the

Southern Ute Indian Reservation. It is an extremely arid region,

and little or no agriculture is practised by the Utes, although

they range sheep, goats, cattle, and ponies on the mesa and in the

cañons. It is a poor range at best, and the Indians appear to need

all they can get. Moreover, the reclamation service has made some

estimates regarding storage reservoirs in the upper Mancos, and it

may be at some future time a part of this land in the reservation

will be irrigable and greatly increased in value. The Utes are

not going to destroy these ruins or dig in them. They stand in

superstitious awe of them, believing them to be inhabited by the

spirits of the dead, and cannot be induced to go near them."

These dwellings are excavated in cliffs from five to nine hundred feet

above the plateaus. Of these, two dwellings stand out prominently,--the

"Spruce Tree House" and the "Balcony House," the former of which

contains a hundred and thirty rooms, of each of which the average

measurement is about eight by six feet. Much pottery, weapons,

armament, and many skeletons and mummies are found in these dwellings.

The later conclusions of scientists are that these cliff-houses were

designed as places of refuge and defence rather than as ordinary

habitations. The parallelogram and circle forms predominate, and they

are often forty feet in diameter. There are sometimes double, or even

triple walls, solidly built of hewn stone, with a circular depression

(council-chamber) in the centre.

Pueblo is the metropolis of Southern Colorado. It is the second city

in the state, ranking next to Denver. It is an important industrial

centre, being the location of the great steel works of the Colorado

Fuel and Iron Company, and two large smelting plants in constant

activity. It is a town with unusual possibilities of beauty, rambling,

as it does, over the rolling mesas with a series of enchanting vistas

and mountain views of great beauty. The Spanish Peaks are in full

sight from the new residence region of Pueblo, and here is the home of

ex-Governor and Mrs. Alva Adams, with its spacious, book-lined rooms;

its choice and finely selected souvenirs of foreign travel; its music

and pictures; and far above all, the gracious sweetness and charm of

Mrs. Adams, who has that most perfect of gifts--that of transforming a

household into a home. Governor Adams, although in his modesty he would

deprecate the distinction, is easily the first citizen of Colorado.

Twice the Governor of the state, he has impressed the entire people

with his flawless integrity of character, his noble ideals, and his

energy of executive power in securing and enforcing the best measures

for the people and carrying onward into practical life the highest

moral and educational standards.

Governor Adams is always greatly in demand as a speaker, and in

September of 1906 he was again nominated for Governor of the state.

Colorado, quite irrespective of party, is all aglow with the name of

Alva Adams. Good Republicans have long been greatly perplexed over

the fact that the man they most desire to vote for, the man to whose

guidance they would most willingly commit the affairs of state, is a

Democrat. The ability, the unquestioned integrity, the fidelity to

lofty ideals, and the great administrative power of Governor Adams

inspire the almost universal enthusiasm of Colorado irrespective of

party lines.

No son of the Centennial State is more in sympathy with its individual

problems. Born in Wisconsin (some fifty-five years ago), Governor Adams

was about to enter the Ann Arbor Law School when the illness of a

brother brought him in his earliest youth to Colorado. Its beauty, its

rich possibilities, enchanted him. Here he married a very cultivated

and beautiful young woman, whose parents came in her early girlhood to

Colorado, and whose sympathetic and perfect companionship has been the

unfailing source of his noblest inspiration.

In an address on "Pathfinders and Pioneers," given before an irrigation

congress at Colorado Springs, we find Governor Adams saying:

"What a sublime moment when the explorer realizes the fruition

of his dream! What fateful hours upon the dial of human progress

when Columbus saw a new world emerge from the sea, when Balboa

stood 'silent upon a peak in Darien,' when Lewis and Clark upon

the continent's crest saw the waters of the rivulet run toward the

West! Such events compensate great souls, and their spirits defy

hardship, ingratitude, chains, dungeons, and the axe. The curtain

has been run down upon the careers of those brave men whose praise

we sing. Their race is run. The explorer, priest, trapper, and

pioneer have vanished.

"'Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;

Time's noblest offspring is the last.'

"Would it be a daring assumption to consider the irrigated regions

of America as the arena in which the fifth act, time's noblest

offspring, is to perfect and complete the drama of civilization?

"Irrigated lands were the cradle of the race. The first canals

were run from the four rivers of Paradise. May not the fruition of

mankind seek the same conditions amid which it was born? Providence

has kept fallow this new land until man was fitted to enter and

possess it.

"'Hid in the West through centuries,

Till men, through countless tyrannies, could understand

The priceless worth of freedom.'"

"I would not decry culture and refinement," said ex-Governor Adams in

this address; "they are the charm and beauty of modern life, the music

and art of the social commerce of the age; but in their acquirement

I would not give up the robust, vigorous, daring qualities of the

pioneer."

The Governor proceeded:

"They had blood and iron in their heart, they had the nerve to

dare, the strength to do. I do not believe in battle for battle's

sake; but I never want to see our people when they are not willing

to fight, and able to fight. The only guarantee of peace and

liberty is the ability and willingness to do battle for your

rights. Refinement alone is not strength, culture alone is not

virtue. Absalom, Alcibiades, and Burr stand in history as the

most polished, cultured men of three ages, yet they were more a

menace than a brace to the liberties of their time. In stress,

the world calls upon the Calvins, the Cromwells, the Jacksons,

Browns, and Lincolns. They were stalwart, strenuous, courageous

men; not cultured and refined, but rich in royalty and daring. It

is the rugged and the strong, and not the gentle and the wise, who

gather in their hands the reins of fate and plough deep furrows

in the fields of human events. It is they who have driven the car

of progress and have woven the deepest colors in the fabric of

human happiness. It is true that some of our Western torch-bearers

were not perfect; none of them were ever anointed with the oil

of consecration; around them surged the temptations of a wild

and boisterous age; through their hearts and souls there swept

the impulses and passions of the strong; if they sinned, it was

against themselves, not their country. Let their frailties be

forgotten, and their good cherished. Often rough and defiant of the

conventionalities, they were ever true and loyal, and most of these

empire builders can stand before the great white throne with open

hearts. They were the architects, the Hiram Abifs of these Western

empires. They laid the foundations in courage and liberty."

Let no one fancy that Pueblo is a primitive Western city devoid of

electricity, telephones, motor cars, or even Marconigrams. Let no one

fancy it is too far from Paris to have the latest French fashions. It

is hardly an exaggeration to say that it demands the best and the most

up-to-date ideas of the Eastern cities to be at all eligible in these

Colorado towns. Pueblo has a most delightful club-house on the edge of

a lake--the lake is artificially created, and being made to order, is,

of course, exactly the kind of lake that is desired, the water being

conducted from the mountains into a large natural depression--where

great open fires in every room greet the daily visitor; where there are

large reading-rooms, a dining-room, and a ball-room; no intoxicating

beverages of any kind are allowed to be sold, so that youths and

maidens may at any time enjoy the club with no insidious dangers to

their moral welfare.

There are many centres of social life; and if Pueblo people have any

other conceivable occupation than to give dinner parties at night and

go motoring in the morning, with endless receptions of the Daughters

of the Revolution and other clubs, organizations, or purely private

card receptions invading the afternoons, the visitor hardly realizes

it. The dinners given are often as elaborate as in the large Eastern

cities, as one, for instance, given by Mr. and Mrs. Mahlon D. Thatcher

at their stately home "Hillcrest," where the decorations were all in

rich rose red, a most brilliant effect, and the souvenirs were India

ink reproductions of old castles on white satin. The dinner cards held

each a quotation from the poets.

* * * * *

Pueblo is always all sunshine and radiance, and has a beauty of

location that makes it notable, with its encircling blue mountains and

picturesque mesas, and the perpetual benediction of the Spanish Peaks

silhouetted against the western sky. Its new library is the pride and

delight of every citizen. It is one of the Carnegie chain,--a large,

two-story and basement structure of white Colorado stone, the interior

finished with the richly variegated Colorado marble which is used for

mantels and fireplaces. The book stacks, the spacious and splendid

reading-room, the children's room, and the smaller ones for reference

and special study, are all planned on the latest and most perfect

models.

The library is in the Royal Park, on the crest of one of the mesas,

very near the home of Governor Adams. It is a library to delight the

heart of the book-lover. Pueblo offers, indeed, great attractions to

all who incline to this land of sunshine. The climate is even more mild

than that of Denver, from which city it is a little over three hours

distant by the fast trains, or four hours by slower ones. Colorado

Springs lies between--two hours from Denver and a little over one

hour from Pueblo. The location combines many attractions. With three

railroads; its large industries in smelting and steel; its excellent

schools, both public and private; its churches, its daily newspapers;

its library; and its fine clubhouse, open to families,--women and

children as well as men enjoying it freely,--Pueblo seems one of

the most delightful of places. It has large wealth and a power of

initiating many opportunities. It is on the most picturesque and

delightful lines of travel to Cañon City, Salida, Leadville, Glenwood

Springs, and through Salt Lake City to the Pacific Coast; or on the

line to Arizona and the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, and on to Los

Angeles and San Francisco; or eastward to Chicago and the Atlantic

Coast; or southward to Mexico, or St. Louis, or New Orleans. Pueblo is

really in the heart of things, so to speak. The Chicago papers arrive

the next day, the New York papers the third morning, and the telephonic

communication is simply almost without limit. Governor Adams will step

from his library into another book-lined room where the telephone is

placed, and from there talk with people in five different states. Once

he held a conversation with a man at the bottom of a mine a few hundred

miles away,--a man whose subterranean sojourn had the alleviation of a

telephone.

The greatest industrial organization west of the Mississippi River is

that of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, whose largest plant is at

Pueblo, and is held at a valuation of fifty-eight million dollars. On

its pay-roll are fifteen thousand employés. There are twenty thousand

tons of steel rail produced each month, and it is said that this

number will soon be largely increased, and that the Goulds and the

Rockefellers are arranging to utilize the product of these mills for

their vast railroad interests. The company owns such large tracts of

land in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming; it owns coal mines,

iron mines, lime quarries; it owns parts of two railroads, besides

telegraph and telephone lines galore, so that by reason of these

extensive holdings it is able to secure at a minimum of cost all the

raw materials from which the finished products are turned out. Upward

of three hundred thousand acres of the richest coal lands in the West,

an empire containing one hundred square miles more than the coal

area of Pennsylvania, constitute the holdings for coal mine purposes

of the company. In addition there are iron, manganese mines, and

limestone quarries containing the elements which give to the product

of the furnaces and mills qualities that secure the markets of the

Western world. Its plant at Pueblo has become the centre of a town

called Minnequa, composed of its own employés and their families. The

company has established a model hospital, with a surgeon's department

fitted up with the most elaborate and finest scientific and nursing

facilities; a fine library and large reading-rooms, and a recreation

hall and gymnasium for the workmen. Nearly one million dollars has

been expended on the tenant houses belonging to the company, which

are rented to their employés on fair and advantageous terms. In

many respects Minnequa, at Pueblo, is one of the most remarkable

manufacturing centres in the world, presenting aspects that invite

study, in its extensive resources, the vast and colossal character of

its purposes, and its remarkable achievements. All employés are given

the opportunity to acquire homes; and every late ideal in the way of

providing opportunities for their care in health, in mental and moral

development, and in recreations, is carried out to the fullest possible

extent.

The company has recently engaged in an irrigation enterprise in the

purchase of water-right priorities of the Arkansas River for seventy

cubic feet of water per second, at an expense of one million dollars.

These rights, which date back to 1860-62, are among the oldest

existing, and they insure to the company the uninterrupted and certain

possession of the river flow. A court decree enabled them to change

the point of division, and they have constructed a new head-gate at

Adobe, six miles east of Florence. A canal fifty-eight miles in length

is being constructed from Florence to the mills owned by the company.

The cost of this canal will be some three quarters of a million. These

mills produce over seventy-five thousand tons of iron and steel each

month. The manufacturing plant at Minnequa includes blast furnaces,

converting works, blooming mills, a merchant iron mill, a hoop and

cotton tie mill, a spike factory, a bolt factory, a castings and pipe

foundry, with open hearth furnaces, a reversing mill, and many other

appliances.

"It must not be supposed, because we find it necessary to practise

irrigation in Colorado, that we therefore never have any rains,"

observed a Coloradoan; "on the contrary, the rains of spring are

usually of such abundance as to make the ground in fine condition

for ploughing and putting in crops, and we seldom find it necessary

to apply water to germinate any kind of seed; only once, in thirteen

years' experience at Greeley, were we compelled to resort to irrigation

before crops of all kinds were well up and considerably advanced in

growth. About the last of May, however, as regularly as the natural

periods of summer, autumn, winter, and spring occur in the other

states, never varying more than a week in time, these copious rains

suddenly cease and give place to light and entirely inadequate local

thunder-showers. Now is the accepted time, and all over cultivated

Colorado, within a period of not more than two days, every flood-gate

is opened and the life-giving current started to flowing on the rapidly

parching grain. Corn will endure until later in the season, but all

sowed crops must get one thorough application of water within two

weeks or become severely injured for the want of it. Day and night

the silent current flows on and on, among the fields of grain; not a

drop of water nor a moment of time must run to waste until the first

irrigation is completed."

In so exceptional a summer of drought and heat as was that of 1901 the

advantages of irrigation stand out. Journeying through Kansas, the long

day's ride across the state revealed continued devastation from the

lack of rain. Corn fields looked almost as if a fire had passed over

them, so shrivelled and stunted they were; but in Colorado on every

hand there were greenness and luxuriance of vegetation and of crops.

The result is simply that, with irrigation, man controls his climate

and all the conditions of prosperity. Without it, he is at the mercy of

the elements.

The Union Colony of Greeley was the first to introduce upland

irrigation in Colorado. Of the method employed, the "Greeley Tribune"

gave this description:

"Almost the first question asked by many persons on their first

arrival in Colorado, when they see the irrigating ditches running

along the sides of the bluffs high above the river, and back from

it five, ten, or twenty miles, is, 'How do you get the water out

of the river, and so high above it? It looks as if you made the

water run uphill.' The answer is very simple. All the rivers of

Colorado are mountain streams, and consequently have a fall of from

ten to thirty feet to the mile, after they reach the plains. In the

mountains, of course, the fall is often much greater. The plains

also have a gradual slope eastward from the foothills, where the

altitude is generally between six and seven thousand feet above sea

level, while at the eastern boundary of the state it is only about

three thousand feet. Take, for example, the canal generally known

as Number Two, which waters the lands of the Greeley Colony. This

canal is taken out of the Cache la Poudre River, about seventeen

miles west of Greeley, and where the bed of the river is probably

a hundred and sixty feet higher than it is at Greeley. The bed of

the canal only has a fall of from three to three and a half feet

to the mile; therefore it is easily seen that when that grade is

continued for a number of miles, the line of the canal will run in

a direction further and further from the river, and on much higher

ground, so that the lands lying between the canal and the river are

all 'covered by,' or on a lower level than, the water in the canal.

In the process of irrigation this same plan must be followed,

of bringing the water in on the higher side of the land to be

irrigated, then the water will easily flow all over the ground."

In Weld County, of which Greeley is the county seat, irrigation was

extended during 1905 to cover from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand

acres of arid land never before under cultivation, and storage

reservoirs increased in capacity. It is proposed to cut a tunnel

through the Medicine Bow mountain range and to bring a large quantity

of water through from the Western slope to irrigate an additional fifty

thousand acres of prairie.

Within the past year there have been two potato starch factories

started in successful operation in Greeley which are estimated to

pay out annually one hundred thousand dollars for potatoes that have

heretofore been practically a total loss to the farmers.

The Swift Packing Company of Chicago propose investing one and a half

millions in further irrigation in this county. The products of the

Greeley district alone, for 1905, were five and a half millions,--a

fact that suggests the wise foresight of Hon. Nathan Cook Meeker, the

founder of the town, in selecting this location, in 1869, for his

colony.

Of recent years a remarkable feature of agricultural progress in

Colorado has been developed by the "dry farming" system, the discovery

of which is due to Prof. H. W. Campbell, who has been experimenting,

for some twenty years past, in Eastern Colorado, in the scientific

culture of the soil without benefit of irrigation. Professor Campbell

says that he had been assured that corn would not grow at an altitude

of three thousand feet, as the nights would be too cool; but that he

can refute this, as, during the past five years, he has averaged from

thirty to forty-two bushels per acre at an altitude ranging from five

thousand to nearly seven thousand feet. Successful agriculture is, in

Professor Campbell's belief, based on the fundamental principle of soil

culture, and in an interview he said:

"While the great work now being done by the government in

promoting irrigation enterprises in the more arid portion of

the West and the using of millions upon millions of money for

the building of mammoth reservoirs have value and virtue, and

means the development of many sections that must remain almost

worthless without them, and the spending of thousands of dollars

in traversing foreign countries to secure what some have pleased

to call drought-resisting plants, will undoubtedly play their part

in promoting the welfare and prosperity of Colorado, ... yet there

should also be an understanding of, first, the necessary physical

condition of the soil for the most liberal growth and development

of roots; secondly, the storing and conserving the entire season

rainfall,--not only the portion that falls during the growing

season, but from the early spring to late in the fall; thirdly, the

fact that air is just as important in the soil as water, and that

it is the combination of the elements of air and water in the soil,

together with heat and light, that is most essential; and that when

these conditions are fulfilled, Eastern Colorado will come to its

rightful own, and little towns and cities will spring up along all

the great trunk lines, while the intervening country will be dotted

with ideal farm homes and shade trees; orchards and groves will

break the monotony of the now bleak prairie, and present a restful,

cheerful, homelike, and prosperous condition."

While agriculture in Colorado is regarded as in its infancy, yet the

product of Colorado farms alone contributed almost fifty-one millions

to the world's wealth, in 1905, exclusive of wool, hides, or live

stock. Professor Olin of the State Agricultural College estimates that

there are over two hundred thousand acres in Colorado which produce

crops without irrigation, by the application of Professor Campbell's

"dry-farming" system. The so-called dry land, consisting of millions

of acres in Eastern Colorado, averages now four dollars per acre,

where one year ago untold quantities could be bought for an average of

two dollars per acre. The speculative value of this land has gone up

wonderfully under the impetus of the Campbell system of dry farming. If

this system comes anywhere near proving the claims of its advocates,

it will vastly increase the wealth and population of the state. With

a greater understanding of the science of dry culture it is certain

that the farmers of the state and the state generally will experience

immeasurable advantage. In the eastern plains of Colorado are embraced

more than fifteen million acres of land which are now lying practically

useless, only a small amount being utilized for ranging cattle. The

claims of dry-culture enthusiasts and those who have been experimenting

with seed imported to meet the dry conditions are, that this empire

will be made to yield harvests which will support many thriving

communities. In proof of their claims they point to so-called model

farms established at various places on the plains where the hitherto

unyielding soil has borne substantial crops.

One important feature in the agricultural development of Colorado is

the extinction of the bonanza ranch of thousands of acres. Instead,

farms are reduced to manageable proportions, and are carried on far

more largely by intelligent thought and scientific appliances than by

mere manual labor.

The present day Colorado ranch is an all-the-year-round enterprise.

The ranch owner is a careful business man, who watches his acres and

the products thereof even as the successful merchant or manufacturer

acquires close knowledge of all the details of his business. He sows

his land with diversified crops, rotating hay, grain, and root crops

scientifically for the double purpose of securing the greatest yields

and preserving the nourishing qualities of the soil. Keeping in touch

with the market conditions of the world, and with the advancing

developments of science, he is easily the master of the situation, and

in no part of the country is the condition of the farmer better, or

perhaps so good, as in Colorado. The agriculturist of the Centennial

State who is the owner of two quarter sections, or even of one, is

altogether independent. The returns from his business are absolutely

sure, and with the certain knowledge of substantial gains at the end

of the season he plans improvements to his home, and comforts and even

luxuries for himself and family, which far exceed those usually secured

in the Middle West or by the small farmers of the East. In Colorado it

will be found that almost every young man and woman of those who are

natives of the state are college graduates. Co-education prevails, just

as does the political enfranchisement of women, and the results of this

larger extension of the opportunities and privileges of life are very

much in evidence in the beauty, the high intelligence, and the liberal

culture that especially characterize the women of Colorado.

Irrigation enterprises in Colorado are far more widely recognized than

is the Campbell system of dry culture; but in 1905 these enterprises

appealed with increased force to capitalists outside, as well as within

Colorado, as a safe and profitable means of investment. Land held at

ten dollars per acre is, by irrigation, instantly increased in value

from twenty to fifty dollars; and it was seen that the most favorable

localities within the state in which to raise funds for further

extension of irrigation were among the farmers in the older irrigated

sections who have won their ranches, improved their places, and made

large deposits in the banks through the use of the productive waters

trained to make the soil blossom with wealth.

Irrigation is developed to its highest excellence in Northern Colorado

and in the valley of the Arkansas River. These regions have been the

longest under irrigated culture, and their value is increasing rapidly.

Each year sees the agriculturist grow more conservative in his use of

water, and the quantity thus saved has been applied to new lands. Thus,

in an interesting and quite undreamed-of way, a problem that incited

discord and dissension, that promised only to increase inevitably

as larger territories of land and their correspondingly increased

irrigation should be held, was brought to a peaceful solution.

Continued litigation, and a great pressure to secure legislative

restrictions of the use of water supply, and the constant irritation

and turmoil involved in these disputes, were all, happily, laid to rest

by the discovery of the farmers themselves that extravagance in the use

of water was not conducive to their own prosperity. In the matter of

flood waters the irrigation experts of the state are quite generally

meeting the condition in their own way. Storage reservoirs are dotting

the irrigation systems at frequent intervals, and in the dry months

the supply piled up behind the cement dams is drawn off to furnish the

final necessary moisture for the maturing of the crops.

Another possibility of irrigation that is receiving the attention of

engineers is the utilization of the streams for power purposes. In many

cases the power thus generated will be made to accomplish marvellous

feats in the way of construction, as in the instance at Grand River,

already described.

One of the special journeys in Colorado is that called a "trip around

the circle," affording more than a thousand miles among the mountains

within four days' time; but a permission for ten days is available,

thus affording several detours by stage, which penetrate into the

most sublime regions. The abysmal depth of five of the great cañons;

many of the noted mountain passes; great mining camps, with their

complicated machinery; cliff dwellings, vast plateaus, and stupendous

peaks; Indian reservations; the icy crevasses a thousand feet in depth;

the picturesque "Continental Divide," from which one looks down on a

thousand mountain peaks, where the vast Cordilleras in their rugged

grandeur are seen as a wide plain; the beautiful Sangre de Cristo

("Blood of Christ") range; the sharp outlines of the Spanish Peaks,

rising twelve and thirteen thousand feet into the air; beautiful meadow

lands where the blue and white columbine, the state flower of Colorado,

blooms in profusion, and the tiger lily, the primrose, and the

"shooting stars" blossom,--all these are enjoyed within the "circle"

trip; and it also includes Leadville, the "city above the clouds,"

Durango, Ouray, Gunnison, and other interesting towns. It offers a near

view of the Mount of the Holy Cross, which strange spectacle is made by

the snow deposits in transverse, gigantic cañons,--the perpendicular

one being fifteen hundred feet, while the transverse cross is seven

hundred and fifty feet in length; of Lost Cañon, a novelty even in a

land of cañons; and of the Rio de Las Animas Perditas, old Fort Lewis,

the valley of Dolores River, a region of early Spanish discovery; of

Black Cañon and Cimarron Cañon and Grand River Cañon, whose walls

rise to the height of more than twenty-five hundred feet;--all these

are but the merest outline and hint of the scenic wonders compassed

within the circle trip. Up the cañons the train climbs; through narrow

gorges with overhanging rocks, on and on, till a plateau is reached;

then more cañons, more climbing, more peaks towering into the skies,

and waterfalls chiming their music. As even an enthusiast in scenery

cannot entirely subsist on stars, sunsets, and silences, the luxurious

comforts of these trains enhance one's enjoyment. A dining-car is

always on, and the excellence of the food and the moderate prices for

all this perfect comfort and convenience are features the traveller

appreciates. That dance of the Brocken which one fancies he sees in

the fantastic sandstone formations on the mountain's side on the

romantic route to Glenwood Springs is occasionally duplicated in

other cañons, where these strange rocks resolve themselves, with the

aid of the mysterious lights and shadows, into a dance of witches,

and every shape springs to life. The train rushes on, and one leaves

them dancing, confident that although these figures may be stationary

by day, they dance at night. Another mountain slope of the sandstone

shows a colossal figure of a prophet,--shrouded, hooded, suggesting

that solemn, majestic figure of death in Daniel French's great work

entitled "Death and the Sculptor." The precipitous walls of the cañon

rise in many places to over a thousand feet in height. In their sides

such a variety of designs and figures have been sculptured by erosion

that the traveller half imagines himself in the realm of the gods of

Hellas. These innumerable designs and figures incite not only the play

of fancy, but they invite the study of the geologist, who finds here

the primary rock formations exhibited in the most varied and striking

manner. As the train winds deeper into the heart of the projecting

rocks the crested crags loom up beyond the sight; below, the river

rushes in foaming torrents and only a faint arch of the sky is seen.

There are recesses never penetrated by the sun.

[Illustration: CATHEDRAL ROCKS, CLYDE PARK, CRIPPLE CREEK SHORT LINE]

Another group of the sandstone shapes, under the transformation of

moonlight, resolved itself into a band of angels, and still another

mountain-side seems to be the scene of ballet dancers. The splendid

heights of Dolores Peak and Expectation Mountain, the Lizard Head,

the Cathedral Spires, the Castle Peaks of the Sangre de Cristo--what

points and groups that fairly focus all conceivable sublimity they

form! Here is a state more than a third larger than all New England;

it is the state of sunsets and of stars; of scenery that is impressive

and uplifting, rather than merely picturesque; a state whose plains,

even, are of the same altitude as the summit of Mount Washington in the

White Mountains, and whose mountains and peaks ascend to an altitude

of over two miles above this height. Of the total extent of Colorado,

the mountains, inclusive of parks and foothills, occupy two-thirds of

the area. So it is easily realized to what extent they dominate the

scene. But great and impressive as they are in effect, the mountain

features have an undoubted influence, however unconsciously received,

on the character of the people. The effect of beauty on character is

incalculable. When to beauty is added sublimity, how much greater must

this effect be! It was not mere rhetoric when the Psalmist exclaimed,

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.... The Lord

shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul." It is

this train of thought which is inevitably suggested to the mind in

gazing upon the stately, solemn impressiveness of the mountain scenery.

Nature has predestined Colorado for the theatre of noble life, and the

influence is all-pervading.

Great engineering feats are in evidence all over Colorado. Miles of

railway tunnels pass through the mountains. No mountain, not even

Pike's Peak, is regarded in Colorado as being in any sense an obstacle

to any form of the extension of travel. The railroad either passes

through it or climbs it. The matter is apparently simple to the

railroad mind, and evidently all the peaks of the Himalayas piled on

Pike's or Long's peaks--"Ossa piled on Pelion"--would not daunt the

Coloradoan enterprise. In fact, the greater the obstacle, the greater

is the enterprise thereby incited to overcome it. In the most literal

way obstacles in this land of enchantment are miraculously transformed

to stepping-stones. But what would you,--in an Enchanted Country?

Colorado has four great systems of parks whose elevation is from seven

to nine thousand feet: North Park, with an area of some twenty-five

hundred square miles; South Park, one thousand; Middle Park, three

thousand; and San Luis, with nine thousand four hundred square

miles,--all sheltered by mountains, watered by perpetual streams, and

so rich in grass lands as to afford perpetual grazing and farming

resources. Colorado has nearly one thousand inland lakes, and over two

hundred and fifty rivers fed from mountain snows. Its grand features

include mountains, cañons, gorges and deep chasms, crags and heights;

its mountain systems cover more than five times the area of the Alps,

and its luminous, electrically exhilarating air, its play of color, and

the necromancy of distances that seem near when afar--all linger in the

memory as a dream of ecstatic experiences. Colorado is all a splendor

of color, of vista, and of dream. It is the most poetic of states.

Now the fact that this country has been importing over two million tons

of sugar a year lends importance to the beet sugar factories already

largely established. Colorado has a future in beet sugar hardly second

to her gold-mining interests, if her interests receive the national

safe-guarding that is her due.

Colorado and the Philippines were brought into collision of interests

by the attempt to reduce the tariff on sugar imported from those

islands. This would ruin the beet sugar industry in the Centennial

State, which is already beginning to transform it into one of the

richest agricultural states in the Union.

This industry is absolutely identified with the irrigation interests

of Colorado, as it is the arid land irrigated that offers the best

facilities for the sugar beets.

The beet sugar enterprise means remunerative work for the farmer, good

business for the railroads and merchants, and an incalculable degree of

prosperity for all Colorado. Thomas F. Walsh, of Ouray, Colorado, and

of Washington, made an earnest protest against this movement.

Mr. Walsh is a great capitalist, but while he has not one dollar

concerned in the beet sugar enterprise of his state, he is a loyal and

devoted son of Colorado. In a convincing manner he said:

"... It is not a small thing, this robbery of American farmers and

home-makers for the benefit of sugar corporations and exploiters

of Philippine labor. It means the ultimate ruin of an industry

that is full of the brightest promise for thousands of Americans.

It means that the people of the United States shall pay tribute

to a trust forever for one of the necessaries of life.... The

removal of protection to Colorado sugar growers would simply mean

that the sugar trust, or cormorants in human form like it, would

go to the Philippines, employ the peons at starvation wages, and

send millions of tons of sugar to the United States. Would the

consumer here be benefited? Not at all. Has the consumer benefited

by reciprocity with Cuba? The sugar trust has received a gift from

the treasury of the United States--that is all."

And again Mr. Walsh truly says:

"This proposition is merely a design on the part of enormously

rich, greedy speculators, who are willing to adopt any means for

the accumulation of more money. Money, money, money! They have

already a thousand times more than they need, and are simply money

mad. They propose to exploit the Philippines for their own selfish

ends. Help for the poor Filipinos, indeed! Imagine the generosity

of these get-rich-quick sharks towards the peons in their employ.

Think of the wages that would be paid, contrasted with the standard

of living in the United States! I'd rather have the people of this

country exterminated than to be brought to such a level."

Regarding the arid land Mr. Walsh said:

"With the application of water to this land under the National

Irrigation Act--one of the greatest acts of statesmanship

accomplished under our broad-minded and far-sighted President--the

people of Colorado will furnish an outlet for a great population,

and the cultivation of beets for sugar will enable thousands of

American citizens to establish homes of their own. That is what is

now being done in Colorado, and the industry is in its infancy.

The people have gone in there at the suggestion of the government,

planted beets provided to them by the agricultural department, and

started a great industry. There was an implied, if not expressed,

promise that they were to be protected in this new industry. Yet

it is now proposed to place them in competition with the peons

of the Philippines, at the most critical time in the history of

the industry. The people of the East," continued Mr. Walsh, "do

not seem to be able to grasp the great possibilities of the arid

West under the operation of the national irrigation law. The West,

properly irrigated with water that we know can be developed by

drainage, wells, and underground flow, will easily support fifty

millions of people. Think of what this means! Fifty millions of

American citizens owning their own homes! It is an incalculable

addition to the wealth and strength of the United States."

One of the very valuable and exceptional resources of Colorado is

in its stone, which equals the world's best product in its quality.

Millions of tons of almost every variety of building stone lie

unclaimed on the hills and plateaus. There are quarries in Gunnison

County that would make their owners multi-millionnaires, could the

stone be made easy of access or transportation. The difficulty of the

former, and the high freight charges, combine to delay this field

of development. In Pueblo there is a marbleized sandstone that is

very beautiful. Its "crushing" strength, as the architectural phrase

goes, is between eleven and twelve thousand pounds to the square

inch,--a strength which exceeds the most exacting requirements of any

architect. This stone is found in unlimited quantities. In the country

around Fort Collins there is a red sandstone which is very popular, and

this is also found in large quantities at Castle Rock, south of Denver.

Near Trinidad is a gray sandstone of great beauty, and the Amago stone,

which is used for the Denver Postoffice, is a favorite.

In stone for decorative purposes also, Colorado is plentifully

supplied. Specimens of marble from the vicinity of Redstone show

characteristics as beautiful as are seen in the finest Italian marble

found at Carrara.

Besides the marble for building there are also vast beds of the purest

white marble, which will soon be placed on the market for statuary

purposes.

Vast deposits of granite are to be found in many different sections of

the state. In Clear Creek County, about Silver Plume and Georgetown,

there are mountains of granite. In the southern part of the state

deposits are found which are used extensively for monumental purposes,

and great quantities of this granite are shipped out of the state.

Although only a limited amount of work in the way of development and

seeking markets has been done for Colorado stone, the value of the

sales is already an appreciable source of revenue.

Statistically, Colorado ranks first in the United States as to the

yield of gold and silver; first in the area of land under irrigation;

first as to the quality of wheat, potatoes, and melons, and as to

the percentage of sugar in the sugar beet. The state ranks fifth in

coal and iron; sixth in live stock, and eighth in agriculture. It is

true, however, that irrigated agriculture is considered to be the

most important interest in Colorado. The Centennial State is not,

primarily, as has often been supposed, a mining state; the mines, rich

and varied in products as they are, offer yet a value secondary to that

of agriculture. A mine is always an uncertainty. A rich pocket may be

found that is an isolated one and leads to nothing of a permanently

rich deposit. A vast outlay of time and expensive mechanism can be

made that will not result in any returns. An apparently rich mine may

suddenly come to an end; the miner may have reason to believe that

if he could go down some thousands of feet he would again strike the

rich vein; he may do this at great cost of machinery and labor only

to find that the vein has totally disappeared, or does not exist. All

these and many other mischances render mining something very far from

an exact science,--something, indeed, totally incalculable, even to

the specialists and experts,--while agriculture is an industry whose

conditions render it within reasonable probabilities of control and

calculation. The great problem which continues to confront Colorado,

and to a far greater extent Arizona, is the more complete understanding

of what Prof. Elwood Mead, the government expert in national irrigation

problems, calls "the duty of water" and the conditions which influence

it as a basis for planning the larger and costlier works which must be

built in the future.

"One of the leading objects of expert irrigation investigation is to

determine the duty of water," says Professor Mead, and he adds:

"In order to do this it is necessary to deal with a large range

of climatic conditions, and to study the influence of different

methods of application and the requirements of different crops.

Farmers need an approximate knowledge of the duty of water in order

to make intelligent contracts for their supply. It is needed by

the engineer and investors in order to plan canals and reservoirs

properly. Without this knowledge every important transaction in

the construction of irrigation works, or in the distribution of

water therefrom, is very largely dependent on individual judgment

or conjecture.... In constructing reservoirs it is as necessary to

know whether they will be filled in a few years by silt as to know

that the dam rests on a solid foundation; and it is as desirable to

provide some means for the removal of this sedimentary accumulation

as it is to provide an adequate waste way for floods."

The problems of irrigation are evidently highly complicated ones. There

are large tracts of irrigated land selling at three hundred dollars an

acre which, fifty years ago, were held as worthless desert regions. The

value of water rights has risen from four to thirty-five dollars an

acre. The Platte River and its tributaries, alone, irrigate one million

nine hundred and twenty-four thousand four hundred and sixty-five

acres. In the South Platte the average flow of water is two thousand

seven hundred and sixty-five feet a second. The North Platte and its

tributaries irrigate about nine hundred thousand acres. There are now

over two million acres in Colorado under actual irrigation, with an

agricultural population of some one hundred and fifty thousand, with a

total income of over thirty millions. The agricultural population is

increasing so rapidly that the day cannot be distant when it will reach

a million, with a total production of more than one hundred and fifty

million dollars. It is believed that an expenditure of forty millions

in irrigation at the present time would immediately result in an

increment of from two hundred to three hundred millions. The irrigation

bill that passed Congress in 1904 proved of the most beneficial nature

to Colorado; not only for its immediate effects, but for the promise

it implied and the confidence inspired in the immediate future. The

encouragement of irrigation in Colorado is the influence that enlarges

and develops the agricultural efforts, promoting the growing industry

of beet sugar and extending all resources. Beyond the material results

there lie, too, the most important social conditions of the greater

content and industry of the people and the corresponding decrease of

tendencies toward anarchy and disorder.

In the quarter of a century--with the sixth year now added--since

Colorado became a state there has passed over twenty million acres of

government lands into the individual ownership of men whose capital,

for the most part, consisted solely of the horses and wagon that they

brought with them. Of this vast area there are some two and a half

million acres under agricultural cultivation, which are assessed at

a valuation of some twenty-five millions. The Boston and Colorado

smelter, established in 1873, has produced a valuation in gold, silver,

and copper of nearly ninety-six millions. In the year of 1905 the

Colorado mines,--gold, silver, lead, copper, and zinc,--all told,

produced nearly ninety million dollars.

The population of Colorado is increasing rapidly, not only by the

stream of immigration that pours in of those who come _con intentione_,

but to a considerable degree by those who come only as tourists and

visitors, and who become so fascinated with Colorado's charm, and so

impressed with her rich and varied resources, that they remain. The

development of this state is one of the most remarkable and thrilling

pages in American history. It is the story of personal sacrifice,

personal heroism, personal devotion to the nobler purposes and ideals

of life that no one can read unmoved.

"There can be no backward movement, not even a check in the steady

tramp of such a conquering army," said the "Denver Republican"

editorially. "Before it, mountains melt into bars of gold, of silver,

of copper, lead, zinc, and iron. It passes over virgin soil, and behind

it spring up fields of grain and groves of fruit. It brings coal from

distant fields, rocks from far-away hills, and its artisans mould and

weld and send out tools of trade and articles of merchandise to all the

world.

"It pushes the railroads it needs to where it needs them, and the world

comes to marvel at its audacity. It finds to-day what yesterday it

needed and to-morrow it must have. It waits only the world's needs or

pleasures to find yet other ways to supply them."

The prosperity of Colorado is a remarkable fact in our national

history. By some untraced law, defects, faults, misfortunes, or crimes

are always made more prominent than virtue and good fortune. The crime

is telegraphed everywhere, the good deed is passed over in silence--as

a rule. And so the strikes, and the outlawry, and the discords and

troubles of Colorado have been very widely heralded, while there

has been less general recognition of the firm and just governmental

authority that has held these outbreaks in check, and has almost

succeeded in ending them entirely.

In general aspects and conveniences the towns and cities are under

excellent municipal regulations. Leadville, formerly one of the most

lawless of great mining camps, is to-day a peaceful and prosperous city

on a great trans-continental highway. The Western towns begin with

wide, clean, beautiful streets. They begin with the most tasteful

architecture. It may not be the most expensive or the most colossal,

but it is beautiful.

Northern Colorado is in many respects a distinctive region of itself.

It offers rich agricultural facilities; the beet sugar factories at

Greeley are making it a commercial centre; the electric trolley line

which will soon connect Greeley with Denver will multiply the homes

and settlements within this distance of fifty miles, and this part

of Colorado is enriched with great coal fields. The latter promise

not merely their own extension of industries in digging the coal and

putting it on the market, but they also indicate another and far more

important result, which stimulates the scientific imagination,--that of

making Northern Colorado a power centre whose strength can be applied

in a variety of ways and transmitted over a large area of country. For

more than two years the Government has been conducting a series of

experiments in a very thorough manner, endeavoring to ascertain the gas

values of the great lignite coal fields between Boulder and Denver. It

has been discovered that the converting of the coal into gas gives it

double the efficiency for use as a motor power for engine or for fuel

than can be gained from the coal in its natural state. A ton of coal

converted into gas will, as gas, give twice the power that the coal

would have yielded, and give the same power that two tons of coal, that

has not been converted into gas, would afford. In order, however,

to produce this power economically, it must be done at the point of

mining. It is there that the gas producers must be located; and from

these points the gas can be transported in pipes, or can be converted

into electricity and sent by wires at far less cost than would be that

of sending the coal itself by freight. These discoveries not only

suggest that this region in Colorado is destined in the near future

to become a power centre which will be tapped from the surrounding

country for a great distance in all directions, and will thus render

Boulder one of the most important of Western cities; but they also

suggest the evident tendency of the age toward intensity rather than

immensity,--toward the concentration of energy in the most ethereal

form rather than its diffusion through large and clumsy masses of

material.

Colorado contains over twenty-five thousand square miles of coal

fields, distributed over the state, with an average annual product of

over seven million tons. No other corresponding area in the entire

world exceeds Colorado in its great storage of coal, and the state

ranks as one of the first in the production of iron.

There are already fifteen beet sugar factories in operation,

representing investments amounting to over twelve million dollars,

and which are estimated to have produced, in 1906, an aggregate of

some two hundred and twenty thousand pounds of sugar, the percentage

of saccharine matter being higher than that of the sugar beet of

California.

[Illustration: SULTAN MOUNTAIN]

Statistically, Colorado ranks first in irrigation, and there are some

eighteen thousand miles of irrigating canals already in operation, with

the system being so rapidly extended that it almost outruns the pace of

calculation. Three million acres are under cultivation in Colorado, and

two million eight hundred and fifty thousand acres are irrigated; the

storage reservoirs already constructed are sufficient to place another

million of acres under cultivation. This irrigated land sells from

sixty to one hundred dollars per acre. Colorado has a reputation for

being a great potato state, and in the year 1905 the town of Greeley

alone shipped over three hundred thousand dollars' worth of potatoes,

while tomatoes are a feature often yielding ninety dollars to the acre,

and celery has been estimated to yield one hundred and fifty dollars an

acre. There are tracts of from two to three thousand acres devoted to

peas alone, producing forty to fifty thousand cans; and asparagus grows

with great success.

Colorado is a fruit country offering the best of conditions. The

peaches of Southern Colorado lead the world in flavor, beauty, and

size; the canteloupe flourishes with such extraordinary vitality that

it often yields a revenue of fifty dollars an acre; and the watermelon

also grows in unusual perfection. The valley of the Arkansas River is

the great region for producing melons, and Colorado exports these to

New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. Apples, plums, and

pears grow with equally bounteous success, and there are fruit farms

that with their orchards and small fruits sometimes realize fifty

thousand dollars a year, when the season is a good one and the market

conditions favorable. The seasons of irrigated land are largely under

control, and surpass those regions which are at the mercy of excessive

rains or of droughts. So the law of compensation still obtains. The

resources of horticulture, alone, in Colorado are very important, and

they form one of the most alluring features of this beautiful and

richly bountiful state.

In the way of crops, alfalfa takes the lead in Colorado, as wheat

does in Kansas. It requires the very minimum of care; the land being

once planted with alfalfa, there is need only of turning on the

irrigation, and mowing it, at the right time. Alfalfa produces three

crops a year, and yields from one to two tons per acre. It sells at

from three to ten dollars a ton, and this makes a revenue quite worth

considering. The difficulties encountered everywhere in Colorado, in

every branch of industry, or in domestic work, are those of securing

labor. Wages are high in every conceivable line of work, but to a

large extent the labor and service, even when procured, is of a very

poor order. In many of the larger hotels employés are often kept

on the pay-roll for two months at a time when not needed, simply

because it is impossible to fill their places when the need comes.

From requirements of the seamstress, the laundress, the cook, the

maid, the farmer's working-men, or the employés in almost any line

of work, the same difficulty exists. Much is heard regarding strikes

and other forms of the eternal conflict between labor and capital;

and yet the high rates paid, the concessions constantly made to the

demands of employés, the conditions provided for them, would seem, at

a superficial glance, to be such as to bridge over every difficulty.

Domestic service is something that presents the greatest problem on the

part of the employer. If there is so large a number of "the unemployed"

in the East, why should not the conditions balance themselves and this

superfluous element find good conditions for living in Colorado? This

question involves the problem of economics, with which these pages have

nothing to do; but no traveller, no sojourner, can linger in Colorado

who is not simply lost in wonder that the varied work that is waiting,

with the most liberal payments for the worker, and the multitude of

workers in the East who need the liberal payment, cannot, by some law

of elective affinity, be brought together.

When it is realized that the Rocky Mountains occupy in Colorado

more than five times the entire space of the Alps in Europe, their

importance in climatic influence as well as in scenic magnificence

can be understood. The forests of Colorado are found on the mountains

and foothills. The heights are covered with a dense growth of pine

woods, while in lower ranges abound the silver spruce and the cedar.

Colorado has a state forestry association which aims to secure as a

reservation all forests above the altitude of eight thousand five

hundred feet, as this preservation is considered most important to the

water supply. In the Alps there are nine peaks over fourteen thousand

feet in height; in the Rocky Mountains, within the limits of Colorado

alone, there are forty-three peaks, each one of which exceeds in height

the Jungfrau. There are in Colorado more than thirty towns, each of

which is the theatre of active progress, and each of which lies at an

altitude exceeding that of the pass of St. Bernard. The sublime cañons

and gorges are eloquent of the story of Titanic forces which rent the

mountains apart. The vast plateaus were once the bed of inland seas.

In the cañon of Grand River towering walls rise to the height of half

a mile, in sheer precipitous rock, for a distance of some sixteen

miles. The strata of these rocks are distinctly defined, and the play

of color is rich and fantastic. The vast walls are in brilliant hues

of red and amber and green and brown,--the blending of color lending

its enchantment to the marvellous scene. Each cañon has its own

individuality. No one repeats the wild charm of another. Excursions

abound. There is "the loop," an enchanting mountain ride made from

Denver within one day for the round trip; the "Rainbow" tour, and

others, besides that of the "circle" already described. In each and all

these journeys the route is often on the very verge of the abyss, and

the sublimities, the splendor of coloring, exceed any power of language

to suggest.

In Northwestern Colorado, along the White River and northward, lies

the sportsman's paradise, now reached only by a stage drive of from

forty-five to ninety miles from the little town of Rifle on the "scenic

route" of the Denver and Rio Grande, beyond Glenwood Springs. Trapper's

Lake and the Marvine lakes are well known, and the Marvine Hunting

Lodge is a favorite resort of English tourists.

Estes Park, some seventy miles from Denver, a favorite summer resort,

is a long, narrow plateau of two or three miles in width and fifteen

in length, a mile and a half above sea level, and enclosed in mountain

walls that tower above the park from two to seven thousand feet. A

swift stream, well stocked with trout, runs through the park. The

four great systems of parks divide Colorado into naturally distinct

localities: North Park, with an area of twenty-five hundred square

miles; Middle Park, with its three thousand; the smaller South Park

of one thousand; and San Luis, with over ninety-four hundred square

miles,--all, in the aggregate, presenting a unique structural plan.

Every journey in Colorado has its vista of surprise. No artist can

paint its panoramas. Every traveller in this Land of Enchantment must

realize that its exhilaration cannot be decanted in any form. It is a

thing that lies in character, moulding life.

Colorado is the Land of Achievement. It offers resources totally

unsurpassed in the entire world for an unlimited expanse. These

resources await only the recognition of him who can discern the

psychological moment for their development. That nothing is impossible

to him who wills is one of the eternal verities, and even the expert

census taker, or the supernatural tax collector whom nothing escapes,

might search in vain, within the limits of the splendid Centennial

State, for any man who fails to will. The resplendence of this state

of stars and sunshine is due to this blaze of human energy. The

Coloradoans are the typical spirits who are among those elect

"... who shall arrive

Prevailing still;

Spirits with whom the stars connive

To work their will."