mountains; then perhaps a bare steep space of uniform dull green
displays the tone of mingled bunch grass and sage-brush; next will
appear a wall of red sandstone set at an angle, and contrasting richly
in shades varying from dull vermillion to deep maroon, with the
ochre-yellow, white or bluish gray of the rocks surmounting it.
Occasionally these capping-stones show themselves in long, well exposed
strata, slanting to the horizon; sometimes here and there they simply
crop out in water-worn crags; again they will be lost altogether under
the fringing shrubbery that overhangs the low forehead of the bluff. It
is fifteen miles before the valley narrows in, and throughout this whole
extent of bottom-land the ground is tilled from the river-brink to the
stony uplands on either side, the fall of the water being so great that
irrigation is easy. Ranches succeed each other without any waste land
between, and I do not know any portion of the Far West (this side of
Salt Lake basin) where the farms seem as thrifty or the houses so
comfortable and pleasant. Every sort of grain is raised, and the yield
to an acre is large, as must always be the case where the soil is rich,
the weather uniform, and the ranchman able to control his water-supply
and apply it as he sees need. Garden-produce is much attended to, also,
for there is more profit in it than even in grain. Hay and its
substitutes, alfalfa and lucerne, take high rank in the list, and of the
two last named it is customary to cut three crops annually. In the
winter of 1880-81 baled hay was worth $120 and $140 a ton in Durango,
while one man told me that it cost him almost $500 a ton to get a supply
to his mine in an emergency. In those days the farmer had as good a mine
as any on the sources of his river. Such prices will probably never
prevail again, now that the railway brings hay and feed from Kansas; but
the resident producer can still compete with import figures at a
handsome profit.
[Illustration: GARFIELD MEMORIAL.]
Two or three miles above Durango we pass Animas City, a small village of
unpainted houses, which had an existence and an exciting history long
years before its prosperous neighbor was dreamed of; and six miles
farther come upon Trimble Springs, directly at the foot of the high bank
which here confronts the western side of the valley. It is a singular
coincidence, perhaps, that within easy distance and access of all the
larger towns or population centers in Colorado, mineral springs are
found, whose virtues are sufficiently marked to warrant development,
thus supplying each neighborhood its own sanitary as well as pleasure
resort. Trimble Springs occupies this relation to both Durango and
Silverton, and is greatly frequented by the dwellers in these towns,
besides numerous visitors from more remote points. A capacious hotel, of
attractive exterior, and admirably arranged and furnished within,
affords the comforts of a home. Near by is the bath-house, one hundred
feet in length, and equipped in the most approved modern style, with all
varieties of baths. The temperature of the water as it comes from the
ground is 126° F., and iron, soda and magnesia are the predominating
qualities, in the order named, while there is also much free carbolic
acid gas. The record of cures effected here contains many cases of
rheumatism, liver and kidney complaints, and chronic blood and skin
diseases; while it is averred that the use of the waters will entirely
eradicate the tobacco habit. The temperature is equable, and the
surroundings romantic. The river supplies excellent trout-fishing, and
the hunter will find an abundance of game in the adjacent foothills. The
place must grow in popularity, as it becomes more widely known; for, as
the Madame declared, "it excels the White Mountains in scenic features,
not to mention the superiority of its thermal founts, and the charm of
its climate, over any eastern sanitarium." We marveled at the
stateliness of her phrases, but couldn't dispute the facts.
Just at the head of the farming lands, stands the little settlement of
Hermosa. I had been there once before this more auspicious advent, after
two days of dreadfully weary travel over a mountain trail, and had come
down into the valley only to find our much-doubted warnings verified,
and these cabins all deserted. We knew what it meant, but made haste to
feast upon the green corn, and tomatoes, melons and roots of every sort,
which the panic stricken ranchmen had left behind. Stuffing every
available bag and pocket full, we went on to a camping-spot, and
deliberated while we cooked our princely dinner.
It was certain that Indians had driven these settlers away, yet there
were no signs of hostility apparent. There were five of us, and we had
proposed going two hundred miles directly into the Indian country.
Should we proceed, or turn back and abandon our exploration? Perhaps if
we had possessed only our customary bacon and beans we might have
halted; but the luscious corn and melons turned the scale, and we
resolved to go forward. Had we not done so we should have missed the
rare satisfaction of being the first to tell the story of the
Cliff-Dwellers of the Mancos and McElmo. In the nine years which since
have worn their footprints into the trail of events, little change had
come to this particular spot; and I was glad of it, for it left in my
memory a landmark which was lost elsewhere under the obliterating hand
of an eager civilization, that has tamed the primitive wildness we rode
over in 1874.
Above Hermosa, the valley contracts rapidly, and the wide fields give
place to groves of pine, free of underbrush, through which are caught
glimpses of the bright stream sinking away from us on the right. The
railway commences to ascend the western hills, carving its way along
their face, and tracing their shallow undulations by sweeping curves. In
places the sharp stones blasted from the roadbed cover the steep and
forbidding descent for hundreds of feet below us. Now the river has
disappeared, though a rocky ledge marks its cañon confines, the
intervening space is wild and broken, and the pines are denser, with
great blackened trunks. Presently we emerge into a tiny park, and
Rockwood is reached. The location is secluded yet picturesque. Lofty
cliffs and precipitous mountains hem it in on all sides, and the meadows
in the small depression beside the town are fringed with trees, which
are tall and imposing, and yet look more like dwarfed bushes against the
massive background of towering bluffs. A lively village has grown up
here, whose principal stimulus exists in the fact that it is the
forwarding point for the extensive mining district lying between the La
Plata and San Miguel ranges. Rico, the most important camp in that
section, is connected with Rockwood by a good road, thirty-two miles in
length, over which stages and supply-trains make daily trips.
Before leaving Rockwood the train-men are observed to examine critically
the wheels, trucks and couplings of our cars, and we know that something
unusual ahead suggests the precaution.
Moving slowly through a deeply shaded cutting, a sharp outward curve is
rounded, and what a vision greets our astonished eyes! The most
magnificent of all the cañons of the Rockies! The mountain presents a
red granite front, perpendicular for nearly a thousand feet, and midway
between top and bottom has been chiseled from the solid rock a long
balcony or shelf, just wide enough for the track. From far below comes
to our ears the roar of driven waters, and with bated breath we gaze
fearfully over the edge, so perilously near, down, down to where a
bright green torrent urges its impatient way between walls whose jetty
hue no sun-ray relieves. Overhead the beetling precipice towers
ominously, as if about to crush the pigmies who had dared to invade its
storm-swept breast. In its shadow all is silent, weird and awful.
The opposite side of the cañon, scarcely the toss of a pebble away,
rises almost vertically, a smooth, unscalable wall, that gleams like
brightly polished bronze, but is striped with upright lines of shadow,
so that it recalls Scott's picture of Melrose Abbey under the
harvest-moon:--
"And buttress and buttress alternately
Seemed carved in ebon and ivory."
Higher up, the wall breaks away into receding hills, on whose grassy and
wooded slopes the sunshine plays hide and seek. A little above the
gorge we can discern where the track turns to the right and crosses on a
long, low trestle, the alcove in the cañon, while in the loftier heights
beyond, the verdure-clad mountains are seen rising into shapely cones
and coquetting with the fleecy clouds. Such were the elements of the
sublime view in the Cañon of the Rio de las Animas Perdidas caught and
perpetuated by our Artist.
Beyond the opening the defile again closes into so narrow a compass that
the pines and spruces clinging precariously to the cliffs mingle in a
dim arch that spans the chasm. Again the train is creeping cautiously
along a dizzy brink, while an hundred feet below the pent-up flood is
forcing its passage through the unworn and pitilessly hard rocks. The
water is still green as emerald, and has the same luminous quiver and
transparence of verdancy which the gem possesses. What gives it that
vivid color here in this dark recess?--anything but the fact that it is
surcharged with the air caught in its turbulence? We can see great
nebulæ of submerged bubbles racing by, meteor-like, too swiftly to rise
at once to the glassy surface. Niagara, below the Falls, has that same
wonderful, deep green tint. Imprison Niagara, or only so much of it as
you could span with a stone's throw; contract its upright, volcanic
walls into a crevice sixty feet wide--turn the river up on edge, as it
were--and send it down that black, resounding flume, with all the
impetus of a twenty-mile race,--then you have an image of this "River of
Lost Souls," in the wildest portion of its marvelous channel.
The building of the railway, for the first mile north of Rockwood,
exceeded in its daring any work even in the famous Grand Cañon of the
Arkansas. The engineer who had charge of the construction showed the
Madame a picture one of his surveyors drew of the manner in which the
location was made. Evidently the draughtsman took his observations from
the water's edge, where his vista was between two walls of natural
masonry, and was limited by the side of the gorge which bent sharply
there. This wall was vertical and smooth, for almost a thousand feet
from its base. From that height were seen hanging spider-web-like ropes,
down which men, seeming not much larger than ants, were slowly
descending, while others (perched upon narrow shelves in the face of the
cliffs, or in trifling niches from which their only egress was by the
dangling ropes), sighted through their theodolites from one ledge to the
other, and directed where to place the dabs of paint indicating the
intended roadbed. Similarly suspended, the workmen followed the
engineers, drilling holes for blasting, and tumbling down loose
fragments, until they had won a foothold for working in a less
extraordinary manner. Ten months of steady labor were spent on this
cañon-cutting,--months of work on the brink of yawning abysses and in
the midst of falling rocks, yet not one serious accident occurred.
"Often it seemed as though another hair's distance or straw's weight
would have sent me headlong over the edge," said the chief engineer, and
no doubt all his subordinates could say the same. The expense attending
such construction was of necessity great, the outlay for this single
mile aggregating about $140,000.
Crossing the handsome bridge shown in our sketch, the course of the road
thereafter is generally on the eastern bank of the stream, although it
is recrossed a few times where, by this expedient, expensive excavation
could be avoided. The water gradually rises to the level of the track,
which is henceforth rarely a rod above it. Often in making a curve, one
obtains a charming view up the river, with its gracefully drooping
borders of willows and aspens. Everywhere the mountains are close at
hand on either side, and a goat could scarcely climb their inaccessible
steeps.
Presently a halt is made, and as we alight, such a picture is presented
as it may never be our fortune to again behold. The cañon is compressed
into a narrow fissure among mountains of supreme height, whose fronts
are in unbroken shadow. At the right a waterfall comes leaping down, to
join the foam-flecked river. In the foreground great banks of moss
sustain gay flowers, while over them nod the stately pines, with swaying
vines, keeping time to the fretful murmur of the water. Between and far
beyond the clear-cut sky-lines of nearer peaks, The Needles lift their
splintered pinnacles into the regions of perpetual snow, wrapped in the
gauze of a wondrous atmosphere, and their crests glowing as with a
golden crown.
Continuing northward, we speedily enter Elk Park, a little valley in the
midst of the range, with sunlit meadows and groups of giant pines. As we
turn from the park, a backward glance discloses the subject of our
frontispiece,--Garfield Peak,--lifting its symmetrical summit a mile
above the track, a peerless landmark among its fellows.
Onward, the everlasting hills are marshalled, and among them for miles
the cañon maintains its grandeur. Frequent cascades, glistening like
burnished silver in the sunlight, leap from crag to crag for a thousand
feet down the mountain sides, to lose themselves in the Animas. Thus
grandly ends this glorious ride, and we sweep out into a green park, and
are at Silverton, in the heart of Silver San Juan.
XIII
SILVER SAN JUAN.
The height, the space, the gloom, the glory.
A mount of marble, a hundred spires!
--TENNYSON.
In introducing some account of the southern side of the San Juan
mountains, as a district producing precious metals, it may be said, in
the first place, that it is a section in which productive mining has
only very lately been prosecuted in earnest. Its prospects are
well-founded; but almost up to the present time, its inaccessibility and
other disadvantages have been obstacles to a development that, under
more favorable conditions, would doubtless have occurred. The scrutiny
to which it has been subjected by sharp and knowing eyes, and such
digging as has been done,--by no means a small amount in the
aggregate,--exhibit the fact that the region is remarkable for its
general richness. That is, profitable ores are to be had nearly
everywhere within its limits; hardly a hill can be mentioned where veins
carrying mineral do not abound. Every square mile of its fifty miles
square may safely be assumed to hold one or more good mines. It is
doubtful whether anywhere else in the world there is so large a
territory over which the most valuable metals are so generally diffused.
[Illustration: NEAR THE PINOS-CHAMA SUMMIT.]
"Geologically," we are told on high authority, "the veins of the
district are very young, probably having been formed at the close of the
cretaceous or the beginning of the tertiary period. The enormous
eruptions of the trachytic lava cover a continuous area of more than
five thousand square miles. Stress has been laid upon the impregnation
with mineral matter of certain volcanic strata,--a phenomenon that
occurs throughout a large tract of country. This shows that at the time
of the eruptions such conditions existed as were favorable to the
formation of that class of minerals generally termed _ores_. It is
furthermore to be observed that these impregnations occur mainly in the
younger strata. Although the inference can not be drawn that the
fissures were formed at the same time, or shortly after the deposition
of the trachytic lava, it is allowable to assume that at such a period
the material for filling these fissures was existing near the locality
where but lately so thorough an impregnation had taken place. The fact
that the fissures extend at a number of points, downward, through the
older metamorphic rocks, makes it improbable that they should have been
formed by contraction of the cooling masses. Singular as it may seem,
these lodes are devoid of that which is usually classed as
_surface-ore_. Immediately from the surface the perfectly fresh minerals
are taken out. The gangue is hard and solid. An exception is made, of
course, although only to a slight extent, by pyrite, which decomposes
very readily when exposed to the action of atmospheric influences. This
characteristic may be explained in various ways,--by the rapid
decomposition and breaking off of the wall-rocks, carrying with them
portions of the gangue and ore; by the less intense effect of
atmospheric agencies; by the character of the minerals composing the
ore, and by the comparatively short time that these fissures have been
filled. The latter view is the one that would appear as the most
acceptable.
"A difficult question arises, when a decision is to be made, as to the
causes that have produced the formation of the fissures that were
afterward filled. Accepting the theory that volcanic or plutonic
earthquakes have probably produced the larger number of all lode
systems,--and such we have in this case, it will be necessary to find
whence came the requisite force. Along the highest portion of the
quartzite mountains we have an anticlinal axis which can be traced
westward for nearly forty miles, an upheaval that must have a very
perceptible effect on regions adjoining. The idea at first presented
itself that this might have given rise to the formation of the fissures,
but evidence subsequently discovered demonstrates that long before the
eruption of the trachyte, this disturbance had occurred.
"About twenty miles west from the center of the mining region is a
series of isolated groups of volcanic peaks. The highest one of these,
Mount Wilson, reaches an elevation of 14,285 feet above sea level, or
about 5,000 feet above the valley. Lithologically these groups must be
considered younger than the lode-bearing rock of the Animas, and must
therefore have become eruptive later. It seems quite possible that the
disturbance produced by these eruptions may have resulted in the
formation of the present fissures, which subsequently were filled from
that source which supplied so much mineral matter to other neighboring
rocks in the form of impregnation."
This ore, then, may be set down as principally galena,--a lead ore of
silver, frequently enriched by gray copper (tetrahedrite). The high
percentage of lead makes smelting the most rational process of
treatment, and they are generally to be classified as smelting ores.
In several localities, however, of which Parrott City and Mount Sneffels
are chief examples, rich ores of silver are found, nearly or quite
devoid of lead. These come mainly into the group of antimonial ores,
with chlorides and sulphides also. Popularly these ores,--barring the
chloride,--are termed "brittle silver," and on account of the absence of
lead, they are unfit for smelting, but must eventually be treated by a
milling process in which the pulp is subjected to the action of mercury
in amalgamating pans, where the silver is separated from the quartz and
collected by the quicksilver. Antimonial ores, prior to amalgamation,
will require chlorination, that is, roasting with salt, as is done at
the Ontario mine, Utah; while the chlorides and sulphides of silver can
be treated directly, without roasting, as at the mines of the Comstock
lode, Nevada.
The foregoing remarks apply generally to all of the mining districts
mentioned in the present chapter; and their uniform nature is readily
explained by the fact that the whole neighborhood is of the same
geological age, character and origin.
The mines in the immediate vicinity of Silverton, my starting point, are
situated upon, or rather _in_, the lofty mountains which hem in the
little park. Southward of the town, easily recognized by its cloven
peak, stands the Sultan, thirteen thousand five hundred feet in
altitude. Its most noteworthy mines are the "North Star," "Empire,"
"Jennie Parker," and "Belcher." Tower and Round mountains, next
northward, contain several ledges of low-grade galena ores of silver.
Crossing the Animas to the eastern side, King Solomon wears as the
central jewel in his crown another "North Star." It stands upon his very
brow,--one of the loftiest silver deposits in the world, almost fourteen
thousand feet above the restless surf of the Pacific. Here, too, the ore
is galena and gray copper of extraordinarily high grade. A marvelous
trail has been cut through the woods and then nicked into the almost
solid rock of the bald mountain-crest, far above timber-line, or built
out upon balconies of logs, along which burros carry to the mine all its
supplies, and bring down its product. On King Solomon are several other
noteworthy claims, such as the "Shenandoah," "Eclipse," and "Royal
Tiger."
Nothing but a bird or a mountain sheep would be likely to attempt the
almost vertical wall rising from the southern side of Arastra gulch to
culminate in the spires of Hazelton mountain. Coming out into the
valley, however, a road is to be found zigzagging its way up the slope
leading to the principal mines, pierced only a trifle below the border
of stunted spruce-woods. Very likely Dr. Holland was correct in his
poetico-mineralogical statement that
"Gold-flakes gleam in dim defiles
And lonely gorges;"
but it is certain that in the San Juan, silver resides upon the loftiest
ledges, where the shadowy peaks form "bridal of the earth and sky."
The group of mines to which I have referred are known as the "Aspen,"
consolidating several names of properties under the ownership of the San
Juan and New York Mining and Smelting company, which is also proprietor
of the smelter at Durango.
Sitting in a cozy office one evening, with two or three pleasant
visitors, the conversation fell upon the other side of the year, for the
last man came in rubbing his knuckles as though it were cold.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the merry Madame, glancing out at the ashy-gray peaks,
which were wan in the new moonlight with autumn's first white dusting;
and, as she laughed, she quoted
"Once he sang of summer,
Nothing but the summer;
Now he sings of winter,
Of winter dark and drear;
Just because a snow-flake
Has fallen on his forehead,
He must go and fancy
'Tis winter all the year."
"Well, it _is_, pretty nearly," comes the quick rejoinder. "I have seen
it snow every day during the last week of August, and the seasons which
do not give us frosts in July are rare. When I first came to Baker's
park I asked a miner what sort of a climate reigned here. 'It's nine
months winter and three months mighty late in the fall!' was his laconic
report, and I have found it a true one.
"You see," he continued, "winter really begins about the first of
November. The superintendent who hasn't got his supplies at his
mine-house by that time had better hurry, for some morning a storm will
begin which will drop three or four feet of snow on a level, and fill
all the small gulches full. Then his chance of packing anything up the
mountain is gone. In 1880, several foremen were surprised in that way,
but the first storm came remarkably early,--the 8th of October,--and on
the 11th the snow was five feet deep. Later there was an open spell,
though, when deficiencies could be made up, but that was only luck."
"But," said the Madame, solicitously, "how can men live in those little
cabins, away up there, all through the terrible winter? I should think
they would freeze, or that avalanches would sweep them away."
"Oh, both those misfortunes can be guarded against. The houses are very
tight and snug, and fuel is carefully stored away. Then, too, the work
is carried on underground, where the temperature is practically
changeless the year 'round, and the men have little occasion to go out
of doors unless they wish to, for the entrance to the mine is under the
shelter of the house-roof. Then, too, the fact is, that bleak and
thoroughly arctic as it looks, the mercury will not fall so low, or at
least will not average as low, up at timber line on Sultan, as it will
down here in town. I suppose the excess of dampness in the valley makes
the difference, which is more apparent to our feelings than even to the
thermometer."
"But the snow-slides are sometimes terrific, are they not?" is asked.
"Terrific? I assure you that word is not half strong enough to express
it. When you go up to Cunningham gulch, and over into the other valleys,
you will see the sides of the mountains, in certain places, utterly bare
of trees two or three thousand feet below the limit of their growth.
That is where they have been swept away and kept down by constantly
recurring avalanches of snow, which in many parts of these ranges are
liable to slip down in masses perhaps a mile square and anywhere from
ten to a hundred feet deep, bringing rocks and everything else with
them. Of course, no sapling could stand such a scraping,--nothing can. I
was in a slide once, and I can appreciate it, I assure you."
"You were!" exclaims the Madame, round-eyed at this. "I thought you said
nothing could stand a snow-slide."