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Show 456 WESTERN WILDS. fifteen hundred feet from the summit, no descent at that point being possible ; but the grandest scene is to the north- west. Sloping down at an angle of eighty degrees, but still passable to men and mountain sheep, a cliff sinks twenty- five hundred feet to a beautiful valley. Across this, and seemingly not more than half a mile away, is Torrey's Peak ; a little to the left of it, separated by a complete ice- gorge, is Gray's Peak, so near that it seems one might fire a pistol ball across the chasm. It is at least five miles in a direct line from where we stand. Between us the green valley is dotted with snow banks, and the little streams running from them now appear ice- locked. But ex-amination through a field- glass shows that what looks like ice is really white foam ; the rivulets are strong streams, fed all summer by the melting snows from the gorge between the great peaks. For an hour we amused ourselves by loosening the movable bowlders and prying them over the cliff. If they escaped the first obstruction, they ac-quired a velocity that sent them bounding over the rocky points below, then rushed with speed, that almost made the head swim, down the granite troughs, jumping fifty or a hundred feet at a time, till, carried by a rebound clear out of their course, they struck on some flinty peak near the bottom and were ground to powder, the dust flying in the air like the spray dashed up when a cannon- ball glances on the water. Two years before a granite bowlder, loosened by a blast, from the mountain east of Georgetown, estimated at two tons' weight, came down the two thousand feet, and struck on one end of a blacksmith shop, while the owner was, luckily, a few rods away. Every plank and timber was ground to splinters ; and, it is perhaps needless to add, that smith rebuilt a little farther out in the valley. Two months later we visited Gray's Peak, and if we had consulted all the almanacs from " Zadkiel " to " Danbury," we could not have chosen a worse time. December would have been better, as we should then have had cold weather all the way, and suffered no sharp con-trasts. As it was, the array of red eyes and peeled noses was dis-couraging. Our party of ten included three correspondents, four ladies, a college, professor, and two indefinitely classed as young men. It is agreed by all old settlers, that no one can decide on the weather up there two hours ahead, unless it has just cleared up with a cold wind; then it will probably. be clear for a day or two. Therefore, though the morning was the darkest of the season, and a dense fog settling down on Georgetown, the general judgment was that we should soon drive through and get above the fog, and have clear weather at the Peak. So, well supplied with wraps, we set out with |