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Show 570 WESTERN WILDS. there is considerable good land near by and between here and Pueblo. There is, however, hardly any such thing as agriculture in Colorado; it is horticulture rather, farming on a small scale, except where there is meadow land. Hence to Rosita, county seat of Ouster City, it is thirty miles south; and a little beyond that is the wonderful Silver Cliff, where the first house was erected the first week in September, 1878, and before Christmas there were hundreds, and the population is now at least five thousand! Such is the suddenness of things in a mining country. As Cafion City is shut in by the hills from the rudest wintry blasts, nestling close in to the base of the Rocky Mountains, it is regarded as the best winter resort in the State for invalids. To this add the iron and soda springs, the hot mineral baths, and the wonderful scenery of the Royal Gorge and Grape Creek Cafion, and no more need be said. We spent a day of delight in Grape Creek Canon, which is the first stage on the road to Silver Cliff. As we wound around the curves of the road it seemed at every turn we were shut in; but following up the stream we found the walls opening on new scenes of grandeur. The rocks are basaltic, and reared in columns, re-minding one greatly of the pictures of the Giant's Causeway. They rise in grape- colored pillars to a height of three or four hundred feet, and are often capped with a sort of cornice which gives an odd resemblance to architectural designs. In many. places the cafion is so narrow that road and stream occupy its entire width ; and since the railway to Silver Cliff is completed, it gives a rare op-portunity for a romantic ride. Temple Cafion opens from Grape Creek, through an archway of rock wonderfully like that of the Natural Bridge in Virginia. The McClure House, our head- quarters, is full of excited human-ity. All the restless spirits of the world seem crowding on to Leadville, Gunnison, Silver Cliff, or San Juan. Sanguine " pilgrims" assure us that all the " science, falsely so called," has been upset by the new discoveries at Silver Cliff; for there is just as rich ore there in one kind of rock as another. " You don't even have to find a lode or crevice to get ore, and the biggest green-horn this side of New Jersey is just as apt to strike a bonanza as the oldest professor of mineralogy." And verily, late develop-ments there have about proved this boast true. The bordering mountain is appropriately called Greenhorn Range, as if in com-pliment to that class of prospectors. And, after finding rich ore |
