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Show COLORADO. 455 almost on level ground, a sort of plateau bordering the highest peaks ; and, but for the view to the eastward over the timber, might have fancied ourselves on the plains at the foot of a sharp, rocky range. We were in the midst of mountain meadows, every little slope being rich and green with grass and willow brush ; but in every gorge, both above and below us, were the hard accumulations of snow and ice, yielding only scant rivulets to the fervent glances of the sun. And yet all around these snow banks were bright borders of flowers of the same varieties we had seen below, but so tiny that they resembled colored grass rather than flowers. On this plain stood the ruins of Argentine City, which, ten years be-fore, boasted a thousand inhabitants. With the first discovery of silver en the summit, it seemed to be in such immense lodes that its richness was considered inexhaustible, and a city sprung up like magic at the edge of the timber line. But, when they got their lodes developed, they found that though rich in lead they run only sixty to a hundred ounces in silver to the ton, while no man could do more than half a day's work in that rarified air; the same wages being required, and provisions even more expensive, and so all the mines there were aban-doned as unprofitable. Still Argentine stands untenanted, and mill-ions of pounds of lead and silver ore wait for owners. It was a strange and romantic scene : the abandoned town in the midst of a green meadow ; banks of flowers all around, dotting the sloping plain in red, blue, and yellow ; right among them heavy snow drifts, fifty feet deep in the gulches, from which ran tiny rivulets to water the grass and flowers ; rising before us the last and highest range, seamed and scarred in every direction, and shining over all the hot sun of July. To stand in the sunshine one might think it no. cooler than in Georgetown ; but sitting in the shade it soon appears that the heat is all in the direct rays of the sun; the air is really cool. While ' the ridge was too abrupt to be scaled in front, a gentle slope led away to the north- east, covered with buffalo grass nearly to the summit. Up this we toiled for an hour, reaching the highest point at 11 A. M., and finding there some ten acres of tolerably level land, and another won-der. While the whole mountain is granite, the surface is covered with sandstone rocks, which show marks of long abrasion. This is a com-plete contradiction ; geologically these stones do not belong there. Local geologists have decided that they were brought from the far North and dropped there by an iceberg, toward the close of the glacial period. Toward the south- west the Pacific slope begins in an abrupt fall of |