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Show MINING IN 1882. 593 attention is the amazing difference in climate and vegetation between this region and that north of the divide, in which we wandered ten years ago. We are away down on latitude 32 and 34, and the strange tropical and desert flora give us the idea of a new creation. There are over one hundred varieties of the cactus, which is the plant of all the far southwest. There is the cereus giganteus, which has at-tained a height of sixty feet and a diameter of three ; the maguey, with a bulbous root as large as a half bushel ; the hedge cactus, with which Mexicans fence their fields ; the amole, used for soap, and many others. All bear fearful thorns and some a most exquisite fruit. From the maguey a very strong liquor is distilled, containing fourteen fights to the gallon. A good table syrup is also made from this plant. There is a great variety of flowers, and in the growing season the landscape often presents a gorgeous sight. About two- thirds of Arizona is cov-ered by mountains, fit only for grazing, timber, or mines; half the other third is a complete desert, and still there are at least 2,500,000 acres of ^ ood land lying in position to be reclaimed by irrigation. But as most of this would require canals on a large scale, such as only government would undertake, there is probably less cultivated land in Arizona to- day than in any one county in Ohio. Coming back through New Mexico we find that old, old territory also waked up on the subject of her mineral wealth; development of many new and some old districts is in rapid progress, but statistics are not so easily obtainable. Let us get back into Colorado and take another start from Canon City, visiting Rosita and Silver Cliff. To reach them we take the Grape Creek line, nearly straight south, some thirty miles. The whole country abounds with wild scenery and startling curiosities. Local geologists have a theory that West Mountain Valley was once the bed and valley of the Arkansas river, as the same formation extends along both. On the east of it is the Greenhorn Range, and west of it the Sangre de Christo mountains ; and on the west side of the first, in a beautiful glade, is Rosita, with some 2,000 inhabitants. Eight miles away is the noted Silver Cliff, three years ago unknown and unnamed, to- day a city of 10,000 peo-ple, with miles of busy streets and all the bustle of a growing mining town. The valley northward from Rosita is very fertile, now taken up by ranches and meadows, which gives these two places an immense advantage in the matter of cheap food and fresh vegetables. The whole formation about Silver Cliff and Rosita is so remarkable that it would require a technical education in geology and mineralogy for the reader to understand it. Suffice it to sav that around and 38 |