The Crest of the Continent: A Summer's Ramble in the Rocky Mountains and Beyond. Ernest IngersollЧитать онлайн книгу.
Gog and Magog.”
“Yes,” I say, “but the tone of your imagery is low. Long, long ago a higher sentiment called them ‘monuments,’ and this whole illy-defined region of grotesquely-cut sandstones, Monument Park.”
And then we all fall into a discussion of the process of formation of these quaint obelisks, which is interrupted by the Artist.
“Here is some pertinent testimony in Ludlow’s admirable book, the ‘Heart of the Continent,’ which by your leave I will read to you. Ready?”
“Fire away!” we reply, and do the same with our cigars, making a treaty of amity in the blaze of a mutual match.
“ ‘I ascended one of the most practicable hills among the number crowned by sculpturesque formations. The hill was a mere mass of sand and débris from decayed rocks, about a hundred feet high, conical, and bearing on its summit an irregular group of pillars. After a protracted examination, I found the formation to consist of a peculiar friable conglomerate, which has no precise parallel in any of our Eastern strata. Some of the pillars were nearly cylindrical, others were long cones; and a number were spindle-shaped, or like a buoy set on end. With hardly an exception, they were surmounted by capitals of remarkable projection beyond their base. These I found slightly different in composition from the shafts. The conglomerate of the latter was an irregular mixture of fragments from all the hypogene rocks of the range, including quartzose pebbles, pure crystals of silex, various crystalline sandstones, gneiss, solitary horn-blende and feldspar, nodular iron stones, rude agates and gun-flint; the whole loosely cemented in a matrix composed of clay, lime (most likely from the decomposition of gypsum), and red oxide of iron. The disk which formed the largely projecting capital seemed to represent the original diameter of the pillar, and apparently retained its proportions in virtue of a much closer texture and larger per cent. of iron in its composition. These were often so apparent that the pillars had a contour of the most rugged description, and a tinge of pale cream yellow, while the capitals were of a brick-dust color, with excess of red oxide, and nearly as uniform in their granulation as fine millstone-grit. The shape of these formations seemed, therefore, to turn on the comparative resistance to atmospheric influences possessed by their various parts. Many other indications … led me to narrow down all the hypothetical agencies which might have produced them, to a single one—air, in its chemical or mechanical operations, and usually in both. … One characteristic of the Rocky Mountains is its system of vast indentations, cutting through from the top to the bottom of the range. Some of these take the form of funnels, others are deep, tortuous galleries known as passes or cañons; but all have their openings toward the plains. The descending masses of air fall into these funnels or sinuous canals, as they slide down, concentrating themselves and acquiring a vertical motion. When they issue from the mouth of the gorge at the base of the range, they are gigantic augers, with a revolution faster than man’s cunningest machinery, and a cutting-edge of silex, obtained from the first sand heap caught up by their fury. Thus armed with their own resistless motion and an incisive thread of the hardest mineral next to the diamond, they sweep on over the plains to excavate, pull down, or carve in new forms, whatever friable formation lies in their way.’ ”
By this time Colorado Springs was at hand, and as we had decided, like all other sensible people who come to Colorado, to sojourn awhile there and at Manitou, our cars were side-tracked. And while Amos betook himself to the preparation of our evening meal, we admired the gorgeous sunset, and disposed our effects for the first night out.
Henry Ward Beecher once said that while the new birth was necessary to a true Christian life, it was very important that one be born well the first time. Colorado Springs was born well. It was organized on the colony plan, and the first stake was driven in July, 1871. Intelligent and far-seeing men were leaders of the enterprise, and in no way was their sagacity more apparent than in the insertion, in every deed of transfer, of a clause prohibiting, upon pain of forfeiture, the sale or manufacture of alcoholic beverages on the premises conveyed. This temperance clause was introduced by General W. J. Palmer, the president of the colony, who during his services as engineer of railway extensions, had observed the destruction which the unrestrained traffic in intoxicants worked to life and property. It was not sentiment, but a sound business precaution, as the result has proved. Of course this provision has been contested, but it has been legally sustained, and has given the town the best moral tone of any in Colorado. The location was also wisely chosen, broad and regular streets were carefully laid out, a system of irrigation established, thousands of trees planted, and reservations for parks set aside. Some of the avenues running north and south might with propriety be designated boulevards, being 140 feet in width, with double roadways separated by parallel rows of trees. Other trees shade the walks at either side, and at their roots flow rapid streamlets of clearest water. The drives are smooth and hard, and the soil never becomes muddy, the moisture penetrating rapidly through the light gravelly loam. The gentle inclination southward renders drainage a very simple matter.
Seen from the railway, the town appears to be located upon a considerable elevation. In fact it stands upon a plateau in the midst of a valley. The thirty-five miles of streets and avenues are closely lined with substantial business blocks, pretentious residences, or tasty cottages. The pink and white stone of the Manitou quarries is largely used; and pent-roofs, ornamental gables, red chimneys, and the whole category of renaissance peculiarities, have representation in the architecture. The dwellers in these abodes are principally of the cultured and refined classes. Invalids from the intellectual centers of the East find health and congenial society here, while numbers of opulent mine owners and stockmen make the Springs their winter home.
The public buildings are all creditable; the Deaf-Mute Institute, Colorado College, the churches and schools being specially noteworthy. The Opera House is a veritable bijou, handsome and convenient in all its appointments, and with a single exception not surpassed west of the Missouri. The new hotel, The Antlers, erected at a cost of over $125,000, is of stone, and is without doubt the most artistic and elegant structure of its kind in the State. It occupies a sightly position at the edge of the plateau, and from its balconies and verandas a marvelous and most inspiring view is presented. The foothills lie along the west, about five miles distant, the massive outlines of Cheyenne Mountain a little to the left, and the huge red towers that mark the gateway to the Garden of the Gods lifting their crests over the Mesa at the right, while above them all is reared the snow-crowned summit of Pike’s Peak. To the north, is seen in the foreground the gray shoulders of the buttes, and in the distance the dark pine-covered elevation of the Divide. Easterly the land rises gently in a gray, grass-clad plain, until it cuts the blue horizon with a level line; while southward the mountains trend away, purple in the distance.
Colorado Springs lies under the shadow of Pike’s Peak; and in the short autumn days the sun drops out of sight behind the mountain with startling suddenness at four o’clock. Then come the cool shadows, when fires have to be replenished, and doors and windows closed. From ten o’clock until the sun hides behind the hills, the blue skies, the soft breezes, the grateful warmth, suggest that month in which, if ever, come perfect days. The June roses are absent but the days are as rare as a day in June. The average temperature here is sixty degrees, and there are about three hundred days of sunshine in the year.
Within a radius of ten miles about the Springs are to be found more “interesting, varied and famous scenic attractions than in any similar compass the country over,” we are told by the guide, and we are quite ready to believe when they are recounted. A drive of three miles across the Mesa, with its magnificent mountain view, brings you to Glen Eyrie, the secluded home of General Palmer, originator of the Denver and Rio Grande railway. “At the entrance you pass a little lodge—a sonnet in architecture, if one may so express it—the small but perfect rendering of a harmonious thought; you cross and recross a rushing, tumbling mountain brook over a dozen different bridges, some rustic, some of masonry, but each a gem in design and fitness; then at last, after the mind is properly tuned, as it were, to perfect accord, the full symphony bursts upon you. In the shadow of the eternal rock, with the wonderful background of mountains, surrounded by all that art can lend nature, is this delicious anachronism of a