Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/505

 At this period, it has been stated by many and believed by most, that the present line of the equator was where man originated and flourished, because of the warmth of the climate and abundance of easily procurable food. Yet the evidences in Colorado are opposed to this belief, for here were the tropics also.

The existing specimens of perfectly-preserved petrified palm-trees show this, so also do the petrified remains of gigantic turtles peculiar to tropical waters alone. The Asia theorists also offer the nativity of the horse as a strong argument in their behalf, claiming that man and horse developed at about the same time. If this claim has any weight, it more than settles the point in favor of America, for the fossil remains of horses with three toes to each foot have been found in Colorado, and the examination of any hoof of a horse in embryo will show this to have been one of the earliest stages in the existence of that animal. This evidence goes beyond the researches of the supporters of the Asia theory, for their conclusions are based upon the fact of the existence of the wild horse of the present time.

These evidences of tropical life in Colorado, it must be remembered, are found at an altitude of ten thousand feet, or near the present snow line. As the waters gradually receded, they left the valleys and parks throughout the mountains immense lakes, until a trickling and overflowing outlet wore its way into a deep cañon through solid granite, and liberated the pent-up waters of each.

The San Luis Valley, in which Del Norte is situated, is in the southwestern part of Colorado, and is from sixty to seventy miles broad by about three hundred miles long, and the outlet for drainage is now the beautiful snow-born Rio Grande.

Hearing one day in December, 1877, that a gentleman acquaintance, in wandering over the foot-hills, about three and a half miles from Del Norte, had found a small arrow-head of chalcedony, it aroused my curiosity, and I at once called upon him that I might see it. He showed me a beautiful specimen of elegant workmanship, made with great care and accuracy as to dimensions, but evidently intended for an ornament, being too small and delicate for any other actual use.

The present Indians never work in chalcedony, and I felt sure some discoveries might be made by visiting the spot; so, calling together a couple of friends, we mounted our horses and had a delightful canter over the floor-like valley until we reached the base of the hill on top of which the specimen had been found. We dismounted, tied our horses, and began climbing up and up for several hundred feet above the valley, pausing now and then to breathe and enjoy the magnificent view extended at our feet—the valley stretching away like an ocean of molten gold, with its autumn-tinted grasses, a hundred miles to the north and seventy miles to the east, where it came to an abrupt ending against the solid bases of the majestic peaks comprising the Sangre-del-Christo range of mountains. No foot-hills