Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/327

Rh may not be out of place to give a few brief details. A first-class railroad ticket from Chicago to Denver costs thirty-seven dollars; a berth in the sleeper is eight dollars; meals are seventy-five cents apiece. Hotel accommodations in Denver range from two to four dollars a day. Comfortably furnished rooms can be found at from twelve to twenty dollars a month, and good board costs from five to ten dollars a week. These are not bottom figures, but are means. House-rents and servants' wages are somewhat higher than in the East.

The invalid having determined to come to Colorado, the question then arises as to the best place for him to go. This is a point of considerable importance, and one in regard to which very erroneous advice is frequently given by physicians unacquainted with the State. For instance, it is not an uncommon thing for Eastern physicians to advise their patients to go into one of the parks in mid-winter, when, in point of fact, the snow would be lying so deeply on the ground in these places that it would be impossible to get into them, and certainly very injudicious for an invalid to attempt it. As a broad rule it can be stated that the best points in which to winter are the towns situated at the junction of the plains and foot-hills. In the summer the invalid will do well to go into the mountains, to such places as Estes Park, Manitou Park, Poncha Springs, Wagon-wheel Gap, Georgetown, or Idaho Springs.

The most available towns for the invalid who has to earn his support are Denver and Pueblo, but there is a moderately wide field from which to choose when health and comfort, and not money, are the main considerations. Colorado Springs combines so many favorable conditions of climate, good accommodations, pleasant society, and natural objects of interest, as to render it, in addition to its sanitary condition, an almost ideal resort for phthisical invalids. Six miles to the west of Colorado Springs, nestling among the foot-hills at the base of Pike's Peak, is Manitou, the so-called "Saratoga of the West." Its winter climate is mild, but it is chiefly a summer resort, as its large hotel accommodations, its iron and soda springs, its baths and drives, make it exceedingly popular. These springs furnish a large flow of agreeable drinking-water of real medicinal value. The soda-spring water resembles the Apollinaris, while the "Iron Ute" carries, in addition to the carbonates of soda, lime, and magnesia, a percentage of iron sufficient to give a marked reaction to the prussiate-of-potassium test. At Poncha Springs there is an abundant flow of a hot chalybeate water, containing in addition salts of sulphur, soda, lime, and magnesia in solution. The mean temperature of these springs is 150° Fahr., and they are considered to be very valuable in the cure of rheumatism and kindred troubles. The natural location of Poncha is one of the finest in the State, and it must in time become one of the well-known resorts. At present the hotel accommodations are meager and insufficient. Idaho Springs is a popular resort, adapted to both