Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/499

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O the many who annually wander forth in quest of a "change of scene," and have not yet fully exhausted the wonders of Nature in their search after the purely beautiful, any locality that offers material for special wonderment comes with pleasing interest. One such, which is less generally known than other localities of a somewhat similar character in the United States—indeed, is hardly known beyond the pale of a limited coterie of geologists—is the region of ranch and meadow land which lies within a mile and a half of the line of the Colorado Midland Railroad near to the station of Florissant. In reaching it we have crossed the front or outer range of the Rocky Mountains, traversed



the charming flower gardens of Summit Park at an elevation of nearly nine thousand feet, and have again descended to eight thousand one hundred feet. A gently undulating plain of meadow-land is in the main occupied by Costello's and Halthusen's ranches, and around and about sweep up the chain of heights which help to make up the great backbone of the North American continent. There is little to suggest in this landscape that we are in the heart of the Rockies; the rugged crags to which the mind has affectionately attached itself from childhood's study are hidden beneath a dense covering of piny woodland, or else wander off much in the manner of the Eastern Appalachians. Here and there in the not