The high altitudes of Colorado & their climates : an address delivered to the Royal Meteorological Society, January 18th, 1893 / by C. Theodore Williams.

  • Williams, Charles Theodore, 1838-1912.
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The high altitudes of Colorado & their climates : an address delivered to the Royal Meteorological Society, January 18th, 1893 / by C. Theodore Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    rugged gorges or canons, over which the rivers have flowed for centuries, depositing their debris in the loot hills and plains. The deep gorges, or canons, are a remarkable feature of the Rockies, as they may be found penetrating the chain in many directions. They are clearly the result of water action, and the various layers of strata cut through and exposed are well shown in the neighbourhood of Denver, where we have a good example in Clear Creek Canon, where the river, starting from the base of Gray’s Peak, has forced its way through a labyrinthine channel eastwards to the plain at Golden. A grander canon is that of the Arkansas, which is the line taken by the Denver and Rio Grande Railway in penetrating the Rockies. In parts, owing to the narrowness of the gorge and the great height and precipitous character of the giant granite cliffs and mountains through which the Arkansas threads its way, the scenery is magnificent. The forms of the rocks are specially fine, a specimen of which is seen, for instance, in the Currecanti needle, a fine pyramid of granite, and the mountain of the Holy Cross, which owes its name to the form of the Cross being delineated by snow accumulating in crevices in its rocky sides. The grandest piece of scenery on this route is the Royal Gorge, where the chasm is so narrow that there is only space for the river to flow through, and the railroad is therefore suspended by an ingenious bridge above it for some distance, the cliffs on either side reaching the height of 2,600 ft. Another striking mass of rocks is the Castle Gate, the fine portal by which the railway escapes from the gorges into the more open valleys on the western side of the Rockies. This canon of the Arkansas is surpassed in grandeur and wild magnificence by the great canon of the Colorado, situate in Arizona, where that river boils and surges at the bottom of the greatest canon in the world, one mile in depth, with nearly precipitous and beetling cliffs on either side, but this is outside of the State of Colorado. The railways encircle, and in many cases penetrate into the region of the parks. The Denver and Rio Grande sends branches up several of the smaller canons opening into them, while Middle Park is traversed by both the Denver and Rio Grande and by the Midland of Colorado, so that the district is rendered fairly accessible. Moreover the numerous towns, for the most part mining centres, like Leadville, scattered throughout the Rockies, or situated like Denver on the adjacent plains, amply supply the wants and necessities of residents and of camping out visitors. The peaks of the Rocky Mountains vary in altitude from 13,500 ft. to 14,500 ft., the highest being the Sierra Blanca, which terminates the Sangre tie Cristo chains ; there being more than 100 peaks exceeding 13,500 ft. in height, and Gray’s and Pike’s and Long’s Peak all exceed 14,000 ft., the general average being higher than in the Swiss Alps. in appearance, however, they are not nearly so imposing as the Alps ; they rise from a higher plateau varying from 5,000 to 6,000 ft. in height, their outlines are more rounded, the lower slopes, probably on account of the great dryness of the atmosphere, are less wooded, and for the same reason and also