USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 33
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 33
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 33
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The North and Middle parks rest upon the tertiary formation, through which have been thrust up moun- tains of volcanic rock, while South park is an inde- scribable jumble, and San Luis is of recent formation. Volcanic rock overlies the high plateau on White river, in the western part of the state, beneath which may be found every formation down to the tertiary. Still further west and north the plateaux are tertiary. The Uintah mountains, which project into the state, consist of cretaceous, Jura trias, carboniferous, and silurian. In some places small groups of igneous upheavals have been pushed up through the sedimen- tary rocks. South of the San Juan mountains a large tertiary area is enclosed by cretaceous beds. And so on. Granite, gneiss, and sandstone might be said to be country rock, with impure limestone, slates, shales, and trachyte. It would seem hopeless to search for treasure with so confusing a stone guide-book to take our directions from. The younger world in Colorado has been resentfully pushed aside and overflowed by the older in so rude and violent a manner that much labor must be expended in fitting together again the dislocated strata and reading the story they should
332
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
teach. First by accident, and afterward by search, the clue was discovered which led to the knowledge of the mineral wealth of this portion of the Rocky mountains, for so long a time unsuspected.
The minerals of Colorado were not easy to come at. Gold, which was found in gneiss principally, existed in many refractory combinations, with sulphur and iron, with copper and sulphur, with zinc, tellurium, and other metals and minerals. If it were free milling it contained silver, and sometimes lead. In the trachyte mines of the south-west there was a chloridized combination of gold, silver, iron, maganese and gray copper. Silver, which was found in both gneissic and granite rocks, was chiefly in the form of a compound sulphuret of silver and lead called argen- tiferous galena, but existed also in combinations with carbonates of lead, carbonates and sulphurets of cop- per, zinc, tellurides of gold, nickel, iron, copper, man- ganese, antimony, arsenic, and sometimes in the form of a chloride, or as horn silver.
Nor was there any rule of nature known to miner- alogists which applied to the situation of mines in Colorado, and old traditions were entirely at fault. Gold, which had always been found in placers washed down from the mountain veins, or in fissure veins of granite, or at the deepest, silurian rocks, filled with fragments of quartz or conglomerate, among which grains of gold were mingled, or deposited by water, was here found in metamorphic rocks, and also in the tertiary.
Silver, too, was equally eccentric in its situations. One of its remarkable deposits, found in the Lead- ville region, was in horizontal flat veins, from a few inches to a foot in thickness, separated from each other by layers of barren rock of a depth of a few hundred feet-blanket lodes they are called. They extended quite through lofty heights, cropping out on either side; but whether they were so deposited
333
MINERALS.
or were formed in the rocks, which by some convul- sion of the mountains were split open and turned over, is still conjectural. Almost equally surprising was it to find silver in trachyte rocks, or enveloping pebbles and bowlders like a crust, or still more re- markable, in fine threads or wires. These were prob- lems for the scientists, as the modes of extracting the metals from their matrices was for the practical met- allurgist.
The trend of the fissure veins in Colorado is north- east and south-west. They have in general clearly defined walls, some of them remarkably smooth and regular, and correspond in direction with the cleav- age of the eruptive rocks, and with the dikes which extend long distances across the plains. There is - another cleavage of the metamorphic rocks in a south- east and north-west direction, which was made at an earlier period than the cleavage of the eruptive rocks, as is shown by the eruptive material overlying the metamorphic in large areas, a combination of facts which seems to fix the age of the deposit of the ores in fissures at a date more recent than the cleavage of the metamorphic rock. In a few instances short veins are found running east and west, or north and south ; but though sometimes rich, they soon pinch out.
Coal in immense quantities has been formed in Col- orado. It is of several geologic eras, some of it merely lignite, some beds petroleum-bearing, and in the western portion of the state anthracite in large areas. Iron is placed in juxtaposition, as also lime- stone, hydraulic lime, and a variety of rocks used in building or manufacturing. Of the different crystals of quartz which are scattered liberally over the country the varieties are numerous, though none more valuable than carnelian, chalcedony, onyx, jas- per, sardonyx, chrysoparse, and trope, rose-quartz, black-quartz, moss-agate, and aventurine.
After all, nothing interests many of us like the mountains, which will always draw men from the
334
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
ends of the earth that they may climb as near to heaven as may be by their rocky stairs. Take a position on Gray's peak-there are really two of them shooting up from a single base in the midst of a wil- derness of mountains-which is won by ascending from the plains to the timber-belt, then following the course of rapidly descending creeks to where no trees can grow, but scant grass and lowly flowering plants have the zone to themselves ; higher still to the belt of starving mosses; and yet higher among great blocks of loose, broken rock with patches of snow between them, and chilly springs in their shadows ; and then to the windy pinnacle above the snow !
The view begins nowhere and ends nowhere. It is infinite. Mountains beyond mountains, unbounded plains belittled to look like parks, the great South park like a pleasure ground, range after range west- ward, silvered with the lingering snow, although it is August-for we must not attempt the high peaks before the summer heat has done its utmost to modify the climate at their altitude. Among the more
western mountains stand some covered with almost perpetual snow, and one which fixes the eye on ac- count of the snow-field having taken the form of a cross, that symbol of life eternal alike among pagan and Christian philosophers, and which could have found no more fitting place to be displayed than on these everlasting hills. Yet here more than almost anywhere are the evidences of change which we call decay, the proof that eternity is but a comparative term. Gorge and ledge, shattered cliff, and weird shapes in stone, furrows cut by avalanches, torrents hurrying down from the melting snow-drifts, washing earth and gravel into the basins below, generations of forest fallen like slain warriors on a hard fought field. all point to a continual transformation, and show that the most heaven-inspiring heights are destined to lower their proud heads before time and the elements, that the grandeur of the past and the present is constantly
335
MOUNTAINS.
passing away. Lower, this consciousness becomes less oppressive, until it is lost in the enjoyment of what the decay of the higher zone has done for the lower. Tiny parks, gem-like lakes, green groves, beds of flowers, miniature presentments of the grander val- leys, forests, and lakes still farther down.
In a general way one mountain is like another; yet they have their differences, dependent upon the kind of rock of which they are formed, its hardness, friable- ness, stratification, color, and condition of upheaval. The variety of rocks and their singular displacement gives a corresponding variety to the mountain scenery. In one place is a cluster of low cones, broken down and rounded, so grouped as to resemble the rim of a mighty peak broken roughly off; in another an almost. smooth round top, and in its immediate neighborhood a needle-like peak. The other features of each are likely to correspond somewhat to the character of the summits, which are approached either by circuitous; trails, by long slope after slope, or by wild ravines: leading from bench to bench, but everywhere grand and impressive scenery meets the eye. Many are the passes by which the mother range may be crossed, but only seven are below 10,000 feet, five are over 12,000, and one is 13,000 feet above sea-level. Some of the high mountains to which names have been given, none of which are less than 14,000 feet high, are Blanca, Harvard, Massive, Gray's, Rosalie, Torrey, Elbert, La Plata, Lincoln, Buckskin, Wilson, Long's, Quandary, Antero, James, Shavano, Uncompahgre, Crestones, Princeton, Bross, Holy Cross, Baldy, Sneffles, Pike's, Castle, Yale, San Luis, Red Cloud, Wetterhorn, Simpson, Æolus, Ouray, Stewart, Ma- roon, and Cameron. Of those over 13,000 feet which have received names, Handie lacks but three feet of belonging to the first class, then Capital, Horseshoe, Snowmass, Grizzly, Pigeon, Blaine, Frustrum, Pyra- mid, White Rock, Hague, R. G. Pyramid, Silver Heels, Hunchback, Rowter, Homestake, Ojo, Spanish
336
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
Peaks, Guyot, Trinchara, Kendall, Buffalo, Arapahoe, and Dunn. The nomenclature of these peaks betrays its unromantic, unscientific, undescriptive, and often commonplace origin, the accident of a mineral discov- ery by prospectors frequently giving the appellative ; for the precious metals lie far up among the eruptive rocks, and the gnomes of these lofty peaks are often the Smiths and the Joneses.
The lakes of Colorado, with the exception of the San Luis group, lie from eight to eleven thousand feet above sea, and may therefore be reckoned a part of the mountain scenery. At the foot of the Saguache range, near the source of the Arkansas, are the Twin lakes, one three and a half miles by two and a half in extent, the other one third as large, and both furnish- ing delicious trout, while the surrounding mountains abound in game. Not far distant, at the foot of Mount Massive, set in terraces of the mountain, sur- rounded by gently sloping shores, is a group of silvery sheets of purest water, which pass under the collec- tive and inappropriate name of Evergreen lakes, one lake being five hundred feet above the principal group, of which it is a feeder, and the lower and larger single lake occupying a terrace to itself. None are large, this one being but about fifty acres in extent, but all are highly picturesque, with clear water which lets the speckled trout be plainly seen. The middle ter- race furnishes some rare mineral springs, the water of which bubbles sparklingly out of the earth around the lake, adding to the other attractions of the place. The view overlooks the valley of the Arkansas river, with clumps of trees upon its banks contrasting with the bright mineral stains upon its banks, while above all towers the background of ever-present mountains.
On the west side of Front range, in the edge of Middle park, occupying the trough of a glacier basin, is Grand lake, in the immediate shadow of Roundtop mountain, which, with other high peaks, guards its solitudes. It is three miles long by two in breadth,
337
MOUNTAIN LAKES.
and hundreds of feet in depth. On its dark face are mirrored the surrounding mountains and the clouds that crown them. Down from the gorges sweep windy currents which would make navigation danger- ous. So awe-inspiring is it that the Indians fear to approach, leaving it to our irreverent race to violate the God-like loneliness of the place.
Chicago lakes, the highest yet discovered, being 11,500 feet above the sea, are near the headwaters of Chicago creek, on the eastern flank of the Rocky or mother range. They are two in number, and, like Grand lake, surrounded by peaks, and of unknown depth, but are of small area. Their origin was un- doubtedly the same. San Luis lake, in the lower and more extensive San Luis park, is the only large body of water in Colorado, and has the additional peculiar- ity of being without any outlet, although receiving the water of sixteen tributaries. It is situated in the middle of the park, and extends sixty miles north and south. About its borders are vast deposits of peat. Stories are told of a subterranean lake in Colorado, ten acres in extent, covered with eighteen inches of soil, which has a corn-field on it; and if one digs a hole, and drops a hook and line, a fish without eyes or scales, but otherwise resembling a perch, is caught. In a country so abounding in minerals, springs with medical qualities, both hot and cold, should be looked for, and here, indeed, we find them. They are of all ingredients and proportions, and with the invigorat- ing air of the mountains make the state a vast sani- tarium.
Time was when, if you believed travellers' tales, the great American desert stretched up to the foot of the Stony mountains, and all was unfruitful and for- bidding. How, little by little, this obloquy was re- moved, and Colorado made known to the world in its true and very different character, it is my pleasant task to relate.
HIST. NEV. 22
CHAPTER II.
DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION.
1541-1853.
WHAT CORONADO FAILED TO DO-ESCALANTE'S EXPEDITION-SPANISH AND FRENCH OCCUPATION-PIKE'S AND LONG'S EXPEDITIONS-EARLY GOLD DISCOVERIES-ADVENTURES OF THE WILLIAMS PARTY-SANTA FE TRAIL -TRAPPERS AND TRADERS-FORTS-THE BENTS, VASQUEZ, ST VRAIN, AND OTHERS-EL PUEBLO-LA JUNTA-IMMIGRATION-FRÉMONT'S EF- FORTS- THE MORMONS AT PUEBLO-MILITARY EXPEDITIONS-GOVERN- MENT SURVEYS BY GUNNISON, HAYDEN, WHEELER, AND KING.
PROBABLY the inquisitive and not well-behaved fol- lowers of Coronado, in their marches from New Mexico in search of Quivira, did not set foot within the pres- ent limits of Colorado. If they did, they have left no record of their explorations, and no sign of them remains; and though they affirm having found struc- tures similar to the ruins which exist in southern Col- orado, they found them in what is now New Mexico. The expedition of the Spanish captain, in 1541, at the instance of a native of fabled Quivira, brought him possibly across the extreme southeast corner of the state; but since the guides complained that in his march he went too far east, it is hardly probable. Changing his course, he found Quivira, an Indian village not different from those we may see to-day, in latitude 40°, but far out on the plains, among the northern tributaries of the Arkansas. A few persons, priests and their attendants, remained with the Ind- ians ; some of them in time returned to Mexico, and some died by the hands of their converts .. Many narrators, who have hastily glanced over an account
(338)
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UNDER MEXICAN DOMAIN.
given by some previous writer as careless as them- selves, state confidently that Coronado was the first European in Colorado, and so he would have been had he been there at all.1
About the middle of the eighteenth century con- siderable interest was manifested by the authorities of New Mexico in the country to the north of Santa Fé, and Cachupin, who was governor for a long time in the last half of the century, set on foot one or more expeditions, the object of which was to ascer- tain the true character and value of the minerals to be found in what is now known as the San Juan country. After these came the expedition of Juan María Rivera in 1761, which was prosecuted as far as the Gunnison river. He was accompanied by Don Joaquin Lain, Gregorio Sandoval, Pedro Mora, and others. There is no doubt that a number of expi- ditions, of only local importance, were made into what is now Colorado, both east and west of the con- tinental divide. About fourteen years after Rivera's tour, Padre Junípero Serra, president of the Cali- fornia missions, urged the ecclesiastics of New Mexico to undertake the exploration of a route from Santa Fe to the coast of upper California. With this ob- ject in view, Padre Francisco Silvestre Velez Esca- lante, ministro doctrinero of Zuñi, and Padre Atana- cio Dominguez, visitador comisario of New Mexico, organized an expedition in 1776, which consisted, be- sides themselves, of Pedro Cisneros, alcalde mayor of Zuñi, Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, capitan miliciano of Santa Fé, Don Joaquin Lain, who having accompa- nied Rivera, was official guide of this expedition, and
1 Greenhow, who is usually well informed, says Quivira was probably the region about the headwaters of the Arkansas and Platte rivers, but Corona- do's route would not have brought him so far west and north. Or. and Cal., 63. Some of the Spanish writers have committed serious blunders in geog- raphy, making the sea visible from Quivira. See Hist. North Mex. States. Inman, Stories of the Santa Fe Trail, 11-59, has an account of Coronado's march, and gives his course quite correctly. This is a well written and cap- tivating series of legends and tales of the great historic highway of the plains, by Henry Inman of Kansas, 1881.
340
DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION.
five soldiers, Lorenzo Oliveras, Lucrecio Muñiz, An- drés Muñiz, Juan de Aguilar, and Simon Lucero.
They set out from Santa Fé July 29th, and pro- ceeded to Abiquiú on the Rio Chama, from whence they took a north course to the Rio San Juan, reach- ing it three leagues below the junction of the Navajo August 5th. The place of contact was called Neus- tra Señora las Nieves, and, although not the first place named in Colorado, as we shall see, is the first whose date is unquestioned. From Nieves they took a course north-west, across the several affluents of the San Juan, which lay between them and the Rio de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, the names of which have been retained to the present as Piedra Parada, Pinos, Florida, and Las Animas. The eastern section of the La Plata range was called by Escalante Sierra de la Grulla. The La Plata river he called the San Joaquin, and in the cañon, says his narrative, were the mines sought for by Cachupin's explorers, and which gave the name to the mountains, supposed to contain silver.
Escalante's descriptions of the country passed over avoid dwelling upon the exceeding roughness of this region, dwelling rather upon the beauty and fertility of the small valleys, the grandeur of the forests of pine which grew upon the high benches and moun- tain sides, and the abundance of water, even that which fell from the clouds, of which he complained a little. At the Rio Mancos, or San Lázaro, he again heard reports of mines. At the Rio Dolores he be- held ruined habitations high up in the south bank. On this river he met with some difficulty in travelling, being sometimes at a distance from the stream, and at other times apparently confined to its cañon. The stations or camps along the Dolores were named Asuncion, Agua Tapada, Cañon Agua Escondida, Miera Labarinto (in honor of the capitan), and Ancon San Bernardo. At the latter place he found son e Utes, from whom he obtained a guide; and observing
341
THE ESCALANTE EXPEDITION.
three paralyzed women of the tribe at the junction of a small stream with the Dolores, he named it the Paraliticas. It was at this point, or near it, that he left the cañon of the river, and came out in Gypsum valley, or Cajon del Yeso, still so called. Climbing upon a mesa, he travelled six leagues north-east to the next station, San Bernabé. Six leagues north from this point brought him, through a cañon, to the San Miguel, or, as he called it, Rio San Pedro. En- camping at stations on the north side named San Luis, San Felipe (where were traces of Rivera's passage), Fuenta de la Guia, and passing through the cañada Honda, which was doubtless the Uncompahgre park, to Ojo de Lain (named in honor of the official guide), he reached the Uncompahgre river, spelled by him Ancapagari, and named Rio San Francisco. Esca- lante gives the distance travelled from the San Miguel to the Uncompahgre as twenty-four and a half leagues, which is proof conclusive, if any other than descrip- tions were needed, of his long detour through the Uncompahgre country. His first station beyond was San Agustin. The distance from the crossing of the Uncompahgre, in a north-east course, was ten leagues to the Gunnison river, which he said was called by the natives Tomichi, but which was called by him San Javier. His probable crossing of the Gunnison was near the junction of the south and north forks. To this region Rivera's explorations had reached, and farther down a cross had been cut in the rock of the river bank. Four leagues up the Gunnison, in a north-east direction, he came to a stream, which he named Santa Rosa ; and proceeded further, in the same course, to Rio Santa Mónica, which corresponds to the north branch of the north fork of the Gunni- son. Following the direction of this stream, he came to the Rio San Antonia Mártir, which is the Divide creek of the present. Even the two buttes, known as the North and South Mam, are named San Silves- tre (after Escalante himself), and Nebuncari. The
342
DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION.
Mam creek of the present day was at that time called Santa Rosalía. Near here he forded the San Rafael or Grand river, the course of the travellers seeming to lead over Book cliffs, and thence north-west to White river, called by them San Clemente, where they arrived September 9th, about at the point where it crosses the boundary of Utah, having spent a little more than two months on the journey, and travelled
Utah L.
Clemente
San
Sevier .L.
R.S. Buenaventura
R.S. Rafael
.........
PLATEAU
R. Ancayasar
CYPSUN
Escalante's Rou
.Nieves
R. Flor
776-7
San
Abiquiu
Colorado
· SANTA FE
1
ESCALANTE'S ROUTE.
from the Dolores 862 leagues. In two places on his route Escalante mentioned other roads, and especially that there was a shorter way from the Gunnison to the Grand river than the one he was taking. He crossed this road near the stream he called Santa Rosalía. Beyond White river be found hills of loose slate, passed through a long cañon, on the wall of which were painted three shields and a spear, and two warriors in combat ; saw veins of metal, and found buffalo trails, from which he named this defile Arroyo del Cíbolo. At Green river he found a group
343
FRENCH COLONIES.
of six large cottonwood trees, and one lone tree. On one of these Lain carved his name and the date, 1776, with a cross above and below. The company returned from Utah by a more southern route, and the Span- ish trail was established not far north of the 37th parallel in Colorado, crossing southern Utah, and thence southwest to Los Angeles. A trail to Salt Lake was, however, established at a later period, which crossed the boundary of Colorado and Utah on the south side of Rio Dolores, which was surveyed as late as 1857 by Captain J. N. Macomb for the United States Government.2
In the beginning of the seventeenth century France claimed the sovereignty of the country, and dur- ing that period several expeditions were undertaken toward the Spanish frontier, a not very clearly defined boundary.3 The most important of these was con- ducted by Monsieur La Salle, who first having in 1682 explored the Mississippi from the Illinois region to the gulf of Mexico, and named the region contiguous Louisiana, in 1685 took formal possession of Texas, and founded a colony or two near the gulf, on the Guadalupe and Colorado rivers. But La Salle was assassinated, and the only effect of his settlement was to carry the western boundary of Louisiana as far west as these rivers." In the mean time the country west of the Mississippi had again changed hands, Spain claiming it from 1762 to 1800, when it was retroceded to France, and sold by the first Napoleon to the United States three years afterward. Still the boundary was unsettled, and in 1806 an arrangement was entered into between the Spanish and American authorities that the former should not cross the Sabine, nor the latter approach to it. To prevent collisions,
2 Dominguez and Escalante, Diario y derrotero para descubrir el camino desde Santa Fé & Monierey. In Doc. Hist. Mex., 2d ser., i. 375-558. See also Hist. Utah, this series.
3 Among these few are mentioned one by Col Wood in 1654, and another by Capt. Bolt in 1670; but they were productive of nothing in particular.
+ U. S. Laws aud Docs, 1817, 5.
344
DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION.
orders were given not to survey the public lands west of the meridian of Natchitoches, or Red river.
But the curiosity of the new proprietors of Louisi- ana concerning the regions toward the Rocky moun- tains could not be restrained; and President Jefferson, also desiring to know something of them, encouraged exploration. It happened that Zebulon Montgomery Pike, son of Zebulon Pike of New Jersey, an officer in the revolutionary army, who at the age of twenty had been appointed an ensign in his father's company, and was a lieutenant at twenty-six, was serving under General Wilkinson in the west, at the time when Lewis and Clarke were fitting out their expedition to the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia in 1804.
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