Beyond the West: containing an account of two years' travel in the other half of our great continent far beyond the old West, on the plains, in the Rocky mountains, and picturesque parks of Colorado. Also, characteristic features of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho ... Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and ... California, the end of the West ... the great continental railroad, together with the ... most wonderful natural scenery in the world .../ by George W. Pine.

294 BEYOND THE WEST.
heat, a-iid also look up to the eternal sho's vwhich
crowned the neighboring mountain. High, rugged,
naked mountains towered up on either side into a
region where all, save the voice of the storm, is
silent; where all is cold and desolate; where the
lliglher slopes of the mountains are covered with the
white mantle of perpetual snow, and cover their
heads wA.ti th tle clouds. Their naked sides are covered with volcanic rocks, a substance resembling
the sl]ig formed in iron furnaces bla ted out by subterraneous fires. At length we attained the most
desolaite part of the road. The hills seemed iron
and the heavelns brass; all those sources of utility
and beauty which, from their beiiig so generally
diffused through liberal nature, are generally considered as things, of course were over this region
omitted. The mountains on either side of the
road presented a scene that lihed bIeen cheered by the
beauty of no vegetation since the waters of the
deluge had subsided and the dove left the old patriarch's window not to return.
As we slowly ascended the dividing range the
mountain ranges seemed to lower as we approached
the summit, and when upoln the divide, nine ljun-idred feet above sea level, there were no1 ranges
above us, but mountain peaks seemned tfo penetrate
the clouds on eitlher lialti(l. Lai-ge fiel(ids of snow
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