The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1864-04-15
liable rapidity, and armed with cutting
edve of sileY

iaoO, nv hiuo Vi Ouh, WhiCu ~ 10 uot Cdpa-
BILE of making. I have repeatedly seen it
in operation. One day, while riding from
Denver to Pixies Peak, I saw it Gin this
instance, one of the smaller dianeters)
burrow its way six or seven feet into a
sand bluff, making as smooth hole as I
could cut in cheese with borer, of the
equal diameter of six inches throughout,
all in less time than | have taken to des,
cribe it. Repeatedly, on the same trip,
saw it gouge out circular groove around
portions of similar bluff, and leave them
standing as isolated columns, with heavy
base and capital, presently to be solidifed
into just such rock pillars as throng the
cemeteries or aid in composing the strange
architectural piles mentioned above
Surveyor. General Pierce, Of Colorado, Ga
man whose fine scientific genius and cul-
ture have already done yeoman's service
in the study of that most interesting terri
tory, on a certain occasion, saw one of
these wind-and-silex augers meet at right
angles window pane in settlers cabin,
which came out from the process, after
few seconds, perfect opaque shade,
having been converted into ground glass
as neatly and evenly as could have been
effected by a manufacturers wheel.
1t is not very rare thing in Colorado
to be able to trace the spiral and measure
the diameter of the auger by rocks Of fifty
pound weight and tree-trunks half as
thick as an average mans waist, torn up
from their sites and sent revolving over
head for miles before the windy turbine
loses its impetus. The efficiency of an
instrument like this l need not dwell
upon.
After some protracted examination and
study of many of the most interesting ar
chitectural and sculpturesque structures Of
the Rocky mountain system, [ am con-
WINGED that they are mainly explicable on
the hypothesis of the wind-and-silex i'll
strument operating upon material in the
earthly condition, which petrifed after re-
ceiving its form. Indeed, this same iu-
strument is at present nowise restricted by
that condition in Colorado, and is not
only, year by year, altering the conforma-
ton of all sand and clay bluffs on the
plains, but is tearing down, rebuilding,
and fashioning on its facile lathe many
rock-strata of the solidity of the more fra
bic grits, wherever exposed TO its action
Water at the East does hardly more than
wind at the west.
Before we enter the City of the Saints,
let me briefly describe. the greatest, not
merely of the architectural curiosities, but,
in my opinion, the greatest natural curios-
ity of any kind which have ever seen or
heard of. Mind, too, that | remember
Niagara, the Cedar Greek bridge, aud the
Mammoth cave, when [ speak thus of the
Church Buaes
They are situated short distance from
Fort Bridger; the overland road passes by
their side. They consist of sand stone
bluff, reddish-brown in color, rising with
Che abruptness of pile of masonry from
the perfectly level plain, carved along its
perpendicular face into series of partially
connected eligious edi6ces, the most re-
markable of which is cathedral as colos.
sal at st. Peters and completely relieved
from the bluffs on all sides save the rear,
where portico joins it with the main
precipice.
The perfect symmetry of this marvellous
- structure would ravish Michael Angelo.
So far from requiring an effort of imagi-
nation to recognize the propriety of its
name, this church almost staggers be-
lief in the unassisted naturalness of its
architecture. 1t belongs to style entire.
ly its own. Its main and lower portion is
not divided into nave and transept, but
seems like a system of huge semicylinders
erected on their bases, aud united with re-
eutrant angels, their convex surface to.
wards us, SO that the ground.p plan might be
called species of quartre-foil.
In each of the convex faces is an admi-
rably proportioned doorway, a Gothic
arch with deep carved and deliberately fret.
ted mouldirgs, so wonderfully perfect in
its imitation that you almost feel like
knocking for admittance, secure of an en-
trance, did you only know the "Open Sc
same" Between and behind the doors, al
ternatiug with flying-buttresses, are a Sc
ries of deep-niched windows, set with
grotesque statues, varying from the pigmy
to the colossal size, representing demons
rather than saints, though some of the fig
ures are costumcd in the style of relis ious
art, with flowing saeerdotal garments. ~
The structure terminates above 10 a
double dome, whose figure may be ina
gined by supposing small acorn set on the
truncated top of large one (the horizon
tai diameter of both being considerably
longer in proportion to the perpendicular
than is common with that fruit, and each
of these domes is surrounded by row of
prism-shaped pillars, half column, half
buttress 10 their effect. somewhat similar
to the exquisite columnar encourage of the
central cylinder of the leaning tower Of
P sa. The result of this arrangement is
an aerial, yet massive beauty, without par
allel in the architecture of the world.
have not conveyed to any mind an idea OF
the grandeur of this pile, nor could l.
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