The Potter journal and news item. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1872-1874, 1873-03-14
Misttttanu.
From the n. VI Evening Post.
Colorado Scenery.


"The Garden of the Gods" is gen
orally an objective point to the trav-
eler's ambition from the moment he
enters Colorado. The very name
fills ones fancy with vague visions,
which. on examination, he finds to be
composed in nearly equal parts of
the Celestial City" i'll "Pilgrim
Progress, the castle picture in Coles
"Voyage of Life" and such dim re-
membranes as may have survived to
him of the Mount Olympus of Homer
and Virgil.
The experience of our own little
party may, perhaps, show better than
any generalization how far the gar
den performs the celestial and horti-
cultural promises Of its enchanting
name. We started on a true Col
orado morning. The natives here
call day which promises to be rainy
and disagreeable Estates day."
These pleasure-parties look very
pretty as, with the addition of chance
equestrians, they wind through the
valley or over the hills, under the in
tense sunshine of an atmosphere Of
more cutter blueness" than is ever
elsewhere. out of Italy. A two-mile
drive on the right bank of the rush
ing river brings US to the gateway of
the garden.
IMMENSE TOWERING ROCKS.
No description which ] have ever
seen gives Il correct idea of the i'm
preston produced by these tremen-
dous stones. Rising directly from
the plain, of a red color unsurpassed
in vividness by the brightest corne-
lian, stand two powders three hum
dred feet high-at once majestic and
graceful in outline, and leaving just
space enough between them for fine
natural roadway. The idea of sys-
tematically planned architectural eff
feet is irresistible. WHO put them
there? when? how ?" we ask in
voluntarily; for, in position, shape
and color they are SO artistic that
our minds revert at once to such
ruins as Luxor and Baalbec rather
than to any purely natural objects.
At the right, just before we pass
through the grand portal, is a shin
ing mass of gypsum, as intensely
white as the sandstone is red, and
perhaps half as large as the column
nearest to it. Once past the entrance
an overwhelming impression over
takes us of being in gigantic tenn
pie, whose sculptured columns and
majestic images are crumbling to
ruin before our eyes. All around,
rising abruptly from the light soil,
are sandstone obelisks, fifty, seventy
five. and even a hundred and fifty
feet high: 50 narrow, 50 tall, and 50
baffiingly intentional in their shapes
and groupings, that ones fancy runs
riot in thousand vagaries. These
frowning monsters, surrounded by
uncouth forms of animals which seem
to fawn at their feet, represent to us
the degraded heather deities who.
Milton tells US, never cease to lament
over their lost empire; here they
stand, petrified by the neglect and
contempt of the ages.
So we wandered slowly through
what seemed to be the remains of a
forgotten worship, more picturesque
than the Egyptian, more solemn than
the Greek, but partaking of the SYM
bols of each. We crept into a low
browed cavern on one side Of the
gateway, whose huge bosom could
contain all the oracles ever uttered
from Delphic times to the last meet
ing of the Spirituahsts; but we were
glad to hurry out again, as the possi-
bility of being punished for our ir-
reverence by the shutting of its mar
row jaws oyercame even the proverb-
ial stolidity of nineteenth-century
American. The wonderful noun
tain fora here seems to outdo itself
in honor to the genii of the place.
If we stife our vagrant fancies,
still science asks nearly the same
questions as ignorance. How did
these separate red and white rocks
come up ordowp, within twenty
feet Of each other, on a soil unlike
either stone, and totally unlike the
soil of Pixies Peak, of which they
might otherwise seem to be debris =?
If they were the result of the same
uplift, why are they not geologically