Year: 1879

| LEADvILLF, Colorado, May 30.-The journey from
New-York to Lcadve. the metropolis of the newly
| discovered Carbonate Silver Mining Region. may
| now be made in four days and twelve hours all
| though half day more will have to be allowed IL
the Chicago route to Kansas is selected, and whole
day if the trip from Denver is made by the way OF
Canon Cit and up the Canon and
| Valley of the Arkansas. The party of New
York and New-Engand capitalists whose
visit to Leadville and examination of its mineral
have just been completed, came from Dem
yer by the South Park route, and as accompanied
them, whatever may say in this letter about tho
way to reach this great mining camp will relate to
| that route.


| No reader Of The TRIBUNE needs TO be told how to
| reach Denver, and to describe the journey TO that
city is as unnecessary to write about the coun-
| try which lies between New-York and Boston. In
riding across Kansas. no Eastern man can fall to
be impressed with the wonderful growth and pros
perty of that State to be surprised at the rapid
| ty with which the settlers pushing out upon tho
plains and reducing every year the breadth of tho
| unsettled belt of country which lies between the
Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains. A few
years ago it required only few hours 70 ride across
| the portion of Kansas occupied by white people,
and every newcomer who built his cabin and took
up" so or 100 acres Of land on the western bor-
der thought that the plains beyond were valuable
only for grazing and would never support agricu
tura population Then there a run on the Kan
sas Pacific Railroad, of twenty-four hours the
prairie inhabited only by wild Indians and buifa-
loes The Kansas COW boys had not even driven
out their herds to feed on tho short but nutritious
grass, nor constructed the dug-outs In which they
hibernate for nearly half the year. Now, starting
from Kansas City at noon we rode the whole after
noon through highly cultivated farms and past -four
ishing towns, and when the darkness shut down
upon us we had seen no signs of frontier life. Even
at daylight the next morning we still saw the occa-
sonal cabin of preemptor.


FEATURES OF THE JOURNEY.
Beyond the line which separates the arabic lands


from the dry plains the country is all ranged by
the herders whose cattle almost always in sight.
Surely and not slowly either American civilization
is taking possession of the entire belt of country
east of the Rocky Mountains sud etfacing the
marks which remind one of its former Wild condi-
tion. Very much Of the country is capable of sus-
tanning as dense an agricultural population rs Ohio
or Illinois now contains and no State in the Union is
| filling up with people more rapidly than Kansas.
| Even now buffalo are rarely seen from
! the trains only few antelope bound
over the plains startled by the whistle of
| tho locomotive, and the skeletons OF
| the buffalo slain in former years. which whitened
| on the prairies have been gathered up and shipped


to the East to be converted into phosphates for fer
| tzing purposes. Carloads of these bones may be


seen about the freight stations in Kansas City and


on Eastern bound trains, but none upon the ground


where the animals fell. Gophers and praire-dogs


alone Of the former occupants Of the country still


hold their ground.


One of the most interesting incidents of the ride
through Western Kansas was the wonderful mirage
| which we saw south of the track. The sun poured


down upon the dry and dusty ground, but for miles


we seemed to be riding in full sight of beautiful
| river Sometimes it was only narrow silver


thread skirted on the further side by high sandy


bluff, while at Others it spread out into broad


lakes surrounded by green slopes and dotted


with fertile islands. Old travellers on the
! plains had rarely seen SO beautiful a mirage
and it was difficult to persuade the mex
perienced that there actually water in sight.
Within twenty-five or thirty miles of Denver there
are numerous sheep ranches the Kansas Pacific
| Railroad and we saw several immense iocks within
fenced Enclosures Sheep raising is OF the most


lourishing industries of Colorado, especially south
| of Denver.


DENVER AND BEYOND.


Denver Is one of the most beautiful cities Of the
West and is growing with astonishing rapidlty.
some idea of the stimulus which the place has re-
ceived from the mining excitement here and at
other points in the State may be gathered from the





and registered at the principal hotels. Nor
does this adequately represent the travel into
or through Denver. because a large propor-
ton of the men who seek the mining
regions are too poor to lodge at hotel, and seek,
instead cheaper lodgings. In this connection copy
as characteristic of the place the headlines with
which one OF the newspapers attracts attention TO
It's LIST Of hotel arrivals. The lines are, OF cOuse,
displayed y:


Saturdays Surging Swell of Success Seeking


Struggers Slowly but Surely Spending their


Spondulcks Sordidly Saved"


From Denver there are two routes to LeaAyillS
and. as that by the way of the Denver South Park
and Pacific Railroad is the shortest aud quickest. it
was the one chosen by our party. | intend to 90
out through the Valley of the Arkansas River via
Canon City aud Pueblo, and may write
something about that route in another letter.
The distance from Denver to this camp
by the South Park route Is about 10
miles over seventy-fve of which the railroad has
been completed. The remaining sixty-fye miles
have to be travelled by stage. The tram connect
ing with the stage leaves Denver at $50 o'clock p
NJ and is scheduled to reach the end of the track
at Summit at 4 O'Clock the next morning. Tho
night we came up the train lost two hours IN get
ting up the mountains, and unless some means arc
found to increase the speed the steep grades and
snalp curves iht COMPANY wiz H@'o W "io" a"""'
eight hours for passenger trains to reach the en-
trance to South Park


few miles from Denver the railroad strikes into
the canon of the Platte, which it follows up through
n narrow gorge between the mountains for about
fifty miles, gaining altitude at the summit Of
lOOiO feet, or about 5000 feet above
Denver The scenery through this canon
is grand beyond description. AT place is 1t much
more than stones throw in width. and most of the
way the railroad bed has been excavated out of the


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