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been channeled, here and there, to wash the very ground upon which we walk in this strange land, that men might gather the gold hidden therein.

That pioneer placer-miner, Mr. Peter Theobold, showed me a nugget of gold, that moonlit night, weighing eight pennyweights, which he took from this creek's bed thirty years ago. A generation has since passed away, and yet the stream runs on over its gold-charged sand and gravel. Even now, Frank Fitzpatrick counts the gold by pennyweights he washes every evening from its altered current.

The city rests on foundations intermingled with gold.

But midnight was coming on. The moon had risen. Its borrowed raiment fell as softly upon the rocks' rough face as upon "the lush-red roses drooped in dream," in the flower gardens of Plummer and Osbiston upon Colorado avenuė. was late, therefore, when I reached and registered at the "Hotel Stanton." The rest of the night was spent in dreamless sleep.

It

I believe Anna Letitia Barbauld said,

"In some brighter clime

Bid me, Good morning."

These words came chiming down memory's aisles that first morning at Idaho Springs, for I seemed to be in some brighter sun-bright clime than even my nativity, the lovely far away valley of the Ohio.

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One of my first and pleasurable acquaintances was formed at the Stanton, when 'good-morning," was involuntarily exchanged between a stranger-the Hon. John A. Wilstach, of Indiana, and myself. We soon became friends. He had traveled much; had crossed the ocean four times; had been in all lands and climes. Talking with him about the climate of this locality, Judge Wilstach said:

"As to climatic advantages, the northern side of the town of Idaho Springs, including the site of the 'Hotel Stanton,' is in the same position as the celebrated hotels at Mentone on the coast of the Mediterranean in Southern France. Mentone is the favorite winter sanitarium of Europe. The hotels there, to which I allude, are the 'Hotel de la Paix' (of Peace) and the 'Hotel des Anglais' (of the English). The Mediterranean Alps there so closely invest the sea, that the spray often dashes across beach and boulevard into the windows of the lower stories, and the 'Hotel de la Paix' is, for nearly half its height, built into the face of the mountain in its rear. The mountain rises to a lofty height. It faces then due south. On its face, therefore, rests, all day long, the sun. Mentone feels no blast from the north. The northern storm slips over the summit into the sea. Is the breeze from the south, it brings from Africa the fervors of the tropics tempered by the waves. The Stanton' has the same advantages of situation. Sheer

above it rises the lofty north walls of the Canon. From the east comes through the convenient opening of the Grass Valley, the warm breezes of Eastern Colorado. From the west, through another opening, come hints of the warm breezes of the Pa

cific coast. The only enemy of the climate of Idaho Springs is the gale from the Sierra Blanca and Pike's Peak, and from this it is protected by the summits of the Santa Fe Mountain. Is it any wonder that snow refuses to remain in the streets of this favored city in the winter, and that sleighing is as much unknown in its. streets as the Tally-Ho Coach in Venice? From the mountain last named

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Among these restless argonauts was George A. Jackson, the original discoverer of gold placers in Colorado. It was during the winter of 1858, while prospecting the valley of Clear Creek-Vasquey River then calledthat he first strolled into Grass Val

ley, while the river was frozen solid, and following up the stream as far as what is now called Soda Hill, observed a blue mist arising from an adjoining canon, which he at first supposed to be the camp-fires of the Utes.

"Alarmed at his imagined danger, he climbed to the summit of an adjacent hill, wherein the snow lay waist deep and, peering cautiously into the

issue the Hot Springs, which are giv- adjoining valley, ascertained that the ing Idaho Springs an enviable

celebrity.

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mysterious smoke was the vapor from the hot springs located near by, which, after the discovery of placer gold on the bars above and below them, made the immediate vicinity the seat of a mining camp which rapidly grew into a village and prosperous town. Jackson relates that at that time hundreds of mountain sheep had gathered about the springs to graze upon the herbage, from which the warm vapors had melted the snows.

"From here he advanced half a

mile up the main creek, built a log heap and started a fire upon what is know as Chicago Bar, where he afterward dug in the thawed ground and was rewarded by finding the rich washings, the news of which soon revived as great an emigration toward

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IDAHO SPRINGS, COLO. CENT. BRANCH PACIFIC RY., COLO.

Colorado as the previous decade had attracted to California."

Mr. George A. Patten, a pioneer, and one of the early postmasters said : "I have traveled all over Colorado in the last thirty years, and I have never been in a location where the climate equals this. One pecularity. I have often noticed-the storms that seem to rise at Gray's Peak, and our storms come generally from that direction, do not sweep down on our city. Old Chief Mountain, south of us and in sight there, seems to be a natural attraction and so is the next point struck, leaving us in the edge, almost untouched."

The reader may not care to learn what I saw from the top of Bellevue Mountain; of the "Outing at Chicago Lakes and the ascent of Mount Rosalie;" the fishing excursion to Echo Lake; a day at Lake Edith ; amateur prospecting on the ore-pregnant mountains; the Autobiography of a Silver Dollar; of visits to some of the famous mining-camps around the city, such as "The Lamartine," "The "Dove's Nest," "The Early Bird," "The Freeland," "The Plutus," "The Ben Harrison," "The Silver Age," "The Little Mattie" and its wonder

flume, "The Argo' and "Bald Eagle," "The Mary Foster," "The

Financier," Financier," "The Money Musk," "The Denver City," "The Jo Reynolds," "The Humboldt," "The Champion-Donaldson," and many other producers that are daily and nightly contributing to the world's wealth.

Some mention of these attractions to this resort have been and will be made in separate papers for publication in these pages.

The day was going away and the shadows of another evening falling, when Mr. A. H. Colburn tightened the reins of his horses and asked me to take a seat behind the swift pacer, "John," and his many-gaited companion, "Billy." In this way I was borne rapidly over the city and suburban avenues—a most pleasurable ride.

There were none of Byron's "tears and torture," but there was a “touch of joy" in this evening and morning dream-time. But it was not all a dream. The reality consisted in the renewed strength and the restfulness experienced by one of this world's tired denizens in spending a night in this canon-walled city.

HENRY DUDLEY TEETOR.

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