vein is seventeen feet wide, quartz and dirt, and averages, without counting in a small but regular formation of silver of $5,000 a ton richness, $79 a ton. Very rich copper ore begins to appear 130 feet from the surface. The ore is conveyed down to the mill through a chute and by self-acting cars. About 400 feet below the outcrop, a tunnel has been started in by which it is expected to work the lode when it shall be finished. At the base of the hill, another tunnel has been commenced, which is expected to reach the lode by the time the back of the upper adit shall have been exhausted. The mill contains a Hodge & Christie cracker, two sets of Cornish rollers, and six stone arastras, twenty feet in diameter, the whole having a capacity of one hunderd tons a day. It is of wood, the lumber and timber cut out by the Company's saw-mill. It is so arranged that the ore moves as desired by its own gravity.

Although in latitude 39° north and having an elevation above the sea at its head of nearly two miles, the climate of the South Park is not more inhospitable than that of New York or New England. The average temperature, though not lower in Winter is a good deal lower in Summer, and it is also much more equable. The following mean of the thermometer and barometer for the year 1866, is kindly furnished us by Prof. DuBois, it having been determined under his auspices. He writes: 'My barometrical observations were not all made with a reliable instrument, and therefore only give approximate results. Taking these, and computing

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the hight of Buckskin above tide-water, we have 10,488 feet. Observations made the same months in Denver and in Buckskin, fix the difference of elevation at 5,124 feet. These differ so little, as Denver has an elevation, well ascertained, of 5,317 feet, that we may consider the figure nearly right. This, with 7,000 feet as the elevation of Mount Lincoln above Buckskin, will give, I do not doubt, quite a low figure as to the hight of that mountain-under the truth. I think it may be safely stated at 17,500 feet. The observations enclosed are not perfect, because their number was unequal at different periods and taken only at morning and evening."

Among the romantic incidents which have marked the brief history of the South Park, are the murderous campaign of the Espinosas, and the Reynolds guerrilla raid. The Espinosas are supposed to have been outlaws from Chihuahua, two cousins; one was a large, dish-faced, iron-looking, beau-ideal of a villain, the other, a little fellow of no particular type. They diversified their journey northward from Mexico by the murder of two merchants in Santa Fe, and of a soldier at Conejos. Arriving in the vicinity of Canon City in March, 1863, they signalized a three weeks' lurking in the bush between there and the South Park by the murder of nine men. The inhabitants were prostrated, blockaded in their houses at last, by consternation. No one knew the character of this mysterious dispensation of Providence, no one knew from what concealment the messenger of death which had never missed its mark might reach him. After a while Jno. McCannon of Lake County raised twenty volunteers who elected him their Captain, and, at the expense of Lake County, started to hunt down the assassins. He first settled with a lot of thieves then infesting the county. One of them was captured, taken from his men by the soldiers at Fairplay, and hanged. The rest fled to Montana and were hanged in due time. Finding a trail in the lower part of the Park leading toward Canon City, McCannon with eight men followed it into one of the deepest kanyons of that rough region, where he found two horses feeding. Quietly concealing themselves, the Espinosas soon ap

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peared and the big one was felled by a shot through the right side. Rising on his elbow he kept firing with his revolver, the men having to drop to escape his yet unerring shot, until a ball was sent through his head by a brother of one of his victims. The little devil clambered up the rocks, hid away, and finally escaped. The blood-stained wearing apparel of twelve murdered men, some money and personal trinkets, a knife and memorandum book were found on the body of the dead fiend, who was left where he fell, and in their camp. The little one picked up another cousin, a mere boy, and hiding in the Sangre de Christo Pass, carried on the business of the old firm, although in a rude, apprentice-like way, until late in the Summer, when, ravens rising from the offal of a butchered ox they had stolen disclosing their retreat, they were set upon by a party of soldiers from Fort Garland and both killed. Some papers addressed to Gov. Evans concerning an alleged despoliation of the Espinosa family by Government officers, together with a book of prayers and some insane religious raphsodies, were found on their persons. One of the latter ended"the Virgin Mary will be sitting on my head until I die in her arms, amen Jesus!" The Espinosa was without doubt one of the worst bandits of Mexico, and his career in Colorado is one of those events which give rise to the trite remark that "truth is stranger than fiction." In a paper addressed to Gov. Evans, he claimed to have killed twenty-two men, and on that account demanded the restoration of his property.

Sometime in April, 1864, James Reynolds picked up a party of skulkers and deserters from the Confederate service numbering twenty-two, in the vicinity of Fort Arbuckle, Texas, and started for Colorado, steering as near as he could for the Spanish Peaks. Driven to eating their pack animals on the way, they struck the roads from the States to Santa Fe, hungry. With the first train they intersected, they traded a horse for something to eat. The next one, not showing fight, they captured. Another captured train gave them ample subsistence and transportation, arms and ammunition, five thousand dollars in drafts, a large sum in greenbacks, and two thousand dollars in coin. Upon this they quarreled and thirteen of the party turned back. The rest cached their plunder and went on through the settlements of Colorado, quite civilly, until they got into the South Park, where Reynolds had formerly lived and borne a good character. Here they broke loose, captured the coach from Buckskin to Denver, robbed the mail and safe, and chopped up the coach wheels. For several days thereafter they infested the road between the South Park and Denver, living at the ranches, stealing, trading, doing foolish rather than smart things. The people soon got after them, parties of soldiers and bands of citizens from the Park and from Denver. One night a dozen miners under Jack Sparks crossed the Range eastward from Summit County, ran into them on the north fork of Platte, and fired on them, killing one, named Singleterry, and wounding Reynolds in the arm. The band was effectually dispersed, and every individual