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CLEAR CREEK CANON. 33

 

Having heard so much of the beauties of Clear Creek
Canon, the wonders of the Idaho Springs, and the im-
mense riches of Georgetown, I now determined to pay
them a visit, and accordingly took the morning train
from Denver to Golden, a distance of seventeen miles.
Here we changed into the cosy little narrow-gauge
cars, and I was fortunate enough to secure a seat in an
open excursion car, from which I had a fine view of the
magnificent scenery; and I again take the liberty of
quoting from Rev. Mr. Robinson’s lecture:

“'We entered the mouth of Clear Creek Canon, and
began our ascent of the narrow pass, through which
Clear creek foams and eddies, and dashes and leaps, in
its hurry to reach the great plain. -The railroad follows
the course of the stream—it could not do otherwise—
now on one side of it, now on the other, crossing and
re-crossing so frequently in its mazy, winding way, that
one gets bewildered. Far below the road-bed runs the
stream. The little engine, which draws its train of
diminutive cars, pants and groans as it creeps sometimes
up a steep incline, and the cars creak, and seem at some
of the sharp curves to fairly twist and bend around
them.

“After a few miles the track of the railroad came
closer down to the creek, and at times we were but a
few feet from the water, creeping along a stony parapet
cast up for our track. We were in the midst of the
wildest and grandest scenery I had ever looked upon.
The vegetation had changed. The mountains are well
called Rocky, for they are hardly anything else, often

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