THE BLACK CAÑON.
In all the world there is no place so beautiful, imposing, sublime and awful, that may be so easy and comfortably visited, as the Black Cañon, for the iron horse of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad has a pathway through the cañon, and he draws after him coaches as handsome and pleasant as those which he draws on the level plain. Along many miles of this grand gorge the railroad lies upon a shelf that has been blasted in the solid walls of God's masonry; walls that stand sheer two thousand feet in height, and so close together that for most of the distance through the cañon only a streak of sky, sometimes in broad daylight, spangled with stars, is seen above.
"I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."
Unlike many of the Colorado cañons, the scenery in this one is kaleidoscopic, ever changing. Here the train glides along between the close, regular and exalted walls then suddenly it passes the mouth of another mighty cañon which looks as if it were a great gateway to an unroofed arcade leading from the pathway of some monstrous giant. Now, at a sharp turn, Chippeta Falls, a stream of liquid crystal, pitches from the top of the dizzy cliffs to the bosom of the sparkling river which dashes beside the road. Then a spacious amphitheater is passed, in the centre of which stands Currecanti Needle, solitary and alone, a towering monument of solid stone, which reaches to where it flaunts the clouds, like some great cathedral spire. Truly there is no gorge in all the Rocky range that presents such variety and grandeur as the Black Cañon of the Gunnison.
TOLTEC GORGE.
MARSHALL PASS.
Marshall Pass is entered almost imperceptibly from Poncha Pass, and the whole wonderful ascent might very readily be imagined as one and the same. The summit is almost eleven thousand feet above the sea, and the tortuous method by which the daring engineers of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad have achieved this summit can best be understood by a glance at the cut illustrating the alignment of the track, shown on another page. As the train progresses up the steep the view becomes less obstructed by mountain sides and the eye roams over miles of cone-shaped summits. The timberless tops of towering ranges show him that he is among the heights and in a region familiar with the clouds. Then he beholds, stretching away to the left, the most perfect of all, the Sierras. The sunlight falls with a white, transfiguring radiance upon the snow-crowned spires of the Sangre de Cristo range. Their sharp and dazzling pyramids, which near at hand are clearly defined, extend to the southward until cloud and sky and snowy peak commingle and form a vague and bewildering vision. To the right towers the fire-scarred front of old Ouray, grand, solitary and forbidding. Ouray holds the pass, standing sentinel at the rocky gateway to the fertile Gunnison. Slowly the steeps are conquered, until at last the train halts upon the summit of the continental divide which separates the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. The traveler looks down upon four lines of road, terrace beyond terrace, the last so far below as to be quite indistinct to view. Wonder at the triumphs of engineering skill is strangely mingled with the feelings of awe and admiration at the stupendous grandeur of the scene.