The Parks Of The Rocky Mountains

Froxn Fitz HujjL LudloW New Book. In some plaoes ibe parallel ranges thin out, leaving a large tract of level country quite embosomed betweon snowridges, and, 80 to speak, alcoved into the very heart of the system. These are the " Parks;" and they form one of tbe most inleresting as well as characterisÜc features of the Rocky Mountain Boenery. Formations of tbis kind abound everywhere in those mountaius ; but the four principal ones forin a series running from apoint considerab'y northwest of Denver quite into New Mexico. They are called, io their order, North, Hiddle, South, and San Luis Parks. They more newly resemblo the green dells of our Atlantic range than any other part of tflis; but their itnitation is an expansión on the scale of miles to the inch. You might set down one of oar smaller States iu Middle Park without crowding it. The Parks are watered directly from the snow-peaks, being indeed ouly the inner court of those peaks, acd catching the droppings from their eaves. The portions of the Parks most thoroughly irrigated remain beautifully green thronghout the year ; and over tl.e whole región herbage is abundant. Tbe sheltered situations of the Parks insuro thom aa equablo cliiuato ; and old hunt ers who have camped out in theui for months together, talk of life there as an earthly paradise. It will prove equally so to the farmer and grazier when Colorado finds time to develop her agricultura. Por the present they are difficult of acoess, and the most beautiful as well as the riuhest hnnting grounds in the Far West. Elk, daer, and aatelope abound there ; wild animáis of the cat kind, headed by the Rocky Mountain üon, are comrnon in the wooded ridges that skirt thein ; they ara not Btinted in regard to wolves or foxes. Perhaps, toe, the Parks may be said to bound the extreme webtern range of the buflalo. I saw a buffalo skull, to be eure, on a dry, gravelly plain near the Green River; and tradition still speaks of their having fjrmerly extended all the way into Utah. But the climate is suoh an antiseptic that the remains eeen by me may have beea a hundrod jears old, being white as snow and hardly more than a perfe-ot cast of head and horos in the calis of lime. It is certainly many years since a herd has crossed the mountains, many even since it penetrated them further than the Parks. It is not at all an everyday matter, at thia time, to fihoot a " mouutain buffalo;" so little, indeed, that I could not get absolute oertainty as to whether he is idéntica] with the ordinary buffalo of the plains or a distinct variety. Some of my infonnants defcribed him as tho eame in everything burt habils, while others pronounced him much larger and fiercer. The probability is that this animal is only a descendant from strays left behiud a herd that crossed the mountains, which gradually were adapt ed to the new contiilions, until they present an entirely distinct variety. The ' mountain buffulo ie eaid not to be migratory. If this be true, the loss of such , strong race instinct is of itself sufficient to form the base of a variety distinction. I have "been betrayed into tho artistio error (or excellence, according to your ' school) of painting more into my picture : than I could see from my oampstool; of nddiug aftor expericnce lo the present facta of visión. But to see the Rocky Mountaina means bo much moro than the view of any one mighty ridge or peak, that I might just as well give its idea by glanciug across the whole billowy tnain as by stopping short where the undulatious break on that ieebound eoast yonder, in clouds against the bluo of lieavcn.