oundings one's breast throbs and swells with the thought of
Nature's omnipotence.

_PANORAMA FROM GRAY'S PEAK--NORTHWEST_

_The picture includes the northern spur of Gray's Peak, with the
dismantled signal station on its crest. The main ridge of the peak
extends out to the left of the signal station. The summit is so situated
as to be exposed to the sun the greater part of the day; hence, although
it is the highest point in the region, there is less snow upon it in
summer than upon many of the surrounding elevations. Looking northwest
from the signal station, the eye falls upon a wilderness of snow-clad
peaks and ranges, some standing in serried ranks, others in picturesque
disorder. It is truly an arctic scene, summer or winter. Yet it is the
summer home of the brown-capped leucosticte and the white-tailed
ptarmigan, which range in happy freedom over the upper story of our
country._

[Illustration]

The summit of Gray's Peak is a favorable viewpoint from which to study
the complexion, the idiosyncrasies, if you please, of individual
mountains, each of which seems to have a personality of its own. Here is
Gray's Peak itself, calm, smiling, good-natured as a summer morning;
yonder is Torrey's, next-door neighbor, cruel, relentless, defiant,
always threatening with cyclone or tornado, or forging the thunder-bolts
of Vulcan. Some mountains appear grand and dignified, others look like
spitfires. On one side some bear smooth and green slopes almost to the
top, while the other is scarred, craggy, and precipitous.

The day was serene and beautiful, the sky a deep indigo, unflecked with
clouds, save a few filmy wracks here and there, and the breeze as balmy
as that of a May morning in my native State. So quiet was the alpine
solitude that on all sides we could hear the solemn roar of the streams
in the ravines hundreds of feet below, some of them in one key and some
in another, making almost a symphony. For several hours we tarried, held
by a spell. "But you have forgotten your ornithology!" some one reminds
me. No one could blame me if I had. Such, however, is not the case, for
ornithology, like the poor, is never far from some of us. The genial
little optimists that had been hopping about on the snow on the
declivities had acted as our cicerones clear to the summit, and some of
them remained there while we tarried. Indeed the leucostictes were quite
plentiful on the mountain's brow. Several perched on the dismantled
wal