its beginning, the importance of
these final paragraphs slowly diminished, and the information they gave
was gradually transferred to the title-page. Complete title-pages
bearing the date and name of the publishers are found in most books
printed after 1520, and the final paragraph, if retained at all, was
gradually reduced to a bare statement of the name of the printer. From
the use of the word in the sense of a "finishing stroke," such a final
paragraph as has been described is called by bibliographers a "colophon"
(Gr. [Greek: kolophon]), but at what period this name for it was first
used has not been ascertained. It is quite possibly not earlier than the
18th century. (For origin see COLOPHON [city].) (A. W. PO.)

COLORADO, a state of the American union, situated between 41 deg. and 37
deg. N. lat. and 102 deg. and 109 deg. W. long., bounded N. by Wyoming
and Nebraska, E. by Nebraska and Kansas, S. by Oklahoma and New Mexico,
and W. by Utah. Its area is 103,948 sq. m. (of which 290 are water
surface). It is the seventh largest state of the Union.

_Physiography._--Colorado embraces in its area a great variety of
plains, mountains and plateaus. It lies at the junction of the Great
Plains--which in their upward slant to the westward attain an average
elevation of about 4000 ft. along the east boundary of the state--with
the Rocky Mountains, to the west of which is a portion of the Colorado
Plateau. These are the three physiographic provinces of the state (see
also UNITED STATES, section _Geology_, ad fin., for details of
structure). The last-named includes a number of lofty plateaus--the Roan
or Book, Uncompahgre, &c., which form the eastern continuation of the
high plateaus of Utah--and covers the western quarter of the state. Its
eastern third consists of rich, unbroken plains. On their west edge lies
an abrupt, massive, and strangely uniform chain of mountains, known in
the neighbourhood of Colorado Springs as the Rampart Range, and in the
extreme north as the Front Range, and often denominated as a whole by
the latter name. The upturning of the rocks of the Great Plains at the
foot of the Front Range develops an interesting type of topography, the
harder layers weathering into grotesquely curious forms, as seen in the
famous Garden of the Gods at the foot of Pike's Peak. Behind this
barrier the whole country is elevated 2000 ft. or so above the level of
the plains region. In its lowest portions just behi