at, corn, and alfalfa waving like vast seas, irrigated by means of
numberless windmills; there, herds of cattle, numerous as the leaves
of autumn; here, long lines of steam plows breaking thousands of acres
of virgin soil; there mammoth steam reapers devouring vast areas of
gold mines of grain; the food of the nations pouring into bags at one
end, while the stalks were bound midway ready for the fattening of
cattle. The chaff flew in clouds, and quickly, from these machines,
millions of bushels of wheat were soon on their way to the markets of
the world. What wonder that our country now has in Washington over
five hundred millions of gold dollars; the richest treasury ever known
on earth?

Now we catch glimpses of vast mines of coal and salt; then of great
cities which have sprung up as by magic; and soon my eyes were greeted
with a vision of heavenly splendor in Colorado. Three hundred miles
of the Rocky Mountains, Pike's Peak towering 14,000 feet towards the
stars; great clouds of snow blowing from the summit into the valleys;
there cascades of mighty rivers flowing to irrigate lovely valleys;
here the great city of Denver, having 125,000 population, and one mile
higher up in the air than Boston.

In this city I met my former college professor, now the
multi-millionaire United States senator, burdened with many crushing
cares, knowing about as much peace and quietness as a toad under a
two-forty-gait harrow.

Then on went the mighty train; here a glimpse at Manitou of the
"Garden of the Gods," with cathedral spires of old red sandstone
towering hundreds of feet towards the clouds which capped their
summits with halos; on through the grand canyon of the Arkansas River,
in places two miles nearer heaven than Boston; here we see gigantic
natural castles with battlements, bastions and fortresses whose
leveled cannon you almost instinctively dodge to escape their
imaginary bomb-shells. Now we climb almost perpendicular heights,
thousands of feet; now we slide down into chasms barely escaping the
rushing waters; then we shoot through a tunnel two miles long under
1,500 feet of solid rock; now we rush over vast plateaus 10,000 feet
above the sea; then we catch glimpses of herds of cattle, now of great
caves, lone trees with not a bit of earth visible about their roots;
now we rush into Leadville, a mining camp of 10,000 people. At
midnight a huge stone rolled down the mountainside onto the track,
delaying us for two hour