In South Park, we had struck a new civilization, the evidences of which grew constantly more apparent. The Mexican and the herder had given way to the Yankee and the miner, and the contrast was most striking. Ranches and settlements were more numerous, and the spirit of enterprise was everywhere observable. First we struck some saline springs, where extensive salt-works had already been erected, and they were reported to be paying well. They were said to furnish a superior article of salt, at a less price than it could be imported from the east, and the company expected thus to monopolize the salt-market of Colorado and the adjoining regions. Beyond these, ranches thickened up all the way to Fair Play, and we found some splendid duck-shooting in the marshes, that now and then skirted the road. Some of the flocks, however, carried off an immense amount of lead, or else H. and L. were indifferent shots--we were never quite able to decide which. They were our champion sportsmen, and though they bagged a number of fine ducks _en route_, they never were entirely satisfied. They both fired simultaneously at a great flock that rose up as we drove by, and when none dropped H. protested, "I know I hit a dozen that time, but these confounded Rocky Mountain ducks don't know what shot is. They fly away with enough honest lead in them to kill an ordinary eastern duck twice over." L. of course, confirmed this, and adduced the abundant feathers as proof of their joint achievement. B. suggested that the Indians had charmed their fowling-pieces, and meekly inquired of H., "Didn't the ducks carry off your shot-pouch also?" At Fair Play, in the northwest corner of the Park, we found a mining town of four or five hundred inhabitants, apparently busy and prosperous. Timber grew plentifully in the neighboring cañons, and now adobe huts gave place to frame and log shanties. The South Platte skirts the town, and is already a considerable stream here, although it cannot be far away from its source. At Fair Play it heads north up into the great Snowy Range, or water shed of the continent, which feeds it perpetually, and runs thence east to join the North Platte near Fort McPherson, where we had struck it by stage-coach a month before. Good "gold diggings" had been found here long before, and its entire banks about Fair Play have been dug over, "panned out," and ransacked generally. They presented a torn and ragged appearance, as if a young earthquake or two had recently broken out there, and this was not materially improved by the long and high flumes then going up. When these were completed, they expected to turn the Platte considerably aside, and to find rich "placer mines" in its sand-bars and bed again. The principal mining then in South Park, however, was farther up the Platte, at Empire, Buckskin Joe, and other euphoniously named places, none of which had we time to visit. The business generally seemed to be settling down to quartz-mining, as