Only a few miles from Golden is Clear Creek Cañon, another wondrous cleavage wrought by water that goes tumbling through the passage with rumble of breakers and roar of waterfall. The walls of the cañon rise perpendicularly to varying heights of 500 to 1,500 feet, and at places approach so near to each other that an observer looking upward from the cavernous depths can see only a thin strip of blue sky. Away up on the brows of the parallel cliffs are large trees that look like feather dusters, and little streams of liquid silver appear in the distance to be pouring their contributions from crevice and apex to swell the mad creek that rushes with complaining voice down the age-swept gorge. Along this water-bed was formerly the roadway, or trail, used by freight- wagons and stage-coaches, but it is now become the exclusive thoroughfare of the Central Branch, so that the magnificent view which the cañon affords is before the eyes of railroad travelers. Less than three miles from Georgetown is Green Lake, an exquisite body of water which has been very appropriately called the Gem of the Mountain. Its translucent depths are animated by myriads of trout that are tinged by the green waters to the color of emeralds, while away down in its profound recesses is distinguishable a forest of stately trees which has been swept into the lake by some glacial avalanche. Not a branch appears to have been broken or a position disturbed, for the trees stand boldly upright in all their original gracefulness, but through calcareous depositions, that are a peculiarity of this lake, they have been converted into stone. Thus it is a submerged forest of petrified trees. Looking beyond the lake we perceive, some seven miles away, the famous Argenta Pass, the summit of which is reached by the highest wagon-road in the world, and from this elevation an almost boundless and marvelously picturesque view may be had, stretching away to the west as far as Holy Cross Mount, and eastward to the prairies of Kansas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: A VIEW OF PIKE’S PEAK.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------