[1] DENVER CITY. Green Russell, a Georgian, with a company of gold-seekers, pitched the first camp on Cherry Creek in the summer of 1858. They called it Auraria after a mining town of Georgia. The party which named Denver City came with General Larimer, of Leavenworth, Kan., in the winter of 1858-59. The gold region first formed a county of Kansas called Arapaho, though distant six hundred miles from Junction City, then the nearest settlement of Kansas. The nearest post-office was Fort Laramie, two hundred and twenty miles north of Denver. [2] FONTAINE QUI BOUILLE, French. "The three fountains bubbling up from the ground, and not boiling with heat, are strongly impregnated with soda." They were visited and described by Pike, Long, Fremont, and others. THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. _In time of war prepare for peace._ In about half a century we have seen the great body of the nation moving more than five hundred miles westward. It has moved forward like an army taking the field, planting its outlying settlements before it at all strategic points, the possession of which was essential to the success of its peaceful mission. This army has marched at the rate of ten miles a year, mostly along the thirty-ninth parallel, to which the advantage of soil and climate was its infallible guide. Its destination was the Pacific Ocean. [Illustration: QUAKER GUN AT STAGE STATION.] We have also witnessed the occupation of the Pacific coast, the rise of two great States there whose people were already stretching their hands out toward the East as if to hasten its coming. The genius of civilization hovered over and directed this grand march, which never halted but to re-form its lines and go forward again with stately tread. We have further seen a third body firmly plant itself among the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, whose mission was to extend its own civilization both to the East and West, as the pebble which is dropped into a pool sends out its ever-broadening circle upon the surface of the waters. Thus the people of New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, were already throwing out little colonies into the later Territories of Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana. Thus these Territories were the heralds of the coming East. And in this manner the vigorous West had secured in advance the strongholds which, in a physical sense, impeded the march toward the Pacific. As it went forward, the East brought all the appliances of civilization with it, and set them working all along the line. In 1859[1] the locomotive and telegraph reached the eastern frontier of Kansas. There was now a gap of two thousand miles remaining to be closed up between the Missouri and the Pacific. How to bridge this over, and by so doing bring widely separated sections together, was a question now assuming national importance in men's minds.