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of Cambridge, died in 1753, aged twenty-two years in time against them in comnine years. He is sometimes erroneously parison with the Percheron or Norman. called an Arabian.

Judging from the portraits of Murrier, who painted from the living subject before him, the form of this Barb was not that of a racer, although the sire of some of the most famous early race-horses of England.* He was of a more compact build, stouter, and of greater substance. If we compare him with a well-bred Percheron of the present day, notwithstanding the latter is considerably larger, and rather coarser in his points, we shall find a striking resemblance between the two. Here are the same fine, short ears; intelligent, broad forehead; prominent, glowing eyes; clean-cut, dished face; lofty crest, deep chest, short back, powerful quarters, wide flat legs, and full round hoofs well set up at the heels.

Years ago I met an account in some English publication of an extra stout Arabian stallion having been crossed upon a large Scotch mare near Edinburgh. The writer stated that the product was the finest dray-horse he had ever seen, of superior action, and of great strength and endurance, all of which was very natural, for to the greater size of the dam was added a fair measure of the superior quality of bone, muscle, activity, etc., of the sire.

The superior advantage to the American farmer of breeding the Percheron and Norman horse consists:

First. That colts got by these stallions out of even good common mares are so powerful at the early age of two years, when well cared for from birth, they can be put to light work on the farm, and thus when ready to be sold at four to five years old, they will have earned the cost of their production to this age, so that whatever price is then obtained for them becomes a clear gain to the breeder. Common colts ordinarily can not be put to such work till four years old, which makes a loss of

* Another portrait of this Barb by the same painter hangs in the picture-gallery of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, near Sandringham, the country residence of the Prince of Wales. I am indebted to Mr. Wallace, of New York, for this information. He visited both these places last summer, and in his monthly magazine for November has given an engraving sketched from the above portraits. This is apparently a faithful picture of a horse, and widely different from the unnatural crane neck and overarched crest of the imaginary portrait painted by Stubbs, who never saw the horse.

Second. Economy of use. One will do as much work on the farm as a pair of common smaller horses. This saves nearly half of the stable room and groom's attention, and fifty per cent. probably in feed, harness, and shoeing, these last three items costing more for a large horse than for a smaller one, but not so much as for two small ones. The economy in city work is still greater, for one of these powerful horses, in a cart of extra size, can haul as heavy a load as two of the smaller ones; in this way one driver, one cart, and one harness are saved. The large truck wagons of our cities, which have come into so much greater use the past few years than previously, now transport the loads with a pair of these powerful horses which formerly required three to four of the lighter kind.

Third. These horses bring extra high prices when offered for sale at home, and there will be a large demand abroad for them the moment a surplus is found on hand for exportation. Prices in Great Britain rule considerably higher than in America, and a handsome profit will be found in their shipment then to foreign ports.

Here, now, is a new field open to the farmer for a still more profitable consumption of his grass and grain than the rearing of cattle, sheep, and swine, encouraging to all who are properly prepared to embark, in a moderate way, in the breeding of large superior farm and city cart and truck horses.

THE LOVER'S PERIL. HAVE I been ever wrecked at sea,

And nigh to being drowned?
More threat'ning storms have compassed me
Than on the deep are found!
What coral reefs her dangerous lips!
My bark was nearly gone;
Hope plunged away in dire eclipse,
And black the night rolled on.

What seas are like her whelming hair,
That swept me o'er and o'er?

I heard the waters of despair
Crash round the distant shore!

"Come, Death!" I murmured in my cries-
For signals none were waved-
When both light-houses in her eyes
Shone forth, and I was saved!

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ONE

NE might indeed call it providential that the vast deposits of the precious metals in the Rocky Mountain region remained practically unknown to the citizens of this country until a time when they were never more needed by said citizens. Old Mendoza, the Spanish viceroy, had a shrewd idea about them, and it was he who sent Vasquez Coronado, with three hundred and fifty Spaniards and eight hundred Indians, from Culiacan, the capital of Cinaloa, in 1540, to confirm the correctness of his suspicions; but Coronado does not seem to have been a success as a prospector. If he had only had a keen eye for "blossom rock" and other indications, or if there had been a Diamond Drill Company in Cinaloa, how differently history might have read! More than two centuries and a half later, again, when tremendous changes had taken place in the map of the world, and a young and independent nation was building itself up and pushing its borders westward, one James Pursley, a Kentuckian, found gold at the "head of La Platte," but stoutly refused to tell the Spaniards where it was, because, if that region did not already belong to us, it certainly ought to do so. Even the Cherokee Indians had a hand in turning the attention of our people, and no one else, to the rich inheritance locked up for them in the coffers of the Snowy Range; for they brought shining samples to Kansas and Nebraska in 1857, and soon after that time the emigration began to what is now Colorado-the Centennial State. Of this exodus, and some subsequent phases of life in the new land, it was our good fortune to hear some account from one

of the old pioneers--a fine specimen of the men who made this country what it is by their courage and energy:

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'Nothing ever seen like that rush to the mountains, gentlemen-nothing, I assure you. California? Why, that was an agricultural country, while here there was nothing but gold and silver, or the chance of getting them, which isn't the same thing by a long sight. What brought men out here was that they were just dead broke at home-just dead broke, I tell you: '57 had done that. These men were ready for a new country-had to find something-and they came out across the plains when there wasn't a thing here but Indians. Why, we old fellows have a round up 'most every year in Denver, and talk and laugh over those times. We were all alike-nobody had any money -all cleaned out before we skipped out from home. No one had done anything to be ashamed of; but it was a regular amalgamation of busted people, who left their country for their country's good, and their own. If you'd meet a man, and be introduced to him as Mr. Jones, it was all right to ask him, 'What was your name in the States, Mr. Jones?' But you bet it was because the boys had pluck and grit that they stuck to it, and got the ores out, and got the country going ahead. What do you say to bacon one dollar a pound, and flour fifty dollars a sack? I tell you, when the sulphurets came along, and we couldn't hold the ores, and things were pretty blue, a good many would have left, but they couldn't get away."

It took the "honest miner" a long time to learn that "placer" operations-the washing of metal from the sands-were

not a certainty and a permanency, and the capitalists who came in after him also a long time to make expensive experiments, and equally expensive mistakes, and to come down to what is technically and happily called "hard pan," and operate to some extent with proper means, skill, and common-sense. There was one collapse about 1864, and of course the panic of 1873 affected the progress of the State, and it may fairly be said that the real "flush times" in Colorado are these in which we are now living. In spite of all disappointments and drawbacks, steady progress has undoubtedly been made, and great results accomplished. Mining is, beyond all question, the foundation of the growing greatness of the State, and it is most interesting to learn from an elaborate calculation, coming recently from a responsible source, that after making full allowance for the labor of all the men employed from the beginning, and all the money sunk, the residue shows a better return than any other investment in this country. It must not be forgotten that this is an average, and that the fortunes of two or three bonanza kings balance the losses of thousands of poor men; and against the results of this calculation should be set the assertionfor which ample support can be obtained -that at least up to 1871, when railroads cheapened living and introduced greatly improved facilities, the proportion of miners who could be called successful was one in five hundred.

It is to be noticed that here, as in other similar regions, public interest is continually attracted to new discoveries, and a floating population at once drawn thither; and events move so rapidly that an account of the state of affairs in the mining regions may be stale before it is in type. On the other hand, it may be said that even if some of the people go away, the mines remain, and the silver and gold come out just as surely and easily as before; and a larger area than ever is now the scene of active operations.

Starting from the north, we come to the mines of Boulder County, not far from Long's Peak, where there was an ephemeral excitement, some three years ago, about tellurium veins. Then come those of Gilpin (Black Hawk, Central City, etc.) and Clear Creek (Georgetown, etc.) counties, the former noted for gold product, | and both containing what are called "true

fissure veins," where the rocks have been broken or torn asunder by earthquakes or volcanic disturbance. In this neighborhood some of the earliest discoveries were made, and the bullion product of the two counties is large and steady. Then come various points in the South Park, and just between the Park and Main Ranges, California Gulch, now known from one end of the world to the other, for here is Leadville. South again, and between the Sierra Mojada and the Sangre de Cristo lie Rosita and Silver Cliff, and southwest again of this, the great San Juan district. Discoveries have also been made in the Gunnison and Elk Mountain country, away west of the Snowy Range, and only time can show what other now hidden treasures are to come to light in these regions. It is needless to say that several quarto volumes could easily be written about these mines and their operation, and still much be left unsaid; and perhaps indeed, in view of the rapid movement of events, the writer of such a work stands in greater danger of being behind the age than he who attempts some random sketches of the haunts and ways of the "honest miner"—so first called, it is said, by aspiring patriots who sought his suffrages. Mr. Harte declares that when sets of pictures portraying the contrasted careers of the honest and dissolute miner were first sent out to California they utterly failed of their effect, for the reason that the average miner refused to recognize himself in either capacity.

A man may come to Colorado with resolutions worthy of Leonidas; he may treat gold and silver with a lofty disdain; he may be doctor, lawyer, parson, schoolteacher, book agent, lightning-rod man, or dealer in sewing-machines-anything but a miner: all in vain, for sooner or later, if he stays in Colorado, the mania for the precious metals will make an easy victim of him; he will seek a "claim,' and fondly see a bonanza in the smallest and shallowest of his " prospect holes."

The Colonel and the Commodore were nothing if not strong-minded, and the latter had been particularly cynical about the sordidness of a thirst for wealth, but his downfall dated from the time that he acquired, with strange ease, some share in a mine of great possible, if small actual, value (there are so very many of this kind). He hinted more than once that we had better look for ourselves into this

mining business, and started on the tour of inspection with unwonted alacrity. He even showed some inclination to "grubstake" some men—a simple and easy process, by-the-bye. One can acquire an interest in mining property in many ways. He can find a mine himself; he can supply another man with food and tools, and give him a share in what he may find (and this is "grub-staking"); he may buy a mine when found, or a share of it, bearing in mind the Western saying, that "a prospect hole is not a mine;" or he can invest in stocks. Grub-staking a good man, and, if possible, accompanying him on his search, may be called the best way, for, said an old hand, “you make your loss at the start." Buying a claim or claims is not infrequently satisfactory; but said, with quaint gravity, another "old-timer," "If I was a capitalist, and I'd see a mine worth half a million, I'd want to buy it for about twenty-five thousand dollars, and have some advantage on my side. A man can't see very far into the ground."

to $800,000, and which had made $43,000 net profits in nine months.

"But they say that there is no money in banking," was added "I mean, no money as compared with what some of them can make in mining. When a fellow can go out and make a forty or fifty thousand dollar strike, banking seems pretty slow." Could anything better illustrate what has just been said?

But if we did not grub-stake anybody, or make large investments for ourselves, we had ample opportunities of seeing those who did.

Of all mining camps in Colorado (and a centre of mining operations is always called a camp), Rosita is one of the prettiest and most interesting. There must have been a vein of sentiment in the honest miner who gave it that charming name, Little Rose. When he made his first "strike," he must have thanked his stars that nature had put the silver in such a picturesque place, and even the operations carried on for seven years have not been able to spoil it. We went thither from Cañon City, taking the stage on a pleasant morning, and driving over the foot-hills of the Sierra Mojada, and into and up Oak Creek Cañon. From the head of this the summit was easily crossed; and then, when we had scored our thirty miles, a beautiful and striking scene met our eyes. In the foreground were dome-like hills, the upper ones bare, and the lower ones, as well as the gulches between them, showing great numbers of pine-trees. On these hill-sides and in these gulches were scattered the houses and other buildings which make up the genuine little Alpine town-so Alpine, indeed, that one might expect to hear at any moment the echo of the Ranz des Vaches or the tinkling of the

It is stated that no geologist ever yet found a valuable mine-the humble prospector being always at the front-and even then owing much to accident. With his burro laden with a little bacon and flour, perhaps a little coffee and sugar, a frying-pan and a coffee-pot, and with his pick and shovel, this hard-working pioneer traverses the length and breadth of the mineral region, undergoing many and great hardships, often facing danger, often, indeed, laying his bones on some desolate hill-side or in some lonely cañon; and then-only to think of itone in five hundred finds fortune! We hear of late years that mining has become as regular and legitimate an occupation as manufacturing; and it is undoubtedly true that method and system have been | bells. Then comes a valley lying a thoulargely introduced, and that the strong owners of paying mines and successful smelting-works may rightly claim that they are engaged in sober and industrial pursuits; but with the great bulk of modern Argonauts, from our poor, sanguine pick-user and burro-driver to the NewYorker who, without the slightest real knowledge of what he is doing, "takes a flyer" in Wall Street, it is as certain as the sun rises and sets that the gambling and not the commercial instinct predominates. A bank was pointed out to the writer in a large mining town which, with a capital of $50,000, had deposits of from $700,000

sand feet below, and beyond rises with wonderful and unusual abruptness, and in a solemn majesty which must have impressed the Spaniard when he associated it in name with the sufferings of the Divine Redeemer-the great Sangre de Cristo Range. The peaks are sharp and jagged, and some rise to the height of about 14,000 feet. What Nature can do here in the way of grand and glorious effects, with light and shade at early morn, at sunset, or when the moon is sending her rays down on the grassy meadows in this peaceful Wet Mountain Valley, can not be described, nor should the suggestion thereof

be publicly named, but whispered to those true worshippers whom she so surely rewards. Happy the honest miner whose prospect hole lies in this charmed region! and well might some comrade who had toiled in such a place as those parts of Nevada where the sage-brush surrounds him, and the Po-go-nip (icy wind) chills. him to the bone, exclaim: "This-and silver too!"

This little town was founded in 1872, and led a quiet existence, with occasional episodes of what is here called "booming," until about two years ago, when occurred one of those striking and romantic episodes which do so much to clothe mining with a strange fascination. One Mr. E. C. Bassick had been a gold-seeker in Australia in old days, and there lost his health. In 1877 he was, as happily reported, thoroughly "busted"-"dead broke." He prospected in a vague way, and passed over a good deal of space, with no success, but one day was sitting on the ground on a spot over which he had previously gone, and, with his pick between his knees, was striking aimlessly at a bowlder. One of his blows chipped off something from its surface which looked to him like good ore, and he picked it up and carried it into the town. Telling a gentleman (well known to the writer) of his discovery, he offered him onehalf interest for twenty-five dollars. And here comes in a striking illustration of mining life, and a curious comment on its uncertainties: for the gentleman declined. The reader, whose imagination has been, perhaps, fired by lurid descriptions of the colossal fortunes reported during the past year, may ask, "How could he be so foolish? It was such a small amount to risk!" Ah! friend, when a man takes one of these small risks and wins, the telegraph parades his name and quintuples his gains; the interviewer "seeks" him, and the charity letter writer and the book agent gird up their loins and take fresh courage. But when he does it and loses, he generally keeps quiet; and when he has done it and lost perhaps scores or even hundreds of times, he remarks to himself, like Mark Twain's patient friend, that "this sort of thing is getting monotonous." Perhaps on this occasion our friend had slept badly, or he had on a pair of tight shoes; at all events, he declined sending twenty-five

dollars more where so many had gone before. And that is the reason that he is not building a "palatial" residence on Fifth Avenue, or visiting the effete kingdoms of the Old World. Rouge perd. Faites le jeu, Messieurs.

On the side of the street which runs up the southern hill in Rosita stands an assay-office, and when the prospector, minus the dollars, approached it, he saw a load of wood thrown off at the door. Venit, vidit-he ran in and made a hurried bargain-vicit. He sawed the wood, and the

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ROSITA.

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