In central Colorado the Continental Divide is a wilderness of desolate peaks that rise far above the timber line into regions of rime and naked rock. Here, with other rivers, springs the Arkansas, in deep ca�ons and narrow rocky valleys. Many silver creeks, with water flashing in cascades, unite to form a river which plunges down a steep mountain valley until it passes the foothills and spreads in a broad, turbid stream at the head of the great valley of the Arkansas. Then it creeps over the sands in tawny ripples, down the incline of the plains, becoming less in volume by evaporation and the absorption of the waters in the sands, but growing in size from the accession of smaller tributaries that come from distant mountains on either hand.