America Volume II Part 7

THE AMERICAN WONDERLAND.

The Yellowstone National Park has been set apart by Congress as a public reservation and pleasure-ground, and covers a surface of about fifty-five hundred square miles within the Rocky Mountains. Most of the Park is in the northwestern corner of Wyoming, but there are also small portions in Montana to the north and Idaho to the west. It is a tract more remarkable for natural curiosities than an equal area in any other part of the world, and within it are the sources of some of the greatest rivers of North America. The Yellowstone, Gardiner and Madison Rivers, which are the headwaters of the Missouri, flow out of the northern and western sides, while on the southern side originates the Snake River, one of the sources of the Columbia River of Oregon, and also the Green River, a branch of the Colorado, flowing into the Gulf of California. The central portion of the Park is a broad volcanic plateau, elevated, on an average, eight thousand feet above the sea, and surrounded by mountain ridges and peaks, rising to nearly twelve thousand feet, and covered with snow. The air is pure and bracing, little rain falls, and the whole district gives evidence of remarkable volcanic activity at a comparatively late geological epoch.

It contains the most elevated lake in the world, Yellowstone Lake. The Yellowstone River flows into this lake, and then northward through a magnificent canyon out of the Park. Its most remarkable tributary within the Park is Tower Creek, flowing through a narrow and gloomy pa.s.s for two miles, called the Devil's Den, and just before reaching the Yellowstone having a fall of one hundred and fifty-six feet, which is surrounded by columns of breccia resembling towers. There is frost in the Park every month in the year, owing to the peculiar atmospheric conditions. The traces of recent volcanic activity are seen in the geysers, craters and terrace constructions, boiling springs, deep canyons, petrified trees, obsidian cliffs, sulphur deposits and similar formations. These geysers and springs surpa.s.s in number and magnitude those of the rest of the world. There are some five thousand hot springs, depositing mainly lime and silica, and over a hundred large geysers, many of them throwing water columns to heights of from fifty to two hundred and fifty feet. The most elaborate colors and ornamentation are formed by the deposits of the springs and geysers, these curiosities being mainly in and near the valleys of the Madison and Gardiner Rivers. An attempt has been made under Government auspices to have in the Park a huge game preserve, and within its recesses large numbers of wild animals are sheltered, including deer, elk, bears, big-horn sheep, and the last herd of buffalo in the country. Troops of cavalry and other Government forces patrol and govern the Park.

THE MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS.

This extraordinary region was first made known in a way in 1807. A hunter named Coulter visited it, and getting safely back to civilization, he told such wonderful stories of the hot springs and geysers that the unbelieving borderers, in derision, called it "Coulter's h.e.l.l." Others visited it subsequently, but their remarkable tales were generally regarded as romances. The first thorough exploration was made by Prof. Hayden's scientific party for the Government in 1871, and his report led Congress to reserve it as a public Park. The visitor generally first enters the Park at the Mammoth Hot Springs, which are near the northern verge of the broad central plateau. Here are the wonderful terraces built up by the earlier calcareous deposits of these Springs, covering an area of several square miles, and in the present active operations about two hundred acres, with a dozen or more terraces, and some seventy flowing springs, the temperature of the water rising to 165. The lower terrace extends to the edge of the gorge of Gardiner River, with high mountain peaks beyond. The hotel is built on one of the terraces, with yawning caves and the craters of extinct geysers at several places in front. The higher terraces rise in white, streaked with brown and other tints, as the overflowing, trickling waters may have colored them. The best idea that can be got of this place is by conjuring up the popular impression of the infernal regions with an ample stock of heat and brimstone. For a long distance, rising from the top of the gorge of Gardiner River westward in successive terraces to a height of a thousand feet above the stream, the entire surface is underlaid with sulphur, subterranean fires, boiling water and steam, which make their way out in many places. The earth has been cracked by the heat into fissures, within which the waters can be heard boiling and running down below, and everything on the surface which can be, is burnt up.

Almost every crevice exudes steam and hot water; sulphur hangs in stalact.i.tes from the caves; and in some places the odors are nearly overpowering. It is no wonder the Indians avoided this forbidding region, and that the tales told by the early explorers were disbelieved. Yet it is as attractive as it is startling. The hot springs form shallow pools, where the waters run daintily over their rim-like edges, trickling down upon terrace after terrace, forming the most beautiful shapes of columns, towers and coral decorations from the lime deposits, and painting them with delicious coloring in red, brown, green, yellow, blue and pink. So long as the waters run, this decoration continues, but when the flow ceases, the atmosphere turns everything white, and the more delicate formations crumble. The whole of this ma.s.sive structure has been built up by ages of the steady though minute deposits of the waters, the rate being estimated at about one-sixteenth of an inch in four days. The rocks upon which these calcareous deposits are made belong to the middle and lower Cretaceous and Jura.s.sic formations, with probably carboniferous limestones beneath that put the deposits in the waters. A dozen different terraces can be traced successively upward from the river bank to the highest part of the formation. Two cones of extinct geysers rise from the deposits, near the hotel,--the Liberty Cap, forty-five feet high, and the Giant's Thumb, somewhat smaller,--both having been built up by the deposits from orifices still seen in their tops, whence the waters have ceased flowing. All these springs, as deposits are made, s.h.i.+ft their locality, so that the scene gradually changes as the ages pa.s.s.

In climbing about this remarkable formation, some of the most beautiful bits of construction and coloring nature has ever produced are disclosed. The Orange Geyser has its sides streaked with orange, yellow and red from the little wavelets slowly trickling out of the steaming spring at the top, which goes off at quick intervals like the exhaust of a steam-engine. At the Stalact.i.te Cave the flowing waters add green to the other colors, and also scale the rocks in places like the back of a fish, while below hang stalact.i.tes with water dropping from them. The roof of the cave is full of beautiful formations. The water is very hot when it starts from the top, but becomes quite cold when it has finished its journey down. One of the finest formations is Cleopatra's Bath, with Cupid's Cave beneath, the way to them being through Antony's Gate, all built up of the deposits. Here rich coloring is painted on the rocks, with hot water and steam amply supplied to the bath, which has 154 temperature at the outer verge.

All the springs form flat basins with turned-up edges, over which the waters flow, and trickling down the front of the terrace, paint it.

When the flow ceases, and the surface has been made snowy white by the atmosphere, it becomes a spongy and beautiful coral, crumbling when touched, and into which the foot sinks when walked upon. The aggregation of the currents run in streams over terrace after terrace, spread out to the width of hundreds of feet, painting them all, and then seeking the Gardiner River, flowing through a deep gorge in front of the formation. Everything subjected to the overflow of these currents gets coated by the deposits, so that visitors have many small articles coated to carry away as curiosities.

Among the many beautiful formations made by these Hot Springs, the most elaborate and ornamental are the Pulpit Terraces. These are a succession of magnificent terraces, fifty feet high, with beautifully colored columnar supports. There is a large pulpit, and in front, on a lower level, the font, with the water running over its edges. The pulpit, having been formed by a spring that has ceased action, is white, while the font is streaked in red and brown. Finely carved vases filled with water stand below, and alongside the pulpit there is an inclined surface, whitened and spread in wrinkles like the drifted snow, which requires very little imagination to picture as a magnificent curtain. Beyond is a blackened border like a second curtain, the coloring being made by a spring impregnated with a.r.s.enic.

In front of this gorgeous display the surface is hot and cracked into fissures, with bubbling streams of steaming water running through it, and great pools fuming into new basins with turned-up edges, over which the hot water runs. Upon one of these pools seems to be a deposit of transparent gelatine, looking like the alb.u.men of an egg, streaked into fantastic shapes by elongated bubbles. Everywhere are surfaces, over which the water runs, that are covered with regular formations like fish scales. It is impossible to adequately describe this extraordinary place, combining the supposed peculiarities and terrors of the infernal regions with the most beautiful forms and colors in decoration. The great hill made by these Hot Springs was, from its prevailing color, named the White Mountain by Hayden. The springs extend all the way down to the river bank, and there are some even in the river bed. It is a common experiment of the angler to hook a small fish in the cold water of the river, and then, without changing position, to swing him on the hook over into the basin of one of these hot springs to cook him. The formation of the terraces is wedge-shaped, and runs up into a gulch between the higher mountains, which have pines scattered over them, and also grow some gra.s.s in sheltered nooks. It is said that the volume of the springs is gradually diminis.h.i.+ng.

THE NORRIS GEYSER BASIN.

The route southward into the Park crosses mountain ridges and over stretches of lava and ashes and other volcanic formations, through woods and past gorges, and reaches the Obsidian Creek, which flows near the Obsidian Cliff. This remarkable structure is a mountain of black gla.s.s of volcanic formation, rising six hundred feet, with the road hewn along its edge. It looks as if a series of blasting explosions had blown its face into pieces, smas.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s into great heaps of _debris_ that have fallen down in front. The formation is columnar, rising from a mora.s.s adjoining Beaver Lake, which is a mile long. The divide is thus crossed between the Gardiner and Gibbon Rivers, the latter flowing into the Madison, and here, twenty-five miles from the Mammoth Hot Springs, is the Norris Geyser Basin. In approaching, seen over the low trees, the place looks much like the manufacturing quarter of a city, steam jets rising out of many orifices, and a hissing being heard as of sundry engine exhausts. The basin covers about one hundred and fifty acres, and is depressed below the general level. The whole surface is lime, silica, sulphur and sand, fused together and baked hard by the great heat, cracked into fissures, and, as it is walked over, giving out hollow sounds, showing that beneath are subterranean caves and pa.s.sages in which boil huge cauldrons. There is a background formed by the bleak-looking mountains of the Quadrate range, having snow upon their tops and sides. The steam blows off with the noise of a hundred exhaust pipes, and little geysers boil everywhere, occasionally spurting up like the bursting of a boiler. In one place on the hillside the escaping steam from the "Steamboat" keeps up a loud and steady roar; in another is the deeper tone of the "Black Growler." As a general thing, the higher vents on the hill give off steam only, while the lower ones are geysers. The trees are coated with the deposits, the surface is hot, and all underneath seems an immense ma.s.s of boiling water, impregnated with sulphur, giving off powerful odors, while brimstone and lime-dust encrust everything, and a large amount of valuable steam-power goes to waste.

This is the smallest of the basins, having few large geysers. Most of them are little ones, spurting every few minutes, and with some view to economy, whereby the water, after being blown out of the crater to a brief height, runs back into the orifice again, ready to be ejected by the next explosion. A mud geyser here throws up large quant.i.ties of dirty white paint in several spouting jets, the eruption continuing ten minutes, when nearly all the water runs back again, leaving the crater entirely bare, and its rounded, water-worn rocks exposed. The "Emerald Pool" is the wide crater of an old geyser, filled with hot water of a beautiful green color, constantly boiling, but never getting as far as an eruption. Probably the best geyser on exhibition in this basin is the "Minute Man," which, at intervals of about one minute, spouts for ten or twelve seconds, the column rising thirty feet, and the rest of the time it blows off steam. The "Vixen" is a coquette which is delightfully irregular, never going off when watched, but when the back is turned suddenly sending out a column sixty feet high. The great geyser here is the "Monarch," standing in a hill from which it has blown out the entire side, and once a day discharging an enormous amount of water over one hundred feet high, and continuing nearly a half-hour. Its column comes from two huge orifices, the surplus water running down quite a large brook. When quiet, this geyser industriously boils like a big tea-kettle. There are plenty of "paint pots" and sulphur springs, and the visitors coax up lazy geysers by throwing stones into them,--a method usually making the small ones go to work, as if angry at the treatment.

THE LOWER AND MIDDLE BASINS.

Through the long deep canyon of the Gibbon River, and up over the mountain top, giving a distant view of the Gibbon Falls, a cataract of eighty feet far down in the valley, the road crosses another divide to a stream in the worst portion of this Satanic domain, which has not been inappropriately named the Firehole River. This unites with the Gibbon to form the Madison River, one of the sources of the Missouri.

Miles ahead, the steam from the Firehole Geyser Basins can be seen rising in clouds among the distant hills. Beyond, the view is closed by the Teton Mountains, far to the southwest, rising fourteen thousand feet, the Continental divide and backbone of North America, the highest Rocky Mountain range, on the other side of which is the Snake River, whose waters go off to the Pacific. The Firehole River is a stream of ample current, with beautifully transparent blue water bubbling over a bed of discolored stones and lava. Its waters are all the outflow of geysers and hot springs, impregnated with everything this forbidding region produces; pretty to look at, but bitter as the waters of Marah. Along this river, geysers are liberally distributed at intervals for ten miles, being, for convenience of description, divided into the Lower, Middle and Upper Geyser Basins. The Lower Basin, the first reached, has myriads of steam jets rising from a surface of some three square miles of desolate geyserite deposits.

There are about seven hundred springs and geysers here, most of them small. The Fountain Geyser throws a broad low stream of many interlacing jets every two to three hours, lasting about fifteen minutes. The "Thud" Geyser has a crater one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, having a smaller rim inside, within which the geyser operates, throwing a column of sixty feet with a heavy and regular "thud" underground, though it has no fixed period, and is irregular in action. This basin has a generous supply of mud geysers, known as the "paint pots," which eject brilliantly colored muds with the consistency and look of paint, the prevailing hues being red, white, yellow and pink.

About three miles to the southwest, farther up the Firehole River, is the Middle Geyser Basin. It is a locality covering some fifty acres, close to the river, and contains the greatest geyser in the world. The name of h.e.l.l's Half Acre was given this place in the early explorations, and still sticks. The surface is composed mainly of hot ashes, with streams of boiling water running over it. The whole basin is filled with hot springs, and surrounded by timbered hills, at the foot of which is the Prismatic Lake, its beautiful green and blue waters shading off into a deposit of bright red paint running down to the river. The great Excelsior Geyser is a fountain of enormous power but uncertain periods, which when at work throws out such immense amounts of water as to double the flow of the river. Its crater is a hundred yards wide, with water violently boiling in the centre all the time and a steady outflow. The sides of the crater are beautifully colored by the deposits, which are largely of sulphur. It is a geyser of modern origin, having developed from a hot spring within the memory of Park denizens. It throws a column over two hundred feet high, and while quiet at times for years, occasionally bursts forth, though having no fixed period. In close connection to the westward is the seething cauldron which is the immediate h.e.l.l's Half Acre, that being about its area--a beautiful but terrible lake, steam constantly rising from the surface, which boils furiously and sends copious streams over the edges. This is an uncanny spot, with treacherous footing around, and about the hottest place in the Park.

THE UPPER FIREHOLE BASIN.

For five miles along the desolate sh.o.r.es of Firehole River the course is now taken in a region of mostly extinct geysers, yet with active hot springs and steam jets, and having ashes and cinders covering wide s.p.a.ces. Ahead is the largest collection of geysers in the world, with clouds of steam overhanging--the Upper Firehole Basin. Hot water runs over the earth, and the "paint pots" color the surface in variegated hues. Here are some forty of the greatest geysers in existence, in a region covering two or three square miles, all of them located near the river, and their outflow making its initial current. The basin is at seventy-three hundred feet elevation above the sea. When the author visited this extraordinary place the guide, halting at the verge, said: "Now I have brought you to the front door of h.e.l.l." He was asked if there were any Indians about there, and solemnly replied: "No Indian ever comes into this country unless he is blind; only the white man is fool enough to come;" then after a moment's pause he continued, "And I get paid for it, I do." The great stand-by of this Upper Basin, and the geyser that is first visited, is "Old Faithful," near its southern or upper end. This most reliable geyser, which always goes off at the time appointed, is a flat-topped and gently rising cone about two hundred feet in diameter, and elevated towards the centre about twenty feet. The tube is an orifice of eight feet by two feet wide in the centre of this cone, with water-worn and rounded rocks enclosing it. Steam escapes all the time, and the hard, scaly and laminated surface around it seems hollow as you walk across, while beneath there are grumblings and dull explosions, giving warning of the approaching outburst. Several mounds of extinct geysers are near, with steam issuing from one of them, but all have long since gone out of active business. Soon "Old Faithful" gives the premonitory symptoms of an eruption. The steam jet increases, and also the internal rumblings. Then a little spurt of hot water comes, hastily receding with a growl, followed by more steam, and after an interval more growling, finally developing into repeated little spurts of hot water, occupying several minutes. Then the geyser suddenly explodes, throwing quick jets higher and higher into the air, until the column rises in a grand fountain to the height of about one hundred and fifty feet, the stream inclined to the northward, and falling over in great splashes upon that side of the cone, dense clouds of steam and spray being carried by the wind, upon which the sun paints a rainbow. After some four minutes the grand jet dies gradually down to a height of about thirty feet, continuing at that elevation for a brief time, with quickly repeated impulses. When six minutes have elapsed, with an expiring leap the water mounts to a height of fifty feet, there is a final outburst of steam, and all is over. A deluge of hot water rushes down to the Firehole River; and thus "Old Faithful" keeps it up regularly every hour. The eruption being ended, you can look down into the abyss whence it came. Through the hot steam, rus.h.i.+ng out with a strong draught, there is a view far down into the rocky recesses of the geyser. The water left by the eruption stands about in transparent shallow pools, and is tinted a pale blue. "Old Faithful's" mound is built up of layers of geyserite--hard, brittle, porous, full of crevices, and having all about little basins with turned-up rims that retain the water. This geyser is the favorite in the region, not only because of its regular performance, but possibly because its odors are somewhat less sulphurous than those emanating elsewhere.

The geysers of the Upper Basin contribute practically the whole current of the Firehole River, their outflow sending into the stream ten million gallons daily. Across the river to the northward, close to the bank, is the Beehive, its tube looking like a huge bird's nest, enclosed by a pile of geyserite resembling a beehive, three feet high and about four feet in diameter. Nearby is a vent from which steam, escaping a few minutes before the eruption, gives notice of its coming. The water column shoots up two hundred feet, with clouds of steam, but it is quite uncertain, spouting once or twice in twenty-four hours, and usually at night. Behind the Beehive are the Lion, the Lioness, and their two Cubs, and to the eastward of the latter the Giantess. The Lion group has only uncertain and small action, while the Giantess is on the summit of a mound fifty feet high, with a depressed crater, measuring eighteen by twenty-four feet, and usually filled with dark-blue water. This is the slowest of all the geysers in getting to work, acting only at fortnightly intervals, but each eruption continues the greater part of the day, with usually long-previous notice by violent boiling and internal rumblings. When it comes, the explosion is terrific, the column mounting two hundred and fifty feet, a perfect water-spout the full size of the crater, with a half-dozen distinct jets forced through it. To the northwest of the Lion and across the river is the Castle, so named from the castellated construction of its crater. It stands upon an elevation, the side towards the Firehole falling off in a series of rude steps.

The tube is elevated about ten feet within the castle and is four feet in diameter. It is of uncertain eruption, sometimes playing daily and sometimes every other day, throwing a column of one hundred and fifty feet, falling in a sparkling shower, continuing about forty minutes, and then tapering off in a series of insignificant spurts. The Saw-Mill is not far away, rather insignificant, its tube being only six inches in diameter, set in a saucer-like crater about twenty feet across; but its water column, thrown forty feet high, gives the peculiar sounds of a saw, caused by the action of puffs of steam coming out alternately with the water jets. It generally acts in unison with the Grand Geyser, a quarter of a mile northward, which goes off about once a day. The Grand Geyser in action is most powerful, causing the earth to tremble, while there are fearful thumping noises beneath. The water in the crater suddenly recedes, and then quickly spurts upward in a solid column for two hundred feet, with steam rising in puffs above. The column seems to be composed of numerous separate jets, falling back with a thundering sound into the funnel. The outburst continues a few minutes, stops as suddenly as it starts, and is repeated six or eight times, each growing less powerful. Along the river bank nearby are the Wash Tubs, small basins ten feet in diameter, each with an orifice in the bottom. If the clothes are put in, the was.h.i.+ng progresses finely until suddenly out goes the water, and with it all the garments, sucked down the hole.

After awhile the basin fills again, and back come the clothes, though sometimes they are very dilatory in returning. The Devil's Well, about fifty feet away, is usually accused of complicity in this movement. It is a broad and placid basin of hot water, with a beautiful blue tinge, in which tourists sometimes boil their eggs and potatoes. It is sentinelled by the Comet Geyser, exploding several times daily, but through an orifice so large that it does not throw a very high column.

The great geyser of this Upper Basin is the Giant. It has a broken cone set upon an almost level surface, with the enclosing formation fallen away on one side, the interior being lined with brilliant colors like a tessellated pavement. It is somewhat uncertain in movement, but usually goes off every fourth day. It gives ample notice, certain "Little Devils" adjoining, and a vent in the side of the crater, boiling some time before it sends up the enormous column which plays ninety minutes. The outburst, when it starts, comes like a tornado, and the stream from it runs into and more than doubles the current of the river. The column is eight feet in diameter, rises two hundred and fifty feet at first, and is afterwards maintained at two hundred feet. There is a deafening noise, and the steam clouds seem to cover half the valley. The column goes up perfectly straight, and falls back around the cone with a deluge of hot water. The Catfish, a small geyser, is nearby, and to the northward a short distance is the Grotto. This is an odd formation, its crater perforated with orifices around a low, elongated mound, which point in different directions; and when it goes off at six-hour intervals, the eruption is by streams at an angle, giving a curious sort of churning motion to the water column, which rises forty feet, continuing twenty minutes. The Riverside has a little crater on a terraced mound just at the river's edge, and is a small, irregular but vigorous spouter, throwing a stream sixty feet. The Fan has five spreading tubes, arranged so that they make a huge fan-like eruption, one hundred feet high in the centre, this display, given three or four times a day, continuing about fifteen minutes. The Splendid plays a jet two hundred feet high every three hours, continuing ten minutes, and may be spurred to quicker action. The Pyramid and the Punch Bowl are geysers that have ceased operations. The former is now only a steam-jet, and the latter, on a flat mound, is an elegant blue pool, elevated several feet, and having a serrated edge. The Morning Glory Spring, named from its resemblance to the convolvulus, is a beautiful and most delicately tinted pool. The investigators of these geysers have been able to get the temperature at a depth of seventy feet within the tubes, and find that under the pressure there exerted the boiling-point is 250. Upon this fact is based the theory of the operation of the geyser. The boiling-point under pressure at the bottom of a long tube being much higher than at the top, the expansive force of the steam there suddenly generated drives out violently the water above it in the tube, and hence the explosive spouting.

YELLOWSTONE FALLS AND CANYON.

The National Park, besides the extraordinary geyser and hot-spring formations exhibits the grand scenery of the Yellowstone Falls and Canyon. The Yellowstone River has its source in Bridger Lake, to the southeast of the Park, and flows northward in a broad valley between generally snow-capped mountain ridges of volcanic origin, with some of the peaks rising over eleven thousand feet. It is a sluggish stream, with heavily timbered banks, much of the initial valley being marshy, and it flows into the Yellowstone Lake, the largest sheet of water at a high elevation in North America. This lake has bays indented in its western and southern sh.o.r.es, giving the irregular outline somewhat the appearance of a human hand, and there are five of them, called the "Thumb" and the "Fingers." The thumb of this distorted hand is thicker than its length, the forefinger is detached and shrivelled, the middle finger has also been badly treated, and the much swollen little finger is the biggest of all, thus making a very demoralized hand. The trail eastward over from the Upper Firehole Geyser Basin comes out on the West Thumb of the lake, mounting the Continental Divide on the way, and crossing it twice as it makes a curious loop to the northward, the second crossing being at eighty-five hundred feet elevation, whence the trail descends to the West Thumb. Yellowstone Lake is at seventy-seven hundred and forty feet elevation, and covers about one hundred and fifty square miles, having a hundred miles of coast-line.

The scenery is tame, the sh.o.r.es being usually gentle slopes, with much marsh and pine woods. Islands dot the blue waters, and waterfowl frequent the marshes. The most elevated portion of the immediate environment is Flat Mountain, on the southwestern side, rising five hundred feet, but beyond the eastern sh.o.r.e are some of the highest peaks of the Park, exceeding eleven thousand feet. Hot springs adjoin the West Thumb, and there is an actual geyser crater in the lake itself. Towards the northern end the sh.o.r.es gradually contract into the narrow and shallow Yellowstone River, which flows towards the northwest after first leaving the lake, having occasional hot springs, geysers, paint pots and steam jets at work, with large adjacent surfaces of geyserite and sulphur. The chief curiosity in operation is the Giant's Cauldron, boiling furiously, and with a roar that can be heard far away. The pretty Alum Creek is crossed, its waters, thus tainted, giving the name. South of this the Yellowstone is generally placid, winding for a dozen miles sluggishly through prairie and timbered hills, but now it contracts and rushes for a mile down rapids and over pretty cascades to the Upper Fall.

Restricted to a width of but eighty feet, the river shoots far over this fall, the current being thrown outward, indicating there must be room to pa.s.s behind it. The fall is one hundred and twenty feet, and suddenly turning a right angle at its foot, the stream of beautiful green pa.s.ses through a not very deep canyon. The appearance of the surrounding cliffs is quite Alpine, though the rocks forming the cascade constantly suffer from erosion. About a half-mile below is the great Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. Before reaching it, a little stream comes into the river over the Crystal Fall, about eighty feet high, rus.h.i.+ng down a gorge forming a perfect grotto in the side of the canyon, extending some distance under the overhanging rocks. The surface of the plateau gradually ascends as the Lower Falls are approached, while the river bed descends, and this makes a deep canyon, brilliantly colored, generally a light yellow (thus naming the river), but in many portions white, like marble, with patches of orange, the whole being streaked and spotted with the dark-gray rocks, whose sombre color in this region is produced by atmospheric action.

The river rushes to the brink of the Lower Fall, and where it goes over, the current is not over a hundred feet wide, the descent of the cataract being about three hundred feet, and the column of falling waters dividing into separate white streaks, which are lost in clouds of spray before reaching the bottom. Only a small amount of water usually goes over, about twelve hundred cubic feet in a second. Before the plunge the water forms a basin of dark-green color, and both blue and green tints mingle with the prevailing white of the cascade.

Towards sunset, when viewed from below, there are admirable rainbow effects. The river is quite narrow as it flows away along the bottom of the canyon, which now becomes deep and large. The grand view of this beautiful picture is from Point Lookout, a half-mile below the falls. Unlike any other of the world's great waterfalls, this cascade, while a part, ceases to be the chief feature of the scene. It is the vivid coloring and remarkable formation of the sides of the canyon that make the chief impression. These change as the sun gives light and shadow, the morning differing from noon and noon from night. It is impossible to reproduce or properly describe the beautiful hues in this wonderful picture. The prevailing tint is a light yellow, almost sulphur color, with veins of white marble and bright red streaked through it. The colors blend admirably, while the cascade in the background seems enclosed in a setting of chocolate-brown rocks, contrasting picturesquely with the brighter foreground. Throughout the grand scene, great rocky columns and pinnacles arise, their brilliant hues maintained to the tops, and the scattered pines clinging to these huge columnar formations give a green tinge to parts of the picture.

The _debris_, forming an inclined base about half-way down, is colored as brilliantly as the rocks above, from which it has fallen. In the view over the canyon from Point Lookout, the contracted white streak of the cascade above the spray cloud is but a small part of the background, while the river below is only a narrow green ribbon, edged by these brilliant hues. Some distance farther down the canyon, another outlook at Inspiration Point gives a striking view from an elevation fifteen hundred feet above the river of the gorgeous coloring of the upper canyon.

This grand Canyon of the Yellowstone extends, as the river flows, a distance of about twenty-four miles. It is a depression in a volcanic plateau elevated about eight thousand feet above the sea, and gradually declining towards the northern end of the canyon. Above the Upper Fall the river level is almost at the top of the plateau, and the falls and rapids depress the stream bed about thirteen hundred feet. About midway along the canyon, on the western side, is Washburne Mountain, the surface from it declining in both directions, so that there the canyon is deepest, measuring twelve hundred feet. Across the top, the width varies from four hundred to sixteen hundred yards, the angle of slope down to the bottom being fully 45, and often much steeper, in some cases almost perpendicular where the top width is narrowest. This Grand Canyon is the beautiful beginning, as it were, of the largest river in the world,--the Missouri and the Mississippi.

Upon the trail in the southern part of the National Park which goes over from the Firehole River to the West Thumb, and at quite an elevation upon the Continental Divide, there is a quiet little sheet of water, having two small streams flowing from its opposite sides. To the eastward a babbling brook goes down into the West Thumb of the Yellowstone Lake, while to the southwest another small creek flows over the boulders towards Shoshone Lake. This scanty sheet of water, properly named the Two-Ocean Pond, actually feeds both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The one stream gets its outlet through the Mississippi and the other through the Columbia River of Oregon.

WESTWARD THE COURSE OF EMPIRE.

Here, in the Yellowstone National Park, with the waters flowing towards both the rising and the setting sun, is the backbone of the American Continent. Beyond it the country stretches through the s.p.a.cious Rocky Mountain ranges to the Pacific. What is herein described gives an idea of the vast empire ceded to the United States by France in the early nineteenth century, and this Great Northwest is gradually becoming the masterful ruling section of the country. When Bishop Berkeley, in the early eighteenth century, sitting by the Atlantic Ocean waves at Newport, composed his famous lyric on the "course of empire," he little thought how typical it was to become more than a century after his death. He was musing then "On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America." The Arts and the Learning have had vigorous American growth, but his Muse predicted a greater empire than any one could have then imagined.

"The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time, Producing subjects worthy fame.

"In happy climes, where from the genial sun And virgin earth such scenes ensue, The force of Art by Nature seems outdone, And fancied beauties by the true;

"In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where Nature guides and Virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of courts and schools;

"There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads and n.o.blest hearts.

"Not such as Europe breeds in her decay; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung.

"Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's n.o.blest offspring is the last."

END OF VOLUME I.