Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-07-05
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The hungry patrons of cheap restaurants
down town mast occasionally have been
edited by the notice posted conspicuously
over the counter, that "all pastry consumed
in this establishment is made on the premi-
ses." Without committing ourselves TO
the general principle Of protection for home
manufactures, we may afford TO rejoice at
any measure tending TO encourage the
practice of doing our own pleasuring with
in our own borders. The recent act of Con-
gress concerning singularly picturesque
tract of land known as the Yellowstone re-
gion will call attention to the unexampled
richness of Montana and Wyoming Terri
tories as n field for the artist or the pleas
ure tourist, while it a inns to ensure that
the region in question shall be kept in the
most favorable condition to attract travel
and crafty a cultivated and intelligent
curiosity. BY the Act, some $500 square
miles of territory at the head-waters of the
Yellowstone river are set apart as Ma
tional Park % with a Superintendent (the
Secretary of the INTERIOR authorized to take
all measures to keep the region in such
condition as most fully to answer its pur-
pose of gigantic pleasure-ground. Verify
colossal sort of junk eting-plac The
Yankee in the story book claimed that
America could boast of bigger lakes, larger
rivers, louder thunder, and forkeder light
ming than any other country. If any one
doubt this hereafter, we shall refer him to
the Yellowstone Park. Everything in it
seems on scale out of all proportion to
ordinary experience and conventional
habits of thought. While,European poten
tates spend millions on millions of francs
to dig out little rills or lakes, or painfully
heap up little nuggets of rock -work in their
artificial pleasure grounds, Nature has
given us one here, ready made, which
dwarfs every other, natural or manufact-
ured. AS little children of holiday after
noon amuse themselves with building
dams, cutting canals, and raising mud hill
locks in the cabbage garden or the gutter,
so here the Titans and IEons of the elder
world seem TO have refreshed themselves,
in some leisure cycle of geologic growth,
with playing at scenery. They did it lusti-
ly and con dmOre. Why should we waste
ourselves in unpatriotic wonderment over
the gorge of the Tamina or the Via Mala,
when Nature has furnished us with the
Grand Canon of the Yellowstone, in which
the famed Swiss Tres would be but as a
crevce or u wrinkle? Why run across the
sea to stine and sneeze over the i'll odors OF
| Sollaterra, when we can spoil our lungs or
our trowsers to better effect, and on an incom-
parably larger scale, with the gigantic boil
| ing springs and geysers OF Montana? And
why strain and stif,en our backs in staring
up at Terni or the Schmadribach, which
are but as side. jets and spray fakes to the
Titanic majesty of Wyoming Lower Fall ?
OF the detailed wonders which we here
only hint at, no reader of our Magazine for
the last year or two will need to be remind
| ed. 1t will not be forgotten that along with
our descriptions and illustrations of this
curious tract, the suggestion was made
| which has been carried out in the recent
action of Congress. A contemporary pub
| LEGATION has lately discussed with some
gravity the question whether the tide oil
mountain travel can ever be expected to
set westward, whether Americans or Eu-
ropeans, turning away from the familiar
terrors of tue Alps, may be drawn to whet
| their appetite for adventure on the peaks
and ravines of the Sierras, and Shasta OF
Mount Tyndall come TO be as fascinating
to the all-conquering cragsmen as the Lys
ktmm or the Matterhorn. The presen
disclosures certainly tend to render il pro
bable. When the North Pacific road, a
we are led to hope will be the case, drop
us in Montana in three days journey, w
may be sure that the tide of summer tour
ing will! be perceptbly diverted from Eu
ropean fields. Yankee enterprise will do
the new Park with hostelries and furro,
it with lines of travel. That the life vii
for some time to come be frightfully rough
the inconv eniences plentiful, and the dan
gers many and appalling, is likely enough
But that is not the spice which will mo,
tickle the palate of our adventurous toul
lists and men of science.