New-York tribune., 1873-04-15
OIJR WONDERLAND.

Had the district now designated IA tho ioi-
lowsione National Park been known III the
earlier days Of civilization, there woulh nave
been many legend of classic romance IN
closely associated with its wonders as orhcies
are with Delphian groves or the gloom OF
Ayernus with the lake that rests on the sulphur
Gus soil of the Campana. Even the formal report
for 1872 of the Superintendent of the Park,
transmitted to the Secretary OF tho Interior,
breaks out at intervals in the superlatives by
which language naturally attempts to describe
that which surpasses it, The reports OF the
Exploring Expedition under Prof. Hayden
and the engraved drawings accompanying
them have widely famiiarized the pub
lie gith the leading features OF this
| land of geysers and mud volcanoes,
of phnging cataracts and precipitous
cahons. The report of the Superintendent
| gives many new particulars of the scenery and
the curiosties, and specifies the simpler details
| of route, outfit and mode of travel, which are
so necessary to the traveller in region little
known. July, August, and September are the
best months for visiting it, and these, for
tunately, are the months when our busy
people are most ut liberty.
w nCH VI us, TtduIHB VI Ino ouhhJ o'"P"" VI
Vesuyus, or the heecy SUBMITS of the Alps,
has not sighed in thinking that wide and
stormy ocean interyenes between us and those
attractive scenes7 But grander, wilder, and
yet lovelier scenery is now within weeks
| journey, all by land, and almost all by rail.
No tale of travel, OF even of Eastern fairy-land,
offers anything stranger than the Upper Basin,
where hundreds of geysers project vast guam
| titles Of steam and water in every conceivable
| form, cleaning In the sunshine with rainbow
colors, gltterng by moonlight with dazzling
whiteness. Around Yellowstone Lake there
! are snow-ciad mountains whose peaks have as
| yet proved inaccessible, being among the
loftiest on the continent From the bosom OF
the lake, between its green and beautiful
islands, from time to time the water springs
| in air. and jets of steam arise. The Grand
Canon of the Yellowstone is a chaSm forty
miles in length, from one to three thousand
feet in depth. Jets of hot vapOr issue from
its sides. Cataracts plunge into it. From Its
depths the stars are visible in the daytime.
To the naturalist and the student of the
physical sciences, there are opportunities here
! of the grandest character. There is not only
| novelty and the ehance-nay, the ccrtalnty-oi
! liberal additions to notebooks and cabinets;
| there is a field where the most stupendous
operations of nature and the problems of the
earth's history are developed before the very
ewes of the observer. There are basins lined
with the most varied colored pOrphyries, and
waters in which if any object be plunged 1t
| is covered with a cacite as pure rs alabaster.
There arc depths of sulphurous vapors and OF
steaming springs that the plummet has not
yet sounded. And there is not only an infinite
variety in these objects of curiosity; they are
changing In form and character, some hour by
hour, some age by age. In some places the
central heat has piled up its monuments and
departed; in others it is evidently diminishing
in power. Within the two years since their
discovery old geysers have closed and new
ones have opened. Pine trees more than an
hundred feet in hight, that were growing on
the margin of mud volcano have within the
same period sunk into and been ingllfed by
it, and the volcano itself has ceased operation,
leaving only dried hillocks and shapeless
crater.
Surely in these days when the frailty Of the
means employed to preserve voyagers from
the dangers of the sea has been made so ter
ribly apparent the artist, the tourist, the
seeker for health, for pleasure, or for scen-
tfc knowledge may with advantage take
counsel of his fears, his purse, and his con-
venience, and find all that eye or imagination
Graves within the limits of our own domain.
widstrand, the Swedish ex-Royal Secretary who
Iives i'm Minnesota has reached "A hight of economy