The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1883-04-11
THEGREATNATIONALPAR PARK
THE YELLOWSTONE TRACT AND IT'S
MANY WONDERS.


park: Few people, probably, realize iti
immense area; nditmay be questioned
whether there are many who could de
scribe, with any approach to exactness
its situation in the great West. For
the benefit of all the uninformed, il
may not be superlluous to state that il
occupies the extreme northwesterly
corner of the Territory of Wyoming,
that its northern boundary is about
forty miles south of the Northern Pa.
cic railway, and that it covers ter
ritory of sixty-two by fifty miles,
which is two-thirds the acreage Of the
State Of Connecticut, and will approach
that of Massachusetts if the proposed
addition of $500 square miles be made
to its present area. Or, to furnish an
other comparison, If parallelogram
be marked out on the map, extending
north from New York city to Pough-
keepsie, and east from Poughkeepsie to
Hartford, it will about represent the
length and breadth of the peoples
Western pleasure ground.
Within this great tract are COM
prised some of the most remarkable
natural phenomena of the continent.
Nowhere else, indeed, are so many ex-
traordinary features grouped in such
close proximity. Nature has here been
prodigal of her bounties; geysers,
waterfalls, lakes, canons and noun
tains whose tops are capped with per-
petual snow, combine in lavish pro-
fusion to make the district one of un-
rivaled attractiveness. 1t cannot be
doubted that, when easy means of az
cess shall be provided, the Yellowstone
region will become the Mecca of Ameri-
can travellers. At present the park
may be reached in either of two ways:
Entering it from the west, via Dillon
and Virginia City, or from the North,
via Bozeman on the Northern Pacific
railroad. In coming by way of Virginia
City one takes the Union Pacific road
to Ogden, and thence journeys by the
Utah Northern, to Dillon, Montana,
where wagon road starts for Vir-
ginia City and the park. BY either
routethe journey is long and fatiguing,
and the round trip from Virginia City,
through the park and back again, can
hardly be made, if one proposes to sea
the country with any thorOughness, in
less than month. 1t will not be
many years, however, before the North
ern Pacific will push a narrow guage
road from Bozeman up the valley of
the Yellowstone, making the park di-
rectly accessible from the east.
AS yet everything, of course, is in
the rough. Visitors procure their out
fit at Virginia City, exchange their
wagon for horseback at the entrance of
the park, camp out at night and enjoy
about the same kind of life that tour
lists experience in Palestine and the
East. One cannot DO much more than
twenty miles day, and ought to re-
main at least three weeks in the park
to gain even partial idea of its won
ders. These will strike him when he
first encounters the geysers ut the Fire
hole river on his way to the Yellow
stone lake. He will have read of the
famous Iceland geyser, the basin Of
which is seventy-two feet in diameter
and four feet deep, and which throws
spout $50 feet high; hut that will
hardly prepare him for the Excelsior "
of the Yellowstone, the basin of which
has diameter of $50 feet and depth
of thirty feet, and which spouts with
more or less frequency anywhere from
200 to 500 feet in the air. No descrip-
tion can do justice to the grandeur of
such an exhibition, or paint the Won
derful effects produced by the coloring
of the silicious crust which forms the
geyser basins. So beautiful are these
deposits that they tempt the cupidity
of travellers and are ruthlessly broken
and destroyed, that the fragments may
be carried away as mementos. Van
dalism, indeed, is rife throughout the
park. Game is wantonly Killed, the
natural features are everywhere de-
faced and camp fires are heedlessly left
to ignite the trees and consume acres
of priceless woodland.
1t is not, however, the geysers, grand
as they are, that form the chief attrac-
ton of the park. AS the traveller
comes out of the wooded borders of th(
Yellowstone lake-the loftiest of iti
size in the world-its background o,
snow-clad mountains invites his ad
miration; while the great falls anC
canon of the Yellowstone, when h
reaches them, compel his wondering
delight. Here the mountain torren
leaps first over a cliff l62 feet high
then rushes for half mile in a serie
of foaming cascades; then precipitatinj
itself over sheer height of $50 feet
whirls and dashes for eighteen mile
through a gorge whose marvelously
tinted walls rise to an elevation o
$500 feet. Along the top runs tn
road, from which occasional bride
paths lead for purposes of observa
tion down the sides Of the cliff t.
shelves of geyser formation, where tn
hot springs mingle their waters wit
mountain torrents of melted snow.
What the park chiefly lacks, beside
facility of access, is suitable hotel aC