St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-10-19
YELLOW STONE PARK.
Letter No. 2 From a st. Paul Tourist,
The Canyon, Lakes and
Geyser Basin.
Especial Correspondence of the Globe

Especial Correspondence OF the Globe.
ST. PAUL, Oct. 49,, 1SS4.-Leaying the
mammoth Hot Springs hotel for the park
tourists as u rule go by way of the Norris
Geyser basin, which is altogether wrong for
various reasons. They ought to go up the
Gardiner river set its picturesque falls. stop
at Yancey's rancho after . twenty miles ride.
There they will find themselves surrounded
by ever-changing sceneries. It is ''TeYTuin
Co'qoe'' broken billy country, like all ba-
saltic formations, interspersed with clusters
OF leaf trees and evergreens, pines, fir trees
and cedars with rich meadows between
This is really the only district inside the park
which deserves the name of park. All
through the park we have not many grand
and beautiful landscapes, except on the lake,
we have far stretched thickets of pines for
days rides which even become monotonous
and dreary when we ride through millions of
acres of dead timber either burnt or de-
stroyed by wind falls, while to go by way of
the trail to Yancey's would be the best intro
duction to the great features of the park,
canyon, lake, falls and upper geyser basin.
AS yet only horseback riders can go this
from the sunny valleys with its wonderful
autumn tints of the foliage to the snow-cov-
cred forests of Mount Washburn, and with
the sun shining in full glory formed pic
turesque contrast.
Following the common travelled road to
Norris Geyser basin we pass mountain of
obsidlan, a volcanic formation of natural black
glass some three hundred feet high and
LOCO long, shining in the sun, over the de-
hris Of which the roadway leads. The large
blocks here could not be removed in any
other way than by heating them by big wood
fires and exploding them afterwards by put
ting on stream Of cold water, and now
make one of the most perfect street building
materials in the world. OF this substance
| the old Romans made their looking-glasses
as found in Herculanum and Pompeii, but
this art is lost. We pass through an Alpine
valley with Electric peak and and Mount
Schurz over !, 100 feet above the sea level in
full sight, but they do not appear so very
high because of the plateau of the park be-
ing itself over 200 feet high, The Norris
Geyser basin reminds one very much of
Dante's hell. We climb down from the sta
ton to some large depression of some hun
dred acres size filled with geyserte. All
around the edges of these depressions we see
numbers of boiling hot springs forming
large pools of exquisite colors like the emer
aid pool. The middle of these depressions
consist altogether of such basins, in which
everywhere are small geysers either in per-
petual action or become temporarily so. One
of them is called the Minute Man because
every minute big stream of boiling water
raises about twenty feet and then sinks back
into the POOL. The whole county smells like
sulphur. Some waters taste as sour as vine
gar. Some geysers throw up finely ground
mud of snow white, red, blue and green
color forming the so called paint
| pots, some of them so
large and of such delicate hue
that we regret that we cannot have them in
st. Paul, especially on st. Anthony hill, to
give the houses there a uniform, harmo-
NOUS, tasteful color. Some geysers blow off
at times only steam with very high pressure,
so that all kinds of Kissing and laundering
noises are heard. The basins extend for
miles in different directions, aid we see
everywhere clouds of steam raising. We see
also occasionally some larger geysers sprout
like the Monarch, which rises to the heighth
of $50 feet, and giving us at first the idea of
volcano. At this station there was ice forming
every night of our stay in the middle of July,
| but being enabled to take morning bath in
| the warm springs near by, as we can any
where in the park, and for the delightful
day temperature, we do not mind the frost
of the night. These hot springs are put to
many other purposes, especially by those
campers who come in the hundreds, many
of them farmers, who after being through
with their crops spend some weeks here in
the park to see the sights and wonders. They
raise their bread near the geysers, where the
| ground is always warm, and especially where
natural carbolic acid gas escapes; other hot
| springs with nearly pure water are used fer
boiling ham and buildings, while many times
We boiled fishes on the hook, yet which were
caught in the creeks near by. Queens laun-
dry, like many other springs, render our
washiGgs snow white in a wonderful short
time without the aid of labor or soap.
| DR.. DEDoLPH.