Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-05-03

Senator Conkling and Party Viewing
the Phenomenal Features Of Man,
moth Springs on Their Park
Tour of 1888.

Tour of 1888.
MAMMOTH HoT SPRINGS, April 26, 1883.
Especial correspondence of the Herald.
A four horse carriage and a few saddle
horses took Mr.. Conkling's party up Ter
race Mountain as far as the Orange Geyser
Mrs Conkling was in very poor health and
"those dreadful hills" as she called them,
that we encountered between the Hotel
Plateau and Marrow Guage Terrace. upset
what of nervous energy she started with,
so she decided to return with the carriage,
leaving the Senator, his niece, Miss Coke,
and her brother, Judge Coke, to continue
the journey over the terraces on foot.
The phenomenal features of the Orange
Geyser were of profound interest to all and
elected some reflections that are well worth
noting.
The form and color suggested to me
its name early in 1882. The two pulsatiDg
Jets of boiling water rising from an un-
known depth and generally surgiDg over
| its walls in rhythmic waves, de-
posting at each pulsatioD, invisible mole
cules which become beautiful microscopic
cups, containing tiny drop of water, and
at the outer margins and on the walls and
at the base of the cone, becoming larger
and larger until they contain many gal
Ions, or even barrels. Then there are
billions of these cups lying beneath each
other as the entombed coral insect lies
buried beneath their living successors.
Then there is par boiled forest that is
being buried in magnetism tomb as sure
ly, slowly and pitiously as the voracious
reptile devours it's crushed and quivering
victim.
"Why must this marvellous creation of
inanimate nature involve and devour her
evergreen, arboreal children?" said the
vivacious and poetic Miss Coke
"Your nature is as void of pity as her
laws; she is as blind as Cupid and as
silent as the Sphy lx," said her brother in
judicial tone.
Gertrude is right, for Nature is at once
the creator and destroyer. But there is
this to be said in her favor, that though
she seems to be deaf, dumb and blind,
she has given Us ears to hear her uncon-
sciOus music, tongues to voice her emo
tions, and eyes to see her wonder working
modes and judgmens with which to
comprehend some of her processes at least.
But do you notice how like our human
world is this terrace building world?
These cups, from the least to the greatest,
have each their day and all their doom
They are in turn buried and forgotten,
Their form and size are the mere accidents
of their nearness or distance from the
creative vortex; but time, the pitiless
democrat, levels them all at las" !"
"Oh, well, uncle, let US drink the cup of
ioy that nature so generously bestows, and
let Time and Death work their sweet wills,
as they surely shall whether we will or no.
/ am glad that we are far enough away
from the creative vortex to dream of being
ourselves creators, or favOrites of that
made alike admirer and admired"
So saying. Miss Gertrude skipped mer-
rily around the summit of the orange, pat
ted the trees that were having so cleanly
but so hot coffin, and proposed that we
see something else.
The Senator seemed sad, and the judge
judicial, but Miss Coke, with that wOman's
instinct, felt that as mirth and melancholy
are door neighbors, it was best to laugh and
grow fat in the sunshine.
Passing Bath Lake and the Crank Tree
Terrace, both of which were much ad-
mired. one for its transparency, the other
for it's twisticity, for the terrace looked
like an unfolding scroll, and the trees that
grow out of it seem to have been twisted
and gnarled and bent and bungled as many
humans are, but all in perfect harmony
with that creative fiat of vortex and envi-
ronment.
The Jacob's Ladder Terrace occupied
our attention for over an hour. The Frog
Pond at the west end of this terrace dis
oh of q re-
into bed of sulphur, in which it etfeIvtsss
actively, and is then forced into a fssure
that runs through the whole length of the
terrace, over a hundred yards, and after
reaching the east end of the terrace, at
least eighty feet above the lake. is dis
charged in double jet at temperature
of 1882; the water then flows down the
walls of Fairy Terrace, building myriads
of cups at the Orange, and underneath
the wall are the three famous caves, Her.
mit's, Stalactite and Stygan. The latter
is literally cave Of the dead. Even its
entrance is covered with dead beetles,
birds, mice, and whatever comes within
the baleful death dealing carbonic acid.
The writer has yet to give his experience
in attempting to explore this den of the
Basalisk, one glance of whose eyes expels
the spark of life from every mortal thing.
The Hermit's Cave has much more ex-
ternal than internal beauty. The Fairy
Terrace is as Miss Coke said, lone of
Natures most beautiful works of art"
The yellows, green's and browns are most
delicately shaded and blend into each
in vertical stripes in degrees as impercept-
ible as that of the rainbow's prismatic
hues Great pendents hang over the caves
of the cave and retain all the beauty of the
walls above, but in deeper shades.
I must defer the description of our
entrance into and exploration of the stall
actite cave to another chapter, as the con-
versation is Of more interest now that it
has become classic ground by the addition
of that human increment that consecrates
even a desert where a Bannockburn or