Daily Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1882-1893, 1888-08-31

acterisJics. II stands an anomaly in
nature, and there is no better name to
give it than 10 call it river.
Its waters are colored, nor is their color
like 10 any other river have ever seen.
They have been called black by many
writers who have written Of them, but
they are not black, but rather transparent
brown, like as common water is when
looked at through smoked glass Isay
transparent, for they are very pure and
clear, and, dark as they are, the eye sees
deeply and easily into them. A white
stone or piece of tin can be perceived at
great depth-as deeply down as they
might be in the waters of the Hrricon,
which | have often thought were the
purest and the cleanest in the world.
Moreover, the sunbeams pen'trate its
dark brown currents easily, and the long
lanes of light shot into the brown depths
by the solar rays look as the sunlight
looks when shining through the stained
windows Of great cathedrals.
Whence its waters get this strange
quality, this indescribably gloomy and
sinister tinge, none can say, and savants
do not even pretend to CUES, for all the
currents which flow into il are mountain
streams and crystalline, and the contribu-
tiOns Of the sea which the tidal lift pours
into il are clear and blue of tint. Nor
can il come from any coloring matter re-
leased by natures chemistry acting upon
Its rocky walls and bottom, for the nature
of these is known, and plail granite
quartz and gneiss are the dominu,t struct-
ures. But whatever be the caufe of it,
the color Of its waters is, as | have de-
scribed, brown, with almost a purple
tinge, and has 20 the eye, seen from a
distance, most grewsome look, gloomy
and sinister, as if it came from some
other world than ours, whose waters,
unless discolored from causes discoverable
to us, are pure and sparkling.
Imagine, now, vast volume Of this
strange looking water, two miles in width,
1000 feet in depth. pouring out between
monstrous opening between contiguous
mountains, made by some mighty throe
of nature. Travelling in agony, to bring
forth an awful birth; an opening which
Is not simply a rert made through a lofty
range, but as if long, high ridge of
primeval rock-rock old as the beginning
Of the world-running north and south,
had been split apart along its entire length
Of forty miles, exactly in the center, and
the two halves wedged violently apart
until the jagged, precipitous, cavernous
sides stood two miles asunder, and through
this tremendous opening, through the
very center of this huge ridge Of rock,
vast, deep, asmost fathomless volume Of
gloomy colored water began 20 flow, and
you have in your mind fairly good pict-
ure Of wha, the Saguenay was at its birth,
and what i is today.
For Of all rivers on the globe this, from
necessity, has changed the least. Here
and there the frost and heat, the SHOWS
and rains of 10, 900 years have worn down
the sharp edges and rounded the finty
Tcrge Of oyerhanging precipices; here and
there the wash and wear Of centuries
have deposited so much Of soil that trees
IAN find foOthold, but save this all is
cbday on either hand. as you sail up its
Garkling tide, as it was when first born
n natures darkest hour and sternest
agony, its gloomy currents began to boil
aud whirl and flow. Every other river
on the face Of the earth has changed its
banks and led, but this strange river has
changed not at all, and cannot change
until the end of time.-W. ii. II. Murray
In New York World.