The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-11-28

through the ages. IheIr SlzH, or which
travellers often speak, does not affect me
SO much as their longevity. Though so
old now, the branches of some of them
will crackle in the last confagration of
the planet.
That Valley Of the Yosemite is eight
miles long and a half mile wide and thre
thousand feet deep. 1t seems as if it had
been the meaning of Omnipotence to
crowd into as small place as possible
some of the most stupendous scenery of
the world. Some of the cliffs you do not
stop to measure by feet, for they are
literally q mile high. Steep SO that
neither foot of man nor beast ever scaled
them, they stand in everlasting defiance.
Ii Jehovah.has a throne on earth these are
its pillars. Standing down in this great
chasm of the valley, you look up aud
yonder is Cathedral Rock, vast, gloomy
minister built for the silent worship of
the mountains. Yonder is Sentinel Rock
three thousand two hundred and seventy
feet high, bold, solitary, standing guard
among the ages, its top seldom touched
until bride one Fourth of July mounted
1t and planted the National standards
and the people down in the valley looked
up and saw the head of the mountain
turbaned with Stars and Stripes. Yon-
der are the 'Three Brothers." four thou
sand feet high; Clouds Rest" North
and South Dome, and heights never capt
ured save by the fiery bayonets of the
thunderstorm.
No pause for the eye, no stopping place
for the mind. Mountains hurled on
mountains. Mountains fanked by
mountains. Mountains split. Mountains
ground. Mountains fallen. Mountains
triumphant. AS though Mount Blanc
and the Adirondacks and Mount Wash
lngton were here uttering themselves in
one magnificent chorus of rock and
precipice and waterfall. Sitting and
dashlng through the rocks, the water
comes down. The Bridal Vail Falls, so
thin you can see the face of the mountain
behind it. Yonder is Yosemite Falls,
dropping two thousand, six hundred and
thirty -four feet. sixteen times greater
descent than that of Niagara. These
waters dashed to death on the rocks, so
that the white spirit Of the slain waters
descending in robe of mist seeks the
heaven. YOnder is Nevada Falls plung-
ing seven hundred feet the water in ar
rows. the water in rockets, the water in
pearls, the water in amethysts, the water
IN diamonds. That cascade filings down
the rocks enough jewels to array all the
earth in beauty, and rushes on until it
drops into a very hell of waters, the
smoke OF their torment ascending forever
and ever.
But the most wonderful part of this
American continent is the Yellowstone
Park. My visit there last month made
upon me an impress sion that will last for
ever. After all poetry has exhausted it.
self and all the Morans and Bierstads and
the other enchanting artists have COM
pleted their canvas there will be other
revelations to make ald other stories of
its beauty and wrath, splendor and agony,
to be recited. The Yellowstone Park is
a biologists paradise. By cheapening
OF travel may it become the Nations
In some portions of it
there seems to be the anarchy of thu ele-
ments. Fire and water, and the vapor
born OF that marriage, terrific. Geyser
cones or hills of crystal that have been
over five thousand years growing. In
places the earth, throbbing, sobbing,
groaning, quaking with aqueous parox-
ism.
At the expiration of every sixty-fiye
minutes one of the geysers tossing it's
boiling water one hundred and eighty
i've feet in the air and then descending
into swimming rainbows. Caverns of
pictured walls large enough for the
sepulcher of the human race. Forma.
tons of stone in shape and color of Gala
lily, of heliotrope, of rose, of cowslip, of
sunf1ower and of gladiola. Sulphur and
arsenic and oxide of iron, with their deli
cate pencils, turning the hills into a
Luxembourg or Vatican picture gallery.
The so. called Thanatopsis geYser. ex-
lulslte as the Bryant poem it was named
after, and the so-called Eyangeline
5eyser, lovely as the Longfellow heroine
It commentaries. The so-called Pulpit
Terrace from its white elevation preach
ing mightier sermons of God that human
lips ever uttered. The so called Bethesda
geyser, by the warmth of which invalids
nave already been cured, the Angel of
Health continually stirring the waters.
craters, with heat at five hun
dred degrees, only little below the sur
face.
Wide reaches of stone of intermingled
colors, blue as the sky, green as the TO-
l1sge, crimson as the dahlia, white as the
snow spotted as the leopard, tawnv as
the lion, grizzly as the bear, in circles. in
angles, in stars, in coronets, in stalac-
-ites, in stalagmites. Here and there are
petrihed growths of the dead trees, and
vegetation of other ages kept through
process of natural embalmment In
some places water as innocent and smiI-
ing as child making a first attempt TO
walk from its mo theirs lap and not far
off as foaming, and frenzied and ungoy-
srnable as maniac in murderous strug,
gle with his keepers.
But after you have wandered alonq the
seyserite enchantment for DAYS and be-
gin to feel that there can be nothing more
If interest to see, you suddenly come
Upon the peroration of all majesty and
grandeur, the Grand Canyon. 1t is here
hat it seems to me-and speak it with
everence-Jehovah seems to have sur |
passed Himself. 1t seems a great guIeh |
ct down into the eternities. Here. hung
Up and let down and spread abroad. are |
vi the colors of land and sea and skv. |
Jpholstering of the Lord God Almighty.
Best work of the Architect of Worlds |
Sculpturing by the Infinite. Masonry bv |
"a Omnipotent trowel. YellowI Yon |
lever saw yellow unless you saw it there. |
led! You never saw red unless you saw
there. Violet You never saw violet
nless you saw it there. Triumphant
anners of color. In cathedral of ba-