The national leader., 1889-09-28

| snhtCeT Inelr ScepCer. Ihey are the maStS of
the continent, their canvas spread on the
winds while the old ship bears on its way
through the ages Their size, of which trav-
elers 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 conhagration of the planet
That Valley of the Yosemite is eight miles
long and half mile wide and three thousand
feet deep. 1t seems as if it had been the
meaning of Omnipotence to crowd into as
small a 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 mile high. Steep so
| that neither foot of man nor beast ever scaled
them, they stand in everlasting defiance If
Jehovah has a throne on earth these are its
white pillars. Standing down in this great
chasm of the valley you look up
and yonder is Cathedral Rock,
vast, gloomy minister built for the silent
worship of the mountains Yonder is SEN
tinel Rock, 3270 feet high, bold, solitary,
standing guard among the ages its top sell
dom touched until a bride one Fourth of July
mounted it and planted the national stand
ards and the people down in the valley
looked up and saw the head of the mountain
}urbaned with the Stars and Stripes. Yonder
! are the ''Three Brothers four thousand feet
high: Clouds ResAn. North and South
Dome and heights never captured save by
the fiery bayonets of the thunder storm.
|
the mind Mountains hurled on mountains
Mountains in the wake of mountains.
Mountains fanked by mountains. Mountains
| split. Mountains ground Mountains
fallen. Mountains triumphant. As though
Mont Blanc and the Adirondscks and
themselves in one magnificent chorus
of rock and precipice and waterfall,
Sitting and dashing through the rocks, the
water comes down. The Bridal Veil
: Falls, so thin you can see the face
! of the mountain behind. Yonder is Yose-
! mite Falls dropping 1884 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
ascending in robe of mist seeks the heaven.
, Yonder is Nevada falls plunging seven hum
dred feet, the water in arrows, 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 Amer.
lean continent is the Yellowstone Park. My
visit there last month made upon me i'm
preston that will last forever After all
poetry has exhausted itself, and all the
| Morans and Bierstadts and the other enchant-
! ing artists have completed their canvas
/
other stories of its beauty and wrath,
splendor and agony, to be recited
The Yellowstone Park is the geol
ogist's paradise By cheapening of
travel may it become the nations play
| ground! In some portions of it there seems
to be the anarchy of the elements. 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 paroxysm.
/ At the expiration of every sixty-five min
! utes one of the geysers tossing its boiling
| water 1S5 feet in the air and then descending
! into swinging rainbows. Caverns Of pictured
walls large enough for the sepulcher of the
human race. Formations of stone in shape
and color Of Gala lily, of heliotrope, of rose,
! of cowslip, of sunhower and of gladiola
! Sulphur and arsenic and oxide of iron, with
their delicate pencils turning the hills into
4 Luxembourg or Vatican picture
I gallery. The so-called Thanatopsis
geyser, exquisite as the Bryant poem it was
named after, and the so called Evangeline
I geyser, lovely as the LongfellOw heroine it
commemorates. The so called Pulpit Ter
race from its white elevation preaching
mightier sermons of God than human lips
ever uttered. The so called Bethesda gey-
ser, by the warmth of which invalids have
already been cured, the Angel of Health con-
tinually stirring the waters. Enraged era
little below the surface.
Wide reaches of stone of intermingled
colors, blue as the sky, green as the foliage,
| crimson as the dahlia, white as the snow,
! spotted as the leopard, tawny as the lion,
! grizzly as the bear in circles, in angles in
stars, in coronets, in stalacites in stalag-
mites. Here and there are petrified growths
! or the dead trees and vegetation of other
ages, kept through process of natural EN-.
balmment. In some places waters as inno-
cent and smiling child making a first at
| tempt to walk from its mothers lap, and not
| far off as foaming and frenzied and ungov-
ernable as a maniac in murderous struggle
with his keepers
But after you have wandered along the
| geyserite enchantment for days and begin to
feel that there can be nothing more of in
terest to see, you suddenly come upon the
peroration of all majesty and grandeur, the
Grand canyon. 1t is here that it seems to me
and | speak it with reverence-Jehovah
seems to have surpassed Himself. 1t seems
a great gulch let down into the
down and spread abroad, are all the
colors of land and sea and sky. Upholster-
ing of the Lord God Almighty. Best work
of the Architect of worlds. Sculpturing by
the Infinite. Masonry by an omnipotent
trowel. Yellow! You never saw yellow
unless you saw it there. Red! You never
saw red unless you saw it there. Violet
You never saw violet unless you saw it there.
Triumphant banners of color. In cathe
dral of basalt, sunrise and sunset married
by the setting of rainbow ring
Gothic arches, Corinthian capitals and
Egyptian basihcas build before human archi-
lecture was born. Huge Notifications of
granite constructed before war forged its
first cannon. Gibraltars and Sebastopols
! that never can be taken. Alhambras, where
kings of strength and queens of beauty
reigned long before the first earthly crown
was empearled. Thrones on which no one
but the King of heaven and earth ever sat.
Fount of waters at which the lesser hills are
baptized while the giant cliffs stand round as
sponsors. For thousands of years be-
fore that scene was unveiled to human