Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-23


of the earth to-day are kept alive by
food raised on irrigated land. And here
we have allowed to lie waste, given up
to rat tlesnake and hat and prairie dog,
lands enough to support whole nations of
industrious population. The work be-
gun will be contaminated. Here and
there exceptional lands may be stubborn
and refuse to yield any wheat or corn
from their hard fists, but il the hoe fail
TO make an impression, the miner s pick
ak will discover the reason for it and
bring up from beneath those unproduc-
tive surfaces coal and iron and lead and
copper and silver and gold. God speed
the BIOLOGISTS and surveyors, the en-
giueers and the senatorial commissions
and the capitalists and new settlers and
the husbandmen who put their brain and
hand and heart to this TRANSPORTATION of
the American continent.
But while I speak of the immensely of
the continent, l must remark it is not
an immensity of monotone or tameness
The larger some countries are, the worse
for the world This country is not
more remarkable for its magnitude
than for its wonders of construction
What pity the United States govern
ment did not take possession Of YQse-
wy. T., and of Niagara Falls, n. Y
Yosemite and the adjoining California
regions! Who that has seen them can
think Of them without having his blood
Jingle? Trees are now standing there that
were old when Christ lived These
monarchs OF foliage reigned before
Caesar or Alexander, and the next
1000 years will not shatter their
scepter. They are the masts of the con-
tinent, their canvas spread on the winds
while the old ship bears on its way
Through the ages. Their size, of 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 conflagration of
the planet.
That valley of the Yosemite is eight
miles long and half mile wide and 5000
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
that neither foot of man nor
beast ever scaled them, they
stand in everlasting defiance. If Jeho-
white pillars. Standing down in this
great chasm of the valley you look up
and y0ndeT is Cathedral Rock, vast,
gloomy minister built for the silent woC-
ship of the mountains. Wonder is Senti-
mel Rock, 3270 feet high, bold, solitary,
standing guard among the ages, its top
seldom touched until bride one Fourth
Of July mounted it and planted the ma
tional standards and the people down in
the valley looked mp and saw the head OF
the mountain turbaned with stars and
stripes. Yonder are the ''Three Broth
eTs, - 4000 feet high; "Cloud s Rest, -
North and South Dome aud heights never
captured save by the fiery bayonets OF
the thunder storm.
No pause for the eye, 10 stopping
place for the mind. Mountains hurled
on mountains. Mountains in the wake
of mountains. Mountains hanked by
mountains. Mountains split. Mountains
ground. Mountains fallen. Mountains
triumphant. As though Mont Blanc and
the Adirondaclls and Mount Washington
we're here uttering themselves in one
magnificent chorus of rock aud precpice
and waterfall. Sitting and dashing
through the rocks, the water comes
down. The Bridal Veil Falls, so thin
hind it, Yonder is Yosemite Falls,
dropping 1854 feet, sixteen times greater
descent than that of Niagara. These
waters dashed to death on the rocks, so
that the white spirit of the slam waters
ascending in robe of mist seeks
the heaven. Yonder is Nevada
Falls plunging 700 feet, the
water in arrows, the water in rookie IS,
the water III pearls, the water in anne
thysts, 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 water, 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 maGe
upon me an impression that will last for
ever. After all poetry has exhausted it
self and all the MorGns and BieTstadts
and the other enchanting artists have
their canvas, there's will be
other revelations to make and other
stories of its beauty and wrath, splendor
and agony, to be recited. The
Yellowstone park is the ge-
travel may it become the nation s play
seems to be the anarchy of the elements.
Fire and water, and the yapor born
of that marriage, terrific. Geyser cones
or hills of crystal that have been over
five thousand years growing. In places |
the earth, throbbing, sobbiug, groan-
ing, quaking with aqueous paroxysm.
At the expiration of every sixty five !
minutes one of the geysers tossing its |
boiling water 185 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 hello |
trope, of rose, Of cowslip, of sunfiower
and of gladiola Sulphur and arsenic |
and oxide OF iron, with their delicate |
pencils, turning the hills into a Luxem- |
burg or Vatican picture gallery. The |
so-called Thanatopsis geyser, exquisite /
as the Bryant poem 1t was named after, |
and the so-called EYangeline geyser, |
lovely as the Longfellow heroine it COM !
The so-called pulpit ter
race, from It's white elevation preaching |
mightier sermons of God than human
lips ever uttered. The so-calIed Bethesda |
vpvSar nv the warmth Of which iOv9li6s