Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1889-10-10

miles long and q half mile wide an
three thousand feet deep. II seems q
if it had been the meaning of Omnipo
tence to crowd into as small place a
possible some of the most stupendou
scenery of the world. Some of tn
cliffs you do not stop to measure b
feet, for they are literally a mile higt
Steep SO that neither foot of man no
beast ever scaled them, they stand i
everlasting defiance. IfJehovah has
throne of earth these are its white Pill
lars. Standing down in this great chasn
of the valley you look up and yonder
Cathedral Rock. vast, gloomy ministe
built for the silent worship of tn
mountains. Yonder is Sentinel Rock
3.270 feet high, bold, solitary, standin
guard among the ages, its top seldom
touched until q bride one Fourth o
July mounted it and planted the ma
tional standards and the people dow
| in the valley looked up and saw tn
! head of the mountain turbaned will
stars and stripes. Yonder are tn,
| Three Brothers" four thousand fee
high; Clouds Rest North and Soutl
Dome and heights never captured saw
by the fiery bayonets OF the thunde
| storm.
No pause for the eye, no stopping
place for the mind. Mountains hurled
on mountains. Mountains in the wake
of mountains. Mountains fanked BY
mountains. Mountains split. Mount.
aims ground. Mountains fallen. Mount
aims triumphant. As though Mont
Blanc and the Adirondacks and Mount
Washington were here uttering them
selves in one magnificent chorus of rocl
and precipice and waterfall. Sitting
and dashing through the rocks. the wa
ter comes down. The Bridal Veil falls
SO thin you can see the face of the
mountain behind it. Yonder is Yose-
mite falls, dropping 2,634 feet. sixteen
times greater descent than that of Nj.
agara. These waters dashed to death
on the rocks, SO that the white spirit OF
slain waters ascending in robe of mist
seek the heaven. Yonder is Nevada
falls plunging seven hundred 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 int very hell of wa
tiers, the smoke of their torment ascend
ing 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 impression that will last
forever. After all poetry has exhausted
itself and all the Morans and Bierstadts
and the other enchanting artists have
completed their canvas, there will be
other revelations to make and other
stories of its beauty and wrath. splen-
dor, and agony, to be recited. The yell
lowstone Park is biologists paradise.
By cheapening of travel may it become
the nations playground! In some por-
tions 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 par
oxysm.
At the expiration of every sixty-fve
minutes 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 sunfiower, and of gladiola.
Sulphur and arsenic and oxide of iron,
with their delicate pencils, turning the
hills into Luxembourg or Vatican pic
ture gallery. The SO called Thanatopsis
geyser, exquisite as the Bryant poem il
was named after, and the so-called
Evangeline geyser, lovely as the Long
fellow heroine it commentaries. The
so-called Pulpit Terrace from its white
elevation preaching mightier sermons OF
God than human lips ever uttered. The
so-called Bethesda geyser, by the
warmth of which invalids have already
been cured, the Angel of Health con-
tinually stirring the waters. Enraged
grees, only little below the suface.
Wide reaches of stone of intermingled
colors, blue as the sky, green as tho foli-
snow, spotted as the leopard, tawny as
the lion, grizzly as the bear. in circles,
in angles, in stars, in coronets, in
stalactites, in stalagmites. Here and
there are petrified growths or the dead
trees and vegetation of other ages kept
through process of natural embalm-
ment. In some places waters as inno-
cent and smiling as a child making a
first attempt to walk from its mother
lap, and not far off as foaming and
frenzied and ungovernable as maniac
in murderous struggle with his keeper.
But after you have wandered along
tho geyserite enchantment for days and
begin to feel that there can be nothing
more OF interest 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. It seems q great
gulch let down into the eternities.
Here, hung up and let down and spread
abroad, are all the colors of land and
sea and sky. Upholstering of the Lord
God Almighty. Best work of the Archi-
tect of worlds. Sculpturing by the Inf
mite. 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 cathedral Of basalt, Sunrise and
Sunset married by the setting of rainbow
ring.
Gothic arches, Corinthian capitals,
and Egyptian basilicas built before
human architecture was born. Huge
Notifications OF granite constructed be-
fore war forged its first cannon. Gibral-
tars 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. FCunt of waters at which the lesser
hills are baptized while the giant cliffs
stand round as sponsors. ForthOusands
of years before that scene was unveiled
to human sight, the elements were busy,
and the geysers were hewing away with
their hot chisel, and glaciers were
pounding with their cold hammers and
hurricanes were cleaving with their
lightning strokes and hailstones giving
the finishing touches, and after all these
forces of nature had done their best, in
our century the curtain dropped and the
world had new and divinely inspired
revelation, the Old Testament written
on papyrus, the New Testament written
on parchment, and now this last Tesla
ment written on the rocks.
Hanging over one of the cliffs l looked
off until could not get my breath, then
retreating to q less exposed place