Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-10-05

China, in India, In Russia, in Egypt
About 800, 000, 600 Of people Of the
earth today arc kept alive by food raised
on irrigated land. And here we have
allowed TO lie waste, given up to rattle
snake and bat and prairie dog, lands
enough TO support whole nations of In.
dustricus population. Tho work begun
will be consummated. Here and there
exceptional lands may be stubborn and
refuse TO yield any wheat or corn from
their hard fists, but II the hoe fail to
make an impression, the miners pickax
will discover the reason for it and bring
up from beneath those unproductive
surfaces coal and iron and lead and cop
per and silver and gold. God speed the
biologists and the surveyors, the engin-
GERS and tho senatorial commissions and
the capitalists and the new settlers and
tho husbandmen who put their brain and
hand ard heart 70 this TRANSPORTATION of
the American c%ontinenti
| But while / speak of the immensely OF
tho continent, j must remark it Is not
an immensity of monotone or tameness.
The larger ONE countries are, tho worse
for the world. This continents not more
remarkable for its magnitude than for
its wonders of construction. What a pity
the United States government did not
take possession Of Yosemite, California,
as il has of Yellowstone, Wyoming, and
OF Niagara Falls. New York! Yosemite
and the adjoining California regions!
Who that has seen them al think of
them without having his blood Jingle?
Trees now standing there hat were old
when Christ lived. These monarchs of
foliage roigned before Caesar or Alexan-
der and the next thousand years will
not shatter their scepter. They 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 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 con1agration of the
planet.
The valley OF the Yosemite is eight
miles long and a half mile wide and
3 1000 feet deep. It seems as If it had
been tho meaning of Omnipotence 70
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 a mile high. Steep so that
neither foot of man nor beast aver scaled
them, they stand in everlasting defiance.
IL Jehovah he's 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 II
Sentinel Rock, aero feet high, bold,
solitary, standing guard among the ages
its top seldom touched until a bride on,
Fourth of July mounted it 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. Yonder are the ''Threo
rFo.hers," 1000 feet high; Clouds
Rest" North and South Dome anC
heights never captured save by the fiery
bayonets of the thunder storm.
No pause for the eye, no stopping
place for the mind. Mountains hurled
on mountains. Mountains in the wake
of mountains. Mountains flanked BY
mountains. Mountains split. Noun
tains ground. Mountains fallen. Noun
tains triumphant. As though Mon.
Blanc and the Adirondacks and Mt
Washington were here uttering them
selves in one magnificent chorus of rocl
and precipice and waterfall. Siftin,
and dashipg through the rocks, the waite
comes down. The Bridal Veil Falls, 81
thin you can see the face of the noun
tain behind it. Yonder is Yosemite
FAILS. dropping 1894 feet, sixteen time
greater descent than hat of Niagara
The5e waters dashed to death on tn,
rocks, so that the white spirit of tn,
slain waters ascending in robes of mist
seeks the heavens. Yonder is Nevadt
falls plunging ZOO feet, the water in ar
rows, the water in rockets, the water il
pearls, the water in amethysts, tn,
water in diamonds. That cascade fling
down che rocks enough jewels TO ARA,
all the earth in beauty, and rushes OF
until ii drops into a very hell of waters
the smoke of their torment ascendins
forever and eve
But the most wonderful part Of thi
American continent Is the Yellowston,
park. My visit there last month made
upon me an impression that will las
forever. After all poetry has exhausted
itself and all the Morans and Bierstadts
and the other enchanting artists have
completed their canvas, there will b,
other revelations to make and otheI
stories of its beauty and wrath, splendol
and agony, TO be recited. The Yellow
stone park is the biologists paradise
BY c~heapening OF travel may IL become
the nations playground! In some por
tions Of it there seems to be the anarch,
Of the elements. Fire and water, ant
the vapor born of that marriage, terrific
Geyser one or hills OF crystal tina
have been over 5000 years growing. Ii
places tho earth, throbbing, sobbing
grooming, quaking with aqueous par
oxysm.
At the expiration Of every sixty-fiv,
minutes ono ef the geysers tossing it
boiling water ls5 feet In tho air ant
then descending into swinging rainbows
Caverns Of pictured walls large enough
for the sepulcher Of the human race
Formations Of stone in shape and colo
Of Gala lily, OF heliotrope, Of rose. o
cowslip, Of sunflower and Of gladiola
sulphur and arsenic and oxide Of iron
with their delicate pencils, turning thu
hills into . Gutenberg or q vatican
picture gallery. The so-called Thana
4spds geyser, exquisite IS tho Bryan
poem 1t was named after, and the SO
called Evangeline geyser, lovely as thu
Longfellow heroine it commentaries
The so-called Pulpit Terrace from it
white elevation preaching mightier ser