St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-07-21
THE NATIONAL PARK.
A Short Ramble Among It's Gey-
sers, Fire Holes and Canons, by
Lady of Eighty-Seven Years
and n Baby of Eight Months,

SOILS ana an 61SnL-InOnLnS-Olu DaDy
visited the Yellowstone park during
the last two weeks. The party was
from st. Paul, and the members of it
were gratified many times during the ir
excursion by meeting genial st. Paul and
Minneapolis people in positions con-
nected with the hotels and trans
portation lines in the park. The ma
t1onal government, as is we'll known,
has dedicated to the people of the eoun-
try tract of land containing about
$500 square miles, as park, and it is
engaged under the direction of the Sec
rotary of the interior, in building roads
through its various parts. The park is
made up of mountains and valleys, all
at high altitude and of little or no
value for either agricultural purposes or
pasturage. Within this park are grouped
many of the great natural wonders of
the world. The scenery is the most
sublime, the geological formations the
most curious, and Gods masonry the
most picturesque ever seen by man.
While the park is open and free to the
people of the world to visit, the i'm
provements in it are made under the
order of, and visitors are subject to
rules laid down by, the national gov
eminent. Mounted soldiers perform
police duty, to see that vandals and
notwithstanding crankS do not de-
spoil the natural wonders with which
nature has been so lavish. The object
is to preserve all of natures works, its
towering mountains and astonishing
fountains, its rocks and its trees, its
many-colored fish and its vast variety
of flowers, its animals and its birdS-all
things just as God gave them to us.
Roads are being graded and bridges
built, but the service of no landscape
gardener is required. AT the entrance
of the park is located the Mammoth
Hot Springs hotel, a large structure,
with a good table and com
Portable beds-an excellent place for the
weary traveller to rest. see sights and
battle. Distributed at convenient dis
tances through the park are other hO-
tells, usually in the vicinity of some of
the rarest wonders. To attempt to de-
scribe these wonders in language which
would convey TO the reader just idea
of them would be useless. The most
faclle pen of the descriptive writer, the
most skilled pencil of the artist, fail
alike in this task. The intelligent citi-
zen, after reading all the descriptions
that have been written, and viewing all
of the pictures that have been painted
of the wonders of the park, will, after
witnessing the scenes themselves, be
lmpelled to exclaim, in the language of
Rev. Dr.. Robert Christie. the distin-
guished and cultured pastor of the
House of Hope, st. Paul: lin all my
travels | have never met so few diSap.
pointments or so many agreeable sur
priseS as l did during my visit to the
park"
have been asked if the trip through
the park is not an extremely uncom-
Portable one, owing to dust. flies. mos
qultOes, long rides, rough roads, bad
water and poor hotels. Our party did
not find it so. We may have been
specially favored; but during our trip
the weather was nearly perfect-neither
too hot nor too cold. The nights were
cool, the mercury coming down in the
neighborhood of the first line, while the
middle Of the day was warm. The sun
was bright and the air remarkably clear
and pure. 1t was luxury to drink it
in. We suffered very little from dust,
and none at all from mosquitoes or flies.
The fare at the hotels was plain, palata-
BILE, in good variety, we'll and courteous
with three, wide, roomy seats in
side, and space for one passenger
with the driver. The coach was an
exceedingly eaSy-riding vehicle, the
four horses were spirited and the driver
careful, courteous and full of informa-
ton. In some places the drinking
water affected some of the visitors
slightly, but Apollinaris water can be
obtained everywhere; and more deli
ciOuS bathing is found nowhere. That
it does not require an especially robust
person to stand the perlls of the journey
was tested bv the fact that in our party
was lady in the eightv-seventh year
of her age-Mrs. Fl. M. Rockwell, who
resides at 2101 Prairie avenue, Chicago
and joyous infant of eight months old
of st. Paul. Both stood the trip well
and came out of the park benefited
thereby.
At the close of the trip Senator John
Macdonald, of the Dominion parliament,
a most observant and cultivated man,
said: Il have seen in this park the
most wonderful things in the world"
While standing on one of the pictur-
esque and vari-colored projecting peaks
of the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone.
absorbed in reverential admiration Of
the scene, a distinguished American
scholar and traveller said to me in
hushed whisper, ''Only heaven is more
beautiful" Another, whose home is in
foreign land, not having heard the
above remark, had said: 'On earth
nothing is so beautiful as this except
home"
The most interesting and curious
wonders of this truly wonderland are
the geysers, which abound in almost all
parts of the park. and in every possible
variety. There are, by the thousands,
geysers of merely boiling water, emit
ing only light column of steam. The
boiling goes on like TennysOn's brook,
in even, simple rlpples, forever. The
water in these are of many cOlorS and
shades of cOlor-some of pure, clear
water, some impregnated with valuable
mineral substances, some the color and
consistency of white paint, some red,
some green, some blue, and others of
the various shades and hues into which
cOloring may be blended. These
geysers are of various sizes, from the
circumference of tin cup to dimensions
of small lake. They are found alike
and we'll up OH the highest elevations.
Looking out over one of the great basins,
covering several miles square, of a
bright, cool morning before sunrise. and
the steam rising from these acres of
vents from the great laboratory in the
bowels of the earth, suggests to the
mind vast, but hidden, manufacturing
city. whose many fires are still slumber-
ing prior to the activities of the day.
Some of these steam geysers roar, rum
bic and hiss like the blowing-off
of powerful boilers. Other geysers
there are which throw up columns
of water, each drop of which
seems to be separate crystal,
so transDarently clear does it sparkle in
the rarfied and electrified atmosphere.
A more beautiful sight OF the kind can
not be conceived than is furnished by
Old Faithful or the Castle geysers IN
the upper basin. A curious feature
is the regularity with which Old Faith
full plays. 1t sends forth its ponderous
column of sparkling crystals every
sixty-five minutes. day and night,
winter and summer. Learned geOlO-
gists tell US that it has taken this
geyser $4,000 years to build up the GU
rious incrustatiOns which surround it.
There are in the park pools and small
lakes of most exquisite colorings; pur-
pie and orange. silver and gold, eme-
raid and pearl, turquoise, amethyst, sap
phire; the softest satins are success