Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-10-03

Alexander, 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 confagra-
tion Of the planet
The valley of the Yosemite is eight miles
long and half mile wide and 1900 feet
deep. 1t seems as il 10 had been the mean
ing of Omnipotence to crowds into as small
q place as possible some of the most stu
pendous scenery of the world. Some OF
the cliffs you do not stop to measure by
feet, for they are literally q mile high
Steep so that neither foot Of man nor
beast ever scaled them, they stand in
everlasting defiance. II 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 Cathe-
dral rock, vast, gloomy minister built for
the silent worship Of the mountains.
Yonder is Sentinel rock, 8 go feet high,
bold, solitary, standing guard among the
ages its top seldom touched until q bride
one Fourth of July noun te / 1t and PLANTED
the National standards and the people
down in the valley looked up and saw the
head of the mountain turbaned with the
stars and stripes. Yonder are the Three
Brothers, 4, 900 feet high; Clouds Res"
North and South Dome and 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 hapked by mount
aims Mountains split Mountains
ground. Mountains fallen. Mountains
triumphant. As though Mont Blanc and
the Adirondacks and Mount Washington
were here uttering themselves in one
magnificent chorus of rock and precipice
and waterfall.
Sitting and dashing through the rocks
the water comes down. The Bridal Vail
Falls, so thin you can see the face of the
mountain behind il. Yonder is Yosemite
Falls, dropping 2, ga 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 heaven.
Yonder is Nevada falls. plunging 100 feet,
the water in arrows, the water in rockets,
the water in pearls, the water in ame-
thysts, the water in diamonds. That cas-
cade filings down the rocks enough jewels
to array all the earth in beauty, and rushes
on until it DROPS into very hell of waters,
the smoke of their torment ascending for
ever and ever.
But the most wonderful part Of this
American continent is the Yellowstone
Park. Ny visit there last month made
| kh,E 1ao Co.
ever. After all poetry has exhausted it
self and all the Morans and Bierstadts
and other enchanting artists have COM
pleted their canvas, there will be other
revelations to make and other stories of
its beauty and wrath, sp!endor and sgony,
to be reciied. The Yellowstone Park is
the geologist's paradise. By cheapening
of travel may it become the nations p ay-
ground! In some portions of it there
seems to be the anarchy of the elements.
Fire AMI water, and the vapor born of
that marriage, ter, ific. Geyser Genes or
hills of crystal that have been over five
thousand years growing. In places the
earth, throbbing, sobbing, grooming quak-
ing with aqueous paroxysms.
At the expiration of every sixty five
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.
Form atoms of stone in shape and color Of
Gala lily, of heliotrope, Of rose, Of cow
slip, Of sunfower and of gladiola- Sui
phur and arsenic and oxide of iron, with
their delicate pencils, turning the hills
into Luxembourg or a Vatican picture
gallery. The so-called Thanatopsis gey-
sey, exquisite as the Bryant poem it was
named after, and the so-called Evangeline
geyser, lovely as the Longfellow 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 continually stirring the waters.
Enraged craters with heat at five hundred
degrees only little below the surface.
Wide reaches of stone of intermingled
colors, blue as the sky. green as the foli-
age, 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 stalactites.
in stalagmites. Here and there are petri-
fed growths, or the dead trees and vege-
tation of other ages, kept through pro-
cess of natural embalmment. In some
places waters as innocent and smiling as
child making a first attempt to walk
from its mothers lap, and not far off as
foamfng and frenzied and ungovernable
as a maniac in murderous struggle with
his keepers.
But after you haJ wandered along the
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 grand
eur-the Grand canyon. 1t is here that it
seems to me-and l speak it with rever-
ence-that Jehovah seems TO have sur
passed Himself 1t seems 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. Up
holstering of the Lord God Almighty.
Best work of the Architect of worlds
Sculpturing by the Infinite. Masonry by
an omnipotent troweL Yellowl 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 ban
ners of color. In a 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 fortifica-
tions of granite constructed before war
| forged it's first cannon. Gibraltars and
| Sebastopols that never can be taken. AL
hambras, where kings OF strength and
quee MS 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