The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-06-08
NATURES RAREsT GEM.

The Wonderful ShOshOne Falls In the
Idaho Desert
A letter from Shoshone, Idaho, to the Chi
cago Herald thus describes wonderful cat
aract in the heart Of the crater of an ex-
tinct volcano:
The traveller has reached the grandest bit
of scenery in the New World. He stands in
the centre of monster crater perhaps the
giant crater from which poured the fiercest
torrent of all the torrents of molten lava
that swept over the country. The effects OF
that tremendous effort are seen upon the
rocks, many Of which are still red from the
furnace heat to which they were once sub
jected. Boulders of lava, twisted and
knotted by flame, hang from the perpen-
dicular walls and seem to thunder down up
on the 1.1OO feet of porous fragments which
form the incline from the trail to the bot
tom of the basin.
In other places in the towering walls
which surround this blighted hole the
flames of that prehistoric upheayal made
caverns and Enthusiastically ate their way
into the rocks in their wild fury to join in
the devilish orgy outside. Looking from
the summit of the trail into the great basin
1000 feet below-a basin of a circumference
of at least 10000 feet and walled in by per
high-the spectacle is one of awful sublim-
ity. The visitor instinctiyely feels as
though he had entered the theater Of the
devil.
Above the great hole is the blue sky, with
hawk soaring lazily. Moving sluggishly
the basin is the Snake river. whose waters
are as green Us the brightest emerald.
These are the only colors. All else is dead
and in disorder. Here is where you might
expect to see the evil one sitting astride a
fire scanned rock at midnight contemplating
the ruin below BY the light of the moon in
it's last quarter. A flash of blood-red
lightning and roar of thunder are all that
are necessary to complete the picture Of the
internal regions. The grass is yellow and
stunted. The few blasted trees and bushes
growing upon the lodges look like those pic
tured in the haunts of spirits and gnomes.
All are white as the shrouds of the dead.
chaos is a continuous and sullen roar which
comes from the bottom of the pit. Man
can never know how infiniteSimal he really
is until he picks his way over the fire.
swept flooring of the basin i'll an effort to
find the source of the ceaseless roar:
walls SO great in their dimensions and SO
regular in their formation as to instantly
give birth to visions Of multitude of in
sensate beings watching from their circling
seats the turmoil below. Tracing the slug
gish stream until it begins to boil in its
race over rocks and through caverns, the
stranger finally creeps to the edge of a
mighty cataract which tumbles in one
broad sheer fall distance of 30 feet. A
cloud of spray hangs over the boiling waters
below, and through the white pulsating
veil q rainbow spanning the yeasty mael-
strom blazes with vivid brightness.
Here is the jewel in this great ring Of
death. Niagara cannot be compared with
it in beauty or in the beauty of its environ
ments. The volume of water pouring over
the cataract is not SO great as that at Mag
ara, but the fall is greater and more varied.
From tip to tip the foaming, roaring cres-
cent at Shoshone is a quarter of mile.
Before the tumbling waters reach the brink
they plunge over rapids, over cataracts and
through lava powders which have been
gnawed into caverns. Beginning at one
end of the crescent, where the water falls in
broad, thin, silvery spray, the torrent
grows in volume until the main cataract is
reached.
Here the water is of such solid green
that it carries it's color half way down its
tremendous fall. Nearer the other end of
the crescent the cataract tumbles over
domes, minarets and pulpits of volcanic
rock and joins in the mighty roar below.
In the oppressive sublimity Of all these sur
roundings--the towering walls of the crater,
new world, the waiting of a hungry coyote
at the red sun sinking behind the purple,
white hooded mountains in the distance
and the knowledge Of the barren waists
stretchingall about the great basin--th
visitor loses all sense of fear and sits lik
one suddenly bereft of the power of narticu
lation.