Los Angeles herald., 1891-10-28
A LOVER IN STONE.

In Yellowstone National park are in
Vulnerable geysers, the waters of which
are strongly impregnated with calcare-
GUS and silicious sinter, a white sub
stance which instantaneously incrust-
ates whatever it falls upon. Big mounds
and craters are formed by it. Travel
ers place under the streams bottles and
other objects they desire turned to
stone" as they term it, and as soon as
the sinter hardens carry away their tro-
phies in triumph.
Mr. Cyril Jacques was a morbid,
dreamy and downcast young man. With
form, fine face and even wealth at his
command, he constantly meditated sui
eide and determined to become a felo de
Sc. He wandered over the world to dis
cover some artistic method of departing
this life. He paled at the thought of an
inquest over his mortal remains, of ac-
counts in the press and of speculation by
his fellow mankind. He climbed Vesu-
vius and for hours contemplated a
plunge into the awful fires below, where
his body would never be revealed. He
did not fear instantaneous incineration-
not that He conceived that in the in
visible world in which he was bound he
might desire to gather his mortal ele-
ments somewhere, sometime, in the
cycles Of eternity. Hence, why so utter
ly annihilate them?
Mr.. Jacques sailed to the borders of
the great maelstrom off Norway and
considered plunge therein, heavily
plated in metallic armor. Here again
he paused and foresaw the decay of the
metal and the possibility and absorption
Of animal life.
He studied aeronautics intently and
consulted the worlds aerostatic engi-
neers, M. Gabriel Yon, Captains Renard
and Krebs, as to the possibility of an air.
ship which would bear him beyond the
earth's atmosphere, out into homoloidal
space. Again defeat. These great men
assured him that, for all his wealth,
finite power could not achieve the in
finite.
In the year 1870 he read of the first ex-
peditions of Dr. F. V. Hayden into the
unknown wilds of the Rockies, of the
initiation of the then worldwide respect
ed United States geological survey, of
the wonderful geyser regions of Wy
oming. Into the northwest corner of
this territory he hastened his fight
August was waning when he mounted
the terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs
and saw the clear blue waters gush from
the highest piazza and fall evenly in
veillike sheets over the sides, which con-
stantly increased in size He saw that
he had only to sit there to be pushed
higher and higher, while mountain of
incrustation broadened below him and
reared him about.
But as he watched the transformation
of liquids into solids he saw that GER
tain objects at the base of the mound,
as fast as they became incased with
sinter, were pushed down hill, down
toward the valley below. He speculated.
He concluded that some time a concus-
sion of steam might explode the mound,
and if body were therein it would
become exposed to beasts, men or sun.
So he determined to be incased sepa-
rstely and allow his body to be pushed
down hill, to become one of the rapidly
forming, immense mass of incrustated
objects.
Having formed his plans, Mr.. Cyril
Jacques took chloroform and laid down
at the base of the series of plazzas of
Mammoth Hot Springs, where the gey-
ser waters fell upon him and in short
time incased his body in hardened cal
careous sinter.
While the strange young man was ex-
hausting his life devising aesthetic means
of death, Miss Mignonette Favre was
leading dissimilar career Of inventing
fancies and searching the world for a
man who should be a synonym of her
ideals SO created. In her flights of ro-
manticism she had investigated the
widest noble red man in the deepest of
unfrequented deeps, but ascertained that
his value set on woman was less than
that of horse. She studied widower
president, but, if he fulfilled her dream,
he did not take kindly to her advances.
She went abroad determined to fascinate
great prince, but all the princes she
met spoke not of love. but of an annual
stipend to become her husband.
In 1890 Miss Favre decided to enjoy
the summer in the Yellowstone National
park, tract solely under the jurisdic-
tion of the government, but formerly a
part of the then territories of Wyoming
and Montana. The a Mammoth Hot
Springs hotel suited her romantic ideas.
While here she often climbed the plazzas
of the great spring. She placed bottles,
combs, horseshoes and other objects un-
der the trickling streams and saw them
turned n stone" to her hearts content.
While she filled big boxes with varied
collection of these and kindred objects,
her ideal in this respect, as in the case of
man, was unfulflled.
She saw the big heaps of objects in
crustated, which seemed to have slid
down into the valley, and she was indig-
nant at the government for enacting
laws to project this ''avalanche' and
making it misdemeanor to carry any
section away. She clambered up and
down the avalanche-for such the SLANT
ing collection Of objects seemed to be-
and each day paused before a massive
cone Of white sinter, the solidity and
great beauty of which she admired SO
much that it became monomania with
her. The cone was about seven feet in
length. with diameter Of two feet. and
looked as ie it were classic Ionic col