Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1897-08-20
BLACK HILLS DELIGHTS
Professor Mac!sritlc. of Iowa University,
Writes Chnrmingly of IL Sojourn
in This Wonderland.

Hills, and is geologist of considerable
note, wrote an entertaining and in
structive letter to the Iowa City Re.
publican. He said:
"The Black Hills are just as fair, and,
to me, just as attractive as ever. True,
here and there you may see evidence
of what men call hard times, here and
there an empty house, an enterprise
Abandoned; but such things indicate
rather the collapse of somebody's
''boom" than the waning of legitimate
enterprise or the fall of real values.
Besides, all this touches only the hu-
man, the artificial side of the matter;
the Hills themselves, with their rocks
and springs, their deserts and forests,
their sunny daos and quiet skies, their
problems old as the world, are just as
beautiful, just us interesting as they
were before ever white man looked
upon them, as they will be when all
that white man thinks or does is but
forgotten history. Towns and houses,
sidewalks and streets, in good or bad
repair, we may see elsewhere, at home,
for instance, but these we went not out
to see; the eternal rocks are our de-
light, abe curiously trimmed hills that
girt us all around and slope back to
the endless desert; the strange, wild
mountains with their scattered pines,
their many colored sides, their tinted
valleys, their peaks, purple in the sun
light, or on dark days wrapped in the
ever changing, feecy mantle of the
clouds-these are the things we like,
these are the things that bring men
out from the city and the school, from
desk and shop and mart, from form
and fashion, and make us once more
human.
'aot Springs is, of course, the Mecca
of all pilgrims tending toward the Hills.
Everybody comes here whether he go
elsewhere or not. The Burlington and
the Northwestern railways leaving
Omaha take different routes through
Nebraska and meet here in a common
depot, as they do also at Deadwood,
further north. Healing waters.' to
them humanity has ever had recourse,
and strange enough certain waters of
the world do seem to have in them
remedial power. Sick people come in
great numbers to Hot Springs and
many are cured of whatsoever disease
they have. Much benefit no doubt
comes from this fine air, the high alti-
tude, exercise, changed habits and
surroundings; but after all, the waters
themselves seem to possess certain
power hard to account for. The chem
ist will analyze the water for you, pre-
pare it for you again in his laboratory,
the ingredients all exactly the same,
there is nothing mysterious about it,
but somehow or other the charm is
lost; the artificial Minnekahta will not
do. The state of South Dakota has
placed here its soldiers home, and a
more delightful, healthful situation for
such purpose the veterans themselves
could hardly have selected.
"Hot Springs is just in the edge of
the Hills; the landscapes are inferno
diate between those of the desert and
the central hills. The pine trees are
generally small and scattered and
other vegetation is scant Farther
north the scenery changes. For in
stance, ut Custer, only thirty miles
away. there are dense pine woods. true
forest conditions, alpine meadows
filed with flowers, seeping springs and
bogs, groves of deciduous trees. Nine
miles from Custer, as the trail goes,
is Harney's Peak, the very center and
pivot of this whole mountain system, a
mass of granite rock rising from out of
its "silent sea of pines" Near the foot
of Harney Peak is Sylvan lake, this,
too, girted in by walls of granite, a per-
feet gem set in these wild surround
ings. A neat, we'll kept hotel gives
ample entertainment to the pilgrim
who wanders this way in search of
comfort or the picturesque. And sure.
ly any who may take trouble to visit
the Hills at all will not fail to see the
glories of Sylvan lake. Cool? Custer
is nearly 1000 feet above Hot Springs,
and Harney is nearly 1000 feet higher
yet. The temperature ut Sylvan lake
this morning was only A
"Harney Peak is higher than any
mountains east of the Rockies, and is
more beautiful than anything I have
seen in New England. The granite
monuments about Sylvan lake rise
sheer above you hundreds of feet.
You walk about in the shade of birch
and fir, on carpet Of moss and leaves,
amid balsamic odors floated up from
endless forests Of pine. You look out
through the narrow gateway of Sunday
gulch, Q cataract of titanic bowldera