The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-04-11
willingly near for outlooks and exer-

VI puTeSl green anu AZURE VAIL, tnou-
sands Of them, are FLASHING and heaving
in these high, cool mountains, as if
fierce furnace fire were burning beneath
each one of them; and 100 geySerS,
white torrents of boiling water and
steam, like inverted waterfalls, are ever
and anon rushing up out of the hot,
black underworld. Some of these pom
derous geyser columns are as large as
sequoias-five to sixty feet in diameter,
$50 to 800 feet Highland are sustained
at this great height with tremendous
energy for few minutes, or perhaps
nearly an hour, standing rigid and
erect, kissing, throbbing, booming, as If
thunder-stormS were raging beneath
their roots, their sides roughened or
fiuted like the furrowed boles of trees,
their tops dissolving in feathery
branches, while the irised spray, like
misty bloom, is at times blown aside,
revealing the massive shafts shining
against a background of pine-cnVered
hills. Some of them lean more or less.
as if storm bent, and, instead of being
round, are fiat or fan-shaped. issuing
from irregular Sits in slick pavements
with radiate structure, the SunbeamS
sitting through them in ravishinS
splendor. Some are broad and round
headed like oaks; others are low and
bunchy branching near the ground
like bushes; and few are hollow in
the center like big daisies or water
lilies.
SO numerals they are and varied,
nature seems to have gathered uh"n
from all the world as specimens of her
rareSt fountains, TO show in one place
what she can do. over 1000 hot springs
have been counted in the park, ana
hundred geysers; how many more there
are nobody knows.
Mineral Messes.
These valleys at the heads of the
great rivers may be regarded as lab
Cratories and Kitchens in which, amid
a thousand retorts and pots, we may
see nature at work a chemist or cook,
ounningly compromising an infinite va
rlety of mineral mesSes; cooking Whole
| mountains; boiling and Steaming Hlnly
rocks to smooth paste and mush-yel-
low, brown, red, pink, lavender, gray
| and creamy withdrawing the most
beautiful mud in the world; and distil-
ling the most ethereal essences. Many
| of these pots and caldrons have been
! boiling thousands of years.
Instead of holding limpid pale green
! or azure water, other pots and craters
are filled with scalding mud, which is
! tossed up from three or four feet to
| thirty feet, in sticky, rank-smelling
masses, with gaSping, belching, thud-
! ding sounds, plastering the branches Of
neighboring trees; every flask, retort,
| hot spring and geySer has something
i special in it, no two being the same in
temperature, color or composition.
Passing through many mile of pine
and spruce woods, toward the center of
the park you come to the famous yell
lowstone lake. 1t is about twenty miles
long and fifteen wide. and lies at
height Of nearly 5000 feet above the
level of the sea, amid dense black for
ests and snowy mountains. Around it's
| winding, waVering shores, closely for
ested and picturesquely varied with
! promontories and bays, the distance
is more than 100 miles. 1t is not very
deep, only from 200 to 300 feet, and
| contains less water than the cele-
brated Lake Tahoe of the California
| Sierra, which is nearly the same size,
lies at height of 6,400 feet, and is
! over 1000 feet deep. But no other
lies so high as the Yellowstone, or
gives birth to so noble a river. The
terraces around its shores show that
at the close of the glacial period its
surface was about 100 feet higher than
| i is now, and it's area nearly twice as
| great.
Millions Of Trout.
It is full of trout, and a vast multi
| tude of birds-swans, pelicans, geese,
ducks, cranes, herons, curlews, plovers,
snipe-feed in it and upon its shores;
| ard many forest animals come out of
| the woods, and wade a little way in
shallow, sandy places to drink and look
| about them and cool themselves in
the free flowing breezes.
4 The Absaroka mountains and the
| Wind River plateau on the east and
south pour their gathered waters into
it, and the river issues from the north
! side in a broad. smooth, stately cur
rent. For the first twenty miles its
course is in a level. sunny valley light
ly fringed with trees, through which
| it flows in silvery reaches stirred into
| spangles here and there by ducks and
| leaping trout, making no sound save
low whispering among the pebbles
| and the dipping willows and sedges OF
it's banks Then suddenly, as if pre-
| pairing for hard work, it rushes eager
| ly, imDetuously forward, rejoicing in
! it's strength, breaks into foam bloom,
| and goes laundering down into the
| Grand canon in two magnificent falls,
100 and 800 feet high.
The canon is so tremendously wild
| and impressive that even these great
falls cannot hold your attention. 1t
Is about twenty miles long and 1000
| feet deep-a weird, unearthly-looking
| gorge Of jagged, fantastic architecture,
| and most brilliantly colored. Here the
| Washburn range, forming the northern
! rim of the Yellowstone basin, made up
mostly of beds Of rhyolite decomposed
| by the action of thermal waters, has
| been cut through and laid open to view
| by the river; and a famous section it
| has made. 1t is not the depth or the
| shape Of the canon, nor the waterfall,
nor the green and gray river chanting
| it's brave song as 1t goes foaming on
| it's way, that most impresses the OBJ
| server but the colors of the decomposed
| volcanic rocks.
In All COIOrs.
The walls of the canon from top to
bottom burn in a perfect glory of color,
confounding and dazzling when the sun
is shining-white, yellow, green. blue,
vermillion, and various other shades
of red indefinitely blending. All the
earth hereabouts seems to be paint.
Millions of tons of it lie in sight. eX-
posed to wind and weather as if of no
| account, yet marvelously fresh and
bright, fast colors not to be washed
out or bleached out by either sunshine
or storms. The effect is so novel and
| awful, we imagine that even a river
| might be afraid to enter such a place.
| The park is easy of access. Locomo-
| tives drag you to it's northern boundary
| at Cinnabar, and horses and guides do
the rest. From Cinnabar you will be
whirled in coaches along the foaming
| Gardiner river to Mammoth Hot
Springs: thence through woods and
! meadows, gulches and ravines along