The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-04-11

anu III WOOuS 10 the maSnlHCent L ell
lowstone lake, along it's northern shore
to the outlet down the river to the
Tails and Grand canon, and thence back.
through the woods to Mammoth Hot
Springs and Cinnabar; stopping here
and there at the so-called points OF
interest among the geySers, springs,
paint-pots, mud volcanoes, ETC., where
you will be allowed a few minutes or
hours to Saunter over the sinter pave
ments watch the play of a few Of the
geysers, and peer into some Of the most
beautiful and terrible of the craters
and pools
No scalping Indians will you see. The
Blackfeet and Bannocks that once
roamed here are gone; so are the old
BridgerS, with all their attractive
buckskin and romances. There are
several bands of buffaloes in the park,
but you will not thus cheaply in tourist
fashion see them nor many of the other
large animals hidden in the wilderness.
Geysers Attract Everybody.
Geysers, however, are the main OBJ
Jects, and as soon as they come in
sight other wonders are forgotten. All
gather around the crater of the one
that is expected to play first. During
the eruptions of the smaller geysers,
such as the Beehive and Old Faithful,
though a little frightened at first, all
welcome the glorious show with enthu-
siasm.
The largest and one of the most
wonderfully beautiful of the springs is
the Prismatic, which the guide will be
sure to show you. With a circumfer-
ence of 800 yards, it is more like a
lake than a spring. The water is pure
deep blue in the center, fading to green
on the edges, and it's basin and the
slightly terraced pavement about it are
astonishingly bright and varied in col
Or This one of the multitude of Vel
loWstone fountains is of itself object
enough for trip across the continent.
Near the Prismatic spring is the
great Excelsior geySer, which is said
to throw a column of boiling water
sixty to seventy feet in diameter to a
height of from so to 300 feet, at irreg-
ular periods. This is the greatest of
all the geysers yet discovered any
where. The Firehole river, which
sweeps past it, is, at ordinary stages, a
stream about 100 yards wide and three
feet deep; but when the geyser is in
eruption, so great is the quantity of
water discharged that the volume of
the river is doubled, and it is rendered
too hot and rapid to be forded.
Geysers are found in many other
volcanic regions-in Iceland, New Zea-
land, Japan, the Himalayas, the East
ern Archipelago, South America, the
Azores, and elsewhere; but only in Ice
land, New Zealand and this Rocky
mountain park do they display their
grandest forms, and of these three
famous regions the Yellowstone is cas-
lily first, both in the number and in
the size of it's geysers. The greatest
height of the column of the Great Gey-
ser Of Iceland actually measured was
212 feet, and of the Strokhr 1872 feet.
Tn
Lake Taupo; the Waikite, at Rotorna,
and two others are said to lift their
waters occasionally to a height of 100
feet, while the celebrated TIE Tarata,
at ROtOmahana, sometimes lifts a boil
ing column twenty feet in diameter to
a height of sixty feet. But all these
are far surpassed by the Excelsior.
Few tourists, however, will see the Elk
celsior in action, or a thousand other
interesting features of the park that
lie beyond the wagon roads and no.
tells. The regular trips-from three to
five days-are too short. Nothing can
be done well at speed of forty miles
day.
Tremendous Volcanic Forces.
Nowhere else in the Rocky mountains
have the volcanic forces been so fierce
y busy. More than 10000 square miles
hereabouts have been covered to
depth of at least 5000 feet with mater
ial spouted from chasms and craters
during the tertiary period, forming
broad sheets of basalt, andesite, rhyo-
lite, etc, and marvellous masses of
ashes, sand, cinders, and stones now
consolidated into c0nglomerates, charg-
ed with the remains of plants and ami
mails that lived in the calm, genial
periods that separated the volcanic out
bursts.
| Perhaps the most interesting and tell
! ing of these rocks, to the hasty tour
| iSt are those that make up the mass of
Amethyst mountain. On it's north side
| it presents a section 1000 feet high Of
roughly stra tifed beds of sand, ashes
and conglomerates coarse and fine
| forming the untrimmed edges Of a Won
| derful set of volumes lying on their
| sides-books a million years old, we'll
| bound, miles in size, with full-page
! illustrations. On the lodges of this one
! section we see trunks and stumps of
| fifteen or twenty ancient forests ranged
one above another, standing where they
! grew, or PROSTATE and broken like the
| pillars of ruined temples in desert sands
"a forest fifteen or twenty stories high,
! the roots of each spread above the tops
| of the next beneath it, telling wonder
| full tales Of the bygOne centuries, with
| their winters and summers, growth and
death, fire, ice and flood.
| There were giants in those days. The
| largest of the standing opal and agate
! stumps and PROSTATE sections of the
trunks are from two or three to fifty
| feet in height or length, and from five
| to ten feet in diameter: and so perfect
| is the petrifaction that the annual
rings and ducts are clearer and more
| easily counted than those of living
| trees, countless centuries of burial hav-
| ing frightened the records instead Of
| blurring them. They show that the
winters of the tertiary period gave as
| decided a check to vegetable growth as
| dc those of the present time. Some
| trees favorably located grew rapidly
| increasing twenty inches in diameter in
| as many years. while others of the
same species, on poorer soil or over
| Swallowed, increased only two or three
| inches in the same time.
Some Queer Remains.
Among the roots and stumps on the
old forest floors we find the remains
| of ferns and bushes, and the seeds and
| leaves Of trees like those now growing
on the southern Alleghanies-such as
magnolia, sassafras, laurel, linden.
persimmon, ash, alder, dogwood. Study
| ing the lowest of these forests. the
J soil it grew on and the deposits it is
, buried in, we see that 1t was rich in
species, and f1ourished in a genial
| sunny climate. When it's stately trees
were in their glory, volcanic fires broke
| forth from chasms and craters like
! larger geysers, spouting ashes, cinders.
| stones and mud, which fell on the
| doomed forest in tremendous floods.
| and like heavy hail and snow; Sitting.
| hurting through the leaves and branch