1 88 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



sheer and clear down into the canon, I estimated 

 the depth on the edge of the precipice to be about 

 eight feet. The downward curve, like that of 

 Niagara, is a calm, swift, smooth movement, which 

 one would describe as majestic. Precisely as with 

 the plunge of the Yellowstone into the Grand 

 Canon, a rock parts the current, which unites again 

 a few feet below. I remember to have described 

 the effect on the Yellowstone Falls as that of an 

 emerald pin fastening a veil. It is of no use to 

 employ eloquent generalities in describing such a 

 scene. It is better to try to convey as clear an 

 impression as one can by a description. The water 

 is of a light olive-green in color. The momentum 

 of the current, before leaving the cliff, carries it out 

 in a curve. The rock above makes a deep fissure 

 in the water as it falls, and in this fissure its green 

 color is preserved, while on both sides it is more 

 white and dazzling than snow. At a point about 

 fifty feet below, the rockets begin to shoot out from 

 the main current, a white glistening nuclei followed 

 by fan-shaped trails. Further down the rockets 

 increase in number. At the bottom of the falls 

 they shoot out in great numbers in every direction, 

 some of them rising a hundred feet and striking the 

 main falls. The bottom of the chasm is a boiling 

 cauldron, of a turbulence and of a whiteness that 

 is impossible to describe. It is whiter than snow, 

 which always reflects the blue or the leaden light of 

 the sky above. Those leaping waves and volcanoes 



