104 



'Oh, Ranger! 1 



mountaineers, finding their stories were considered great lies, made a 

 sporting proposition of it and told whoppers. Jim Bridger told gravely 

 of how his horse walked across a canyon from rim to rim, in mid-air, 



without descending a foot. He explained 

 this feat by allowing that the force of 

 gravity had become petrified temporarily. 

 Finding that his hearers were as yet un- 

 petrified, he told of finding a petrified 

 forest in which there were petrified birds 

 singing petrified music! 



In Yellowstone National Park, because 

 of the variety of the wonders, it has re 

 quired a widely scattered force of ranger 

 naturalists to answer the questions of the 

 Dudes and the Sagebrushers. Yellow 

 stone Museum, at Mammoth Hot Springs, 

 is the headquarters of the nature-guide 

 service. In it are found mounted ex 

 amples of some of our bird and animal 

 life, displays of beaver carvings, maps and models illustrating the opera 

 tion of the geysers and the hot springs, and a fine display of color paint 

 ings of Yellowstone wild life, the excellent work of Naturalist E. J. 

 Sawyer. At each of the main campsites in the park are to be found as 

 sistant naturalists, some of them regular rangers who have developed a 

 bent for science, some of them naturalists on the force for the specific 

 purpose of answering questions. 



Gather around the campfire any summer night and listen to the ques 

 tions that are asked these ranger naturalists. They run the gamut of the 

 creation and the development of the world, and the resourcefulness the 

 ranger naturalists show in answering some of the hard ones is amazing. 

 Not only have they learned the true answers to most of the questions, 

 but they have also gathered together a fine fund of anecdote and 

 romance with which to enliven their discussions. 



"Ranger, where is the mountain of glass?" someone will ask. 

 "You probably refer to the Obsidian Cliff on the road between 

 Mammoth and Norris Geyser Basin," explains the ranger. "It really is a 

 mountain of black glass thrown up from the interior of the earth by 

 ancient volcanic action. This lava cooled so quickly that it did not crys 

 tallize. This hard substance, obsidian, was much prized by the Indians 

 for making arrowheads. Jim Bridger used to tell one of his famous 

 yarns about the Obsidian Cliff. He claimed that when he passed through 

 the valley on which Obsidian Cliff borders, he saw ahead of him a big 

 bull elk. He took careful aim and shot at the animal, which kept on 



