64 THE GREAT CANON OF THE YELLOWSTONE. 



also inform us that the light of the sun is frequently 

 unable to penetrate into the depths of these gloomy 

 defiles, where a constant twilight prevails, even when 

 the sun is shining brightly overhead ; the sky itself at 

 such places appearing as a blue thread of light, seen 

 in the altitudes above. 



Professor Hayden, for instance, in his splendidly 

 illustrated folio of the scenery of the Yellowstone Na- 

 tional Park, has supplied us with a reliable account 

 of his descent into the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone, 

 and says it took him an hour and a quarter to get 

 to the bottom, and he found that the river below con- 

 sisted of 



"a succession of rapids, which dash madly against the 

 rocky walls. The sense of danger " (he tells us) " is truly 

 harrowing, and the awful silence broken only by the sound 

 of the waves." "The walls in many places," he goes on to 

 say, " slope vertically to the water's edge, leaving no beach, 

 and in places are eroded into fantastic shapes of towers, 

 spires, and gothic columns; in others they present fortress- 

 like fronts, or long slides of brilliantly coloured debris, or 

 massive rock, separated by jointage, resembling irregular 



masonry going to decay " while at the bottom " the rocks 



threw a dark grey shadow all round us. The sunlight does 

 not reach us, but gilds the trees above with its rays. The 

 scene is fearfully grand and surpasses description. The 

 ascent takes two hours; we have to crawl on our hands and 

 knees part of the way, and creep round ledges, knowing 

 that a single misstep will precipate us to the bottom. * 



The most extraordinary accounts have from time to 

 to time been published, of the adventures which have 



* The Yellowstone National Park and the Mountain Regions of 

 Portions of Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah, described by Pro- 

 fessor F. V. Hayden, Boston 1876, p. 45. 



