r38 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



NOTES or TRAVLL 



I BY A. I. ROOT. 



STARTING OUT FROM WILLOW CAMP. 

 Of course I was up bright and early next 

 morning, and I believe I was the first one at 

 the breakfast-table; and as it was a good deal 

 less trouble to spring on to my wheel than to 

 get a great coach loaded up, I was out explor- 

 ing considerably in advance of the rest of the 

 party. Not far from the camp the road wound 

 close to the base of Obsidian Cliff. This is a 

 mountain of rocks, but the rocks are what I 

 should call black glass. In the morning there 

 was nothing particularly remarkable about 

 them — that is, so far as the appearance at a 

 distance was concerned; but on my return 

 trip, when the western sun struck the face of 

 the cliff right over my head, then it glistened 

 like a thousand mirors. The glass is opaque, 

 and jet black, although there are occasional 

 streaks of o.ther colors. In order to make a 



CRATER OF THE MONARCH 



roadway along the base they built great fires 

 against the huge glass, and then broke it into 

 fragments by dashing water upon it. The 

 road is, therefore, made of pulverized glass, 

 and it is said to be the only one of the kind 

 in the world. The pieces looked so sharp 

 and flinty that I got off and walked. I was 

 afraid for my rubber tires, and then I wanted 

 to examine it more critically. You may won- 

 der where the roadmakers got the fuel to heat 

 the glass. Why, bless your heart, the greater 

 part of Yellowstone Park is just covered with 

 dead pine-trees. In fact, many of the forests 

 are so filled up with pine and spruce trunks 

 that never rot — or at least do not for a long 

 while — that a horse can hardly be ridden 

 through them ; and these pine trunks will 

 furnish fuel for years to come for campers and 

 everybody else. We are told that the Indians 



for ages past got their material for flint arrow- 

 heads from these ob.sidian cliffs, and chips 

 of this very rock are found around their camp- 

 ing-places for miles in every direction. 



Beaver Lake is on the opposite side of the 

 roadway from the cliffs. As Uncle Sam for- 

 bids meddling, not only with the ducks and 

 geese, but beavers too, the latter are there at 

 work building their dams and houses, un- 

 molested, just as they did before our fore- 

 fathers disturbed them in their rural industry 

 of building houses and doing the plastering 

 with their trowel-like tails. It seems funny 

 to pass ducks and geese that do not fly away, 

 even when you go up near enough to reach 

 them with a fish-pole. 



A little further on is Roaring Mountain, so 

 called because of the steam that issues with a 

 roaring sound from its summit. This was the 

 first glimpse we had of steam under pressure. 

 A little further along we came to the " Devil's 

 Frying-pan." The steam here comes out in 

 a great number of little fissures over perhaps 

 a quarter of an acre of ground. As you stand 

 in the midst of it the hissing and sputtering 

 are for all the world like frying meat — hence 

 the name — Frying-pan. 

 After these fiying-pans 

 there were so many won- 

 derful things to see that 

 I hope you will excuse 

 me if I do get things a 

 little mixed up in regard 

 to locality. 



The first sight of any 

 thing that really looked 

 like a geyser was a big 

 boiling spring by the 

 side of the road. This 

 spring boils up, I should 

 say, about as high as 

 one's head — sometimes 

 higher, and sometimes 

 lower. It looks just like 

 water boiling in a ket- 

 tle, only the color is a 

 beautiful indigo blue, 

 clear as crystal, but as 

 blue as the sky after a 

 thunder-shower. I said 

 at the time that this 

 spring itself was worth a 

 whole visit to the park ; and I think I could 

 have walked around and watched it play for 

 hours, without being tired. I notice by the 

 guide book that this Congress Spring, as it 

 is called, throws the water, during occasional 

 demonstrations, from fifteen to twenty feet 

 high ; so vou see I have not exaggerated 

 at all. 



Before going further, candor compels me to 

 state that I left my wheel at Norris. This is 

 a point where we begin to go around a loop, 

 striking the same place on our return two or 

 three days later. There were several reasons 

 why I reluctantly left my wheel, but the prin- 

 cipal one was because my wind did not seem 

 to hold out when I got about 7000 feet above 

 sea-level; and I rather think that imbibing so 

 much Apollinaris water was not favorable to 

 the development of muscular strength. There 



