162 



NATURE FOE ITS OWN SAKE 



The green hue of ice, the blue of the snow shad- 

 ows, the glisten of the white particles in full 

 light, are brilliant ; and when the ice breaks and 

 goes jostling down the stream it very often piles 

 up into fantastic masses that are beautiful in 

 color when struck by the sun. 



A great change comes over the stream when 

 the murmur of its water becomes the surge of 

 an inundating freshet, but it is not a change 

 for the better. The river itself is lost in the 

 flood, and both its channel and its character are 

 temporarily obliterated. A freshet, such as 

 frequently covers the Mississippi " bottoms " 

 from bluff to bluff, is interesting perhaps, but 

 hardly beautiful to look upon. It is only a 

 mad rush of muddy water. All the streams of 

 the watershed are swollen beyond their banks, 

 and pour into the river a turbid mass of water 

 filled with all sorts of earth, driftwood, up- 

 rooted trees, and the like. The sweep down- 

 ward of the flood, the danger, the destruction, 

 may prove attractive to some, but the gen- 

 eral impression upon the average person is rather 

 dreary. A freshet in the Missouri and the 

 Yellowstone is still more dreary and dirty, since 

 it is nothing but a solution of mud which soils 

 every thing with which it comes in contact. 



