38 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



innumerable small gardens in rocky recesses of 

 the mountains, some of them containing more 

 petals than leaves, while the whole wilderness is 

 enlivened with happy animals. 



Beside the treasures common to most mountain 

 regions that are wild and blessed with a kind 

 climate, the park is full of exciting wonders. 

 The wildest geysers in the world, in bright, tri- 

 umphant bands, are dancing and singing in it 

 amid thousands of boiling springs, beautiful and 

 awful, their basins arrayed in gorgeous colors like 

 gigantic flowers ; and hot paint-pots, mud springs, 

 mud volcanoes, mush and broth caldrons whose 

 contents are of every color and consistency, 

 plash and heave and roar in bewildering abun- 

 dance. In the adjacent mountains, beneath the 

 living trees the edges of petrified forests are ex- 

 posed to view, like specimens on the shelves of a 

 museum, standing on ledges tier above tier where 

 they grew, solemnly silent in rigid crystalline 

 beauty after swaying in the winds thousands 

 of centuries ago, opening marvelous views back 

 into the years and climates and life of the past. 

 Here, too, are hills of sparkling crystals, hills of 

 sulphur, hills of glass, hills of cinders and ashes, 

 mountains of every style of architecture, icy or 

 forested, mountains covered with honey-bloom 

 sweet as Hymettus, mountains boiled soft like 

 potatoes and colored like a sunset sky. A' 

 that and a' that, and twice as muckle 's a' that, 



