THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 45 



green or azure water, other pots and craters are 

 filled with scalding mud, which is tossed up from 

 three or four feet to thirty feet, in sticky, rank- 

 smelling masses, with gasping, belching, thud- 

 ding sounds, plastering the branches of neigh- 

 boring trees ; every flask, retort, hot spring, and 

 geyser has something special in it, no two being 

 the same in temperature, color, or composition. 



In these natural laboratories one needs stout 

 faith to feel at ease. The ground sounds hollow 

 underfoot, and the awful subterranean thunder 

 shakes one's mind as the ground is shaken, es- 

 pecially at night in the pale moonlight, or when 

 the sky is overcast with storm-clouds. In the 

 solemn gloom, the geysers, dimly visible, look 

 like monstrous dancing ghosts, and their wild 

 songs and the earthquake thunder replying to 

 the storms overhead seem doubly terrible, as if 

 divine government were at an end. But the 

 trembling hills keep their places. The sky clears, 

 the rosy dawn is reassuring, and up comes the 

 sun like a god, pouring his faithful beams across 

 the mountains and forest, lighting each peak 

 and tree and ghastly geyser alike, and shining 

 into the eyes of the reeking springs, clothing 

 them with rainbow light, and dissolving the 

 seeming chaos of darkness into varied forms of 

 harmony. The ordinary work of the world goes 

 on. Gladly we see the flies dancing in the sun- 

 beams, birds feeding their young, squirrels gath- 



