THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 47 



side of a steep hill, the deposits form a succession 

 of higher and broader terraces of white traver- 

 tine tinged with purple, like the famous Pink 

 Terrace at Rotomahana, New Zealand, draped, 

 in front with clustering stalactites, each terrace 

 having 1 a pool of indescribably beautiful water 

 upon it in a basin with a raised rim that glistens 

 with conf ervae, — the whole, when viewed at a 

 distance of a mile or two, looking like a broad, 

 massive cascade pouring over shelving rocks in 

 snowy purpled foam. 



The stones of this divine masonry, invisible 

 particles of lime or silex, mined in quarries no 

 eye has seen, go to their appointed places in 

 gentle, tinkling, transparent currents or through 

 the dashing turmoil of floods, as surely guided 

 as the sap of plants streaming into bole and 

 branch, leaf and flower. And thus from cen- 

 tury to century this beauty-work has gone on and 

 is going on. 



Passing though many a mile of pine and. 

 spruce woods, toward the centre of the park you 

 come to the famous Yellowstone Lake. It is 

 about twenty miles long and fifteen wide, and 

 lies at a height of nearly 8000 feet above the 

 level of the sea, amid dense black forests and 

 snowy mountains. Around its winding, waver- 

 ing shores, closely forested and picturesquely 

 varied with promontories and bays, the distance 

 is more than 100 miles. It is not very deep, 



