48 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



only from 200 to 300 feet, and contains less 

 water than the celebrated Lake Tahoe of the 

 California Sierra, which is nearly the same size, 

 lies at a height of 6400 feet, and is over 1600 

 feet deep. But no other lake in North America 

 of equal area lies so high as the Yellowstone, or 

 gives birth to so noble a river. The terraces 

 around its shores show that at the close of the 

 glacial period its surface was about 160 feet 

 higher than it is now, and its area nearly twice as 

 great. 



It is full of trout, and a vast multitude of 

 birds — swans, pelicans, geese, ducks, cranes, 

 herons, curlews, plovers, snipe — feed in it and 

 upon its shores ; and many forest animals come 

 out of the woods, and wade a little way in shal- 

 low, sandy places to drink and look about them, 

 and cool themselves in the free flowing breezes. 



In calm weather it is a magnificent mirror for 

 the woods and mountains and sky, now pattered 

 with hail and rain, now roughened with sudden 

 storms that send waves to fringe the shores and 

 wash its border of gravel and sand. The Absa- 

 roka Mountains and the Wind River Plateau on 

 the east and south pour their gathered waters 

 into it, and the river issues from the north side 

 in a broad, smooth, stately current, silently glid- 

 ing with such serene majesty that one fancies it 

 knows the vast journey of four thousand miles 

 that lies before it, and the work it has to do. 



