THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 73 



we overlook this wonderful wilderness ! Foun- 

 tains of the Columbia and Colorado lie before 

 us, interlaced with those of the Yellowstone and 

 Missouri, and fine it would be to go with them to 

 the Pacific ; but the sun is already in the west, 

 and soon our day will be done. 



Yonder is Amethyst Mountain, and other 

 mountains hardly less rich in old forests, which 

 now seem to spring up again in their glory ; and 

 you see the storms that buried them, — the ashes 

 and torrents laden with boulders and mud, the 

 centuries of sunshine, and the dark, lurid nights. 

 You see again the vast floods of lava, red-hot and 

 white-hot, pouring out from gigantic geysers, 

 usurping the basins of lakes and streams, absorb- 

 ing or driving away their hissing, screaming 

 waters, flowing around hills and ridges, submerg- 

 ing every subordinate feature. Then you see 

 the snow and glaciers taking possession of the 

 land, making new landscapes. How admirable 

 it is that, after passing through so many vicissi- 

 tudes of frost and fire and flood, the physiog- 

 nomy and even the complexion of the landscape 

 should still be so divinely fine ! 



Thus reviewing the eventful past, we see Na- 

 ture working with enthusiasm like a man, blowing 

 her volcanic forges Jike a blacksmith blowing 

 his smithy fires, shoving glaciers over the land- 

 scapes like a carpenter shoving his planes, clear- 

 ing, ploughing, harrowing, irrigating, planting, 



