THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 71 
rapids, waterfalls and torrents, deep-cut caions and craggy peaks 
abound in every direction; lakes, gorges and cataracts, surprise 
one almost at every turn, and the whole is situated at a point 
where “the grand Rocky Mountain system culminates in a knot of 
peaks and ranges enclosing the most remarkable lake basin in the 
world. From this point radiate the chief mountain ranges, and 
three of the longest rivers of the Fonten, the Missouri, the Co- 
lumbia and the Colorado.” * 
These being preserved by act of Congress, the earnest student 
of nature will always find an abundance of fresh matter for re- 
search in nearly every department of science. Here he will find 
ready to his hands a laboratory of physics in which he may observe 
on a large scale the action of the various forces of attraction and 
repulsion, and new illustrations of the correlation and conservation 
of energy cannot fail to attract his attention. He will find the 
laws of crystallization exemplified in forms novel and instructive, 
and will doubtless witness many new and varied phenomena of 
heat, light and electricity.+ 
The chemist will interest himself in problems of analysis and 
synthesis, in the processes of evaporation, condensation and so- 
lution, and the chemical chsnges incident thereto. To the, bot- 
anist and the vegetable physiologist, the field is open for obser- 
vation and wide experimentation, but there exists, even at this 
‘great altitude, a storehouse of facts bearing upon the distribution 
* Wonders of ep Piles slang edited by James Richardson. New York, Scribner, 
Armstrong & Co., 1 
tIn the wo tn ac RE of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, 1872, p.1 
Dr. A. C. Peale, a of Hayden’s expedition of that year, Seger a roe 
rset al phe enomen essed, or rather, eeperiane od, by h mself in oompeay 
with 
Gardiner’ 
age 847 of the same ne volame, Mr. Henry Gannett ies describes this ‘ 
ents “ A thunder-shower was approaching as we neared the ann of = 
meuni T wan above the others of the party, -300 when about fifty feet below the 
summit t ga g y body. At first I felt nothing, but 
heard a sparks from a friction machine. 
Immedia beset after, I acs to feel a tingling or pricking anise $ . = ig D the 
ends of my fingers, which, ached 
the oe the noise, which had not changed its character, was rar aia my hair 
stood completely on end, while the tingling, vas absolutely painful. 
_ Taking off my hat a ved it. I started down again, and met the others 
twenty-five or thirty feet belo the summit. They were affected aitary, bnt in a 
less di degree. One ears +e 
ig Toe ie received quite a severe shock, y which felled him as ith na had pesn We 
t this poin 
: herd an th sete. 
« 
