The Lure of the Camera

by Charles S. Olcott

IX
GLIMPSES OF THE YELLOWSTONE

The Yellowstone National Park is Nature’s jewel casket, in which she has kept her choicest gems for countless generations. Securely sheltered by ranges of rugged mountains they have long been safe from human depredations. The red man doubtless knew of them, but superstition came to the aid of Nature and held him awe-struck at a safe distance. The first white man who came within sight of these wonders a century ago could find no one to believe his tales, and for a generation or two the region of hot springs and boiling geysers which he described was sneeringly termed “Colter’s Hell.” Only within the last half-century have the generality of mankind been permitted to view these precious jewels, and even then jealous Nature, it would seem, did not consent to reveal her treasures until fully assured that they would have the protection of no less powerful a guardianship than that of the National Government.

On the 18th of September, 1870, a party of explorers, headed by General Henry D. Washburn, then Surveyor-General of Montana, emerged from the forest into an open plain and suddenly found themselves not one hundred yards away from a huge column of boiling water, from which great rolling clouds of snow-white vapor rose high into the air against the blue sky. It was “Old Faithful” in action. Then and there they resolved that this whole region of wonders should be made into a public park for the benefit of all the people, and renouncing any thought of securing the lands for personal gain, these broad-minded men used their influence to have the National Congress assume the permanent guardianship of the place. And now that protection is fully assured these jewels of Nature may be seen by you and me.

Those who have traveled much will tell you that Nature is prodigal of her riches, and, indeed, this would seem to be true to one who has spent a summer among the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, or dreamed away the days amid the blue lakes of northern Italy, or wandered about in the green forests of the Adirondacks, where every towering spruce, every fragrant balsam, every dainty wild flower and every mossy log is a thing of beauty. But these are Nature’s full-dress garments, just as the broad-spreading wheatfields of the Dakotas are her work-a-day clothes. Her “jewels” are safely locked up in places more difficult of access, where they may be seen by only a favored few; and one of these safe-deposit boxes, so to speak, is the Yellowstone National Park.

HYMEN TERRACE

The first collection of these natural gems is at Mammoth Hot Springs, and here my camera, as if by instinct, led me quickly to the daintiest in form and most delicate in colorings of them all, a beautiful formation known as Hymen Terrace. A series of steps, covering a circular area of perhaps one hundred feet in diameter, has been formed by the overflow of a hot spring. The terraces consist of a series of semicircular and irregular curves or scallops, like a combination of hundreds of richly carved pulpits, wrought in a soft, white substance resembling coral. Little pools of glistening water reflect the sunlight from the tops of the steps, while a gently flowing stream spreads imperceptibly over about one half the surface, sprinkling it with millions of diamonds as the altar of Hymen ought to be. The pools are greens and blues of many shades, varying with the depth of the water. The sides of the steps are pure white in the places where the water has ceased to flow, but beneath the thin stream they range in color from a rich cream to a deep brown, with all the intermediate shades harmoniously blended. From the highest pools, and especially from the largest one at the very summit of the mound, rise filmy veils of steam, softening the exquisite tints into a rich harmony of color against the azure of the sky.

The Terrace of Hymen is the most exquisite of the formations, but there are others much larger and more magnificent. Minerva Terrace gave me a foreground for a charming picture. Beyond its richly colored steps and sparkling pools were the splendid summits of the Gallatin Range towering more than ten thousand feet above the level of the sea and seeming, in the clear mountain air, to be much nearer than they really are. Hovering above their peaks were piles upon piles of foamy clouds, through which could be seen a background of the bluest of skies, while down below were the gray stone buildings with their bright red roofs that form the headquarters of the army guarding the park.

Jupiter Terrace, the most imposing of all these formations, extends a quarter of a mile along the edge of a brilliantly colored mound, rising about three hundred feet above the plain upon which Fort Yellowstone is built. Pulpit Terrace, on its eastern slope, reproduces upon a larger scale the rich carvings and exquisite tints of Hymen, though without the symmetry of structure. The springs at its summit are among the most strikingly beautiful of these unique formations which I like to call the “jewels” of Nature. Two large pools of steaming water lie side by side, apparently identical in structure, and separated only by a narrow ridge of lime. The one on the left is a clear turquoise blue, while its neighbor is distinctly Nile green. Surrounding these springs are several smaller pools, one a rich orange color, another light brown, and a third brown of a much darker hue. The edges of all are tinted in yellow, brown, and gold of varied shades. The pools are apparently all a part of the same spring or group of springs, and subject to the same conditions of light; yet I noticed at least five distinct colors in as many pools. The water itself is colorless and the different hues must be imparted by the colorings of the lime deposits, influenced by the varying depth and temperature of the water.

What is known as “the formation” of the Mammoth Hot Springs covers perhaps fifty or sixty acres on the slope of Terrace Mountain. It is a heavy deposit of lime or travertine, essentially the same as the stalagmites and stalactites which one sees in certain caverns. When dry it is white and soft like chalk. The colorings of the terraces are of vegetable origin, caused by a thin, velvety growth, botanically classed as algæ, which flourishes only in warm water. The heat of rocks far beneath the surface warms the water of the springs, which, passing through a bed of limestone, brings to the surface a deposit of pure calcium carbonate. Wherever the flow of water remains warm the algæ appear and tint the growing formation with as many shades of brown as there are varying temperatures of the water. When the water is diverted, as is likely to happen from one season to the next, the algæ die and the surfaces become a chalky white.