CHAPTER X.
YELLOWSTONE LAKE.
"Such a vision," exclaims the sober-minded chief of the Geological Survey, "is worth a lifetime; and only one of such marvellous beauty will ever greet human eyes."
"Secluded amid the loftiest peaks of the Rocky Mountains," writes Mr. Langford, "possessing strange peculiarities of form and beauty, this watery solitude is one of the most attractive natural objects in the world. Its southern shore, indented with long narrow inlets, not unlike the frequent fiords of Iceland, bears testimony to the awful upheaval and tremendous force of the elements which resulted in its creation. The long pine-crowned promontories, stretching into it from the base of the hills, lend new and charming features to an aquatic scene full of novelty and splendor. Islands of emerald hue dot its surface, and a margin of sparkling sand forms its jewelled setting. The winds, compressed in their passage through the mountain gorges, lash it into a sea as terrible as the fretted ocean, covering it with foam. But now it lay before us calm and unruffled, save by the gentle wavelets which broke in murmurs along the shore. Water, one of the grandest elements of scenery, never seemed so beautiful before. It formed a fitting climax to all the wonders we had seen, and we gazed upon it for hours, entranced with its increasing attractions."
The beautiful sheet of water so enthusiastically yet fittingly described, is somewhat more than twenty miles long and fifteen broad, with an irregular outline, presenting some of the loveliest shore-lines that water ever assumed. Its form has been compared to that of an outspread hand, the northern portion representing the palm, the southwestern a swollen thumb, the first and second fingers aborted, the third and fourth disproportionately large. A glance at the map will show that a juster comparison would be to the head and shoulders of some grotesque animal with two slender ears and a pair of huge knobby horns—the head facing the north. The greatest stretch of water extends from the end of the heavy lower jaw (the outlet of the Yellowstone) to the top of the upper horn, where the Upper Yellowstone comes in; while the great body of the water lies between the forehead and the base of the shoulder. The superficial area of the lake is about three hundred square miles; its greatest depth 300 feet, and its elevation above the sea 7,427 feet. In the last respect it has but one rival, Lake Titicaca in South America.
YELLOWSTONE LAKE.
Lying upon the very crown of the continent, Yellowstone Lake receives no tributaries of any considerable size, its clear cold water coming solely from the snows that fall on the lofty mountain ranges that hem it in on every side. In the early part of the day, when the air is still and the bright sunshine falls on its unruffled surface, its bright green color, shading to a delicate ultramarine, commands the admiration of every beholder. Later in the day, when the mountain winds come down from their icy heights, it puts on an aspect more in accordance with the fierce wilderness around it. Its shores are paved with volcanic rocks, sometimes in masses, sometimes broken and worn into pebbles of trachyte, obsidian, chalcedony, cornelians, agates, and bits of agatized wood; and again, ground to obsidian-sand and sprinkled with crystals of California diamonds. Here and there hot-spring deposits show wave-worn bluffs of the purest white; and in sheltered bays, clay-concretions and casts from mud-puffs strew the beach with curious forms, that exploring trappers mistook for the drinking cups, stone war-clubs, and broken idols of some extinct race.