BISCUIT BASIN.—This is one of the most singular as well as beautiful formations in Yellowstone National Park. Terraced overflow basins like this are a most striking feature of the hot springs, and no description can do justice to their beauty, for neither the delicate fretwork of their walls, the frosted surface of the glistening deposit, nor the brilliant colors of the pools can be adequately described. The sides and bottom of the basin are formed of pure white travertine, while the varying depths cause the water to appear all shades between a peacock-blue and a light nile-green. Those who have seen Biscuit Basin will never lose the memory of the vision of beauty that it impresses upon the mind.
CRATER OF OBLONG GEYSER.
But there have been two glacial drifts over a great part of North America, and the second ice-flood scoured the earth in such manner as to frequently uncover the forests and animal remains that were buried by the first great deluge. It is in the region of the Petrified and Fossil Forests that we note the evidence of the truth of this theory; not only in Yellowstone Park, but in the Bad Lands of Dakota, the dry lake basins of the Southwest and, in fact, in nearly every State of the Union. But in Yellowstone Park the remains of petrified trees are particularly numerous, and it is here that we observe the most beautiful specimens of chalcedony lying about in promiscuous profusion, like the ruins of some magnificent palace. Every tree here, overwhelmed by the ice-flood, became, in a thousand years thereafter, a pillar of the most exquisite beauty, and we now examine them with wondering curiosity, then convert them into articles of use and adornment.
The same chemical action which changed the forests of this region into gem-like stone, also preserved the bones of many huge creatures which met their death suddenly in this volcanic basin. Here and there specimen relics of gigantic animals may be found in the fossil district east of Yellowstone River, though they are becoming scarce because of the immense quantity that has been carried away by scientific bone collectors and the admirers of curious things during the several years that the park has been a popular resort.
In this same district there is a depression or basin, about three hundred yards in diameter, which has received the title of Death Valley, a designation that is appropriately applied because it is not only an ossuary, where the bones of many animals lie about in promiscuous profusion, but such noxious gases emanate from the basin that it is represented as a place where no creature can survive the exhalations for more than a few minutes.
