Examination of the remains found therein reveals the fact that bears, deer, wolves, a mountain lion, and numerous small animals have died of asphyxiation in trying to pass over the accursed ground. But as these sulphurous gases have the power to kill, they have also, to a certain extent, the virtue to preserve, the bodies of creatures thus destroyed exhibiting slight evidences of decay for a month or more after death. On account of the danger attending a critical investigation of this noxious plague-spot, those who have visited the place have been compelled to exercise great caution, and to use field-glasses in making their examinations. One rash person is known to have attempted a passage of the basin, but he was unable to advance more than twenty yards, and had he not retained the presence of mind to hold his breath, when he found himself affected by the gas, escape from certain death would hardly have been possible. No scientific investigator has ever visited the spot, so far as I have been able to learn, and reports of the deadly exhalations which characterize it therefore come from the few persons who have approached the place out of curiosity. It is also, and fortunately, no doubt, very difficult to reach, that portion of the Park being almost inaccessible by reason of the rugged topography, the jagged stones and almost impassable crevices which surround it. No roads have been surveyed in the locality, and only the intrepid, venturous and agile can reach the malignant basin, at the expense of great effort and endurance; for it is easier to climb the Tetons than to surmount the grim barriers which guard Death Valley. Assuming that the reports made by several persons who claim to have visited the spot are true, and which there is not lacking reason to believe, an explanation of its deadly character is not difficult to give, because similar conditions, though in much lesser degree, are found in many localities within the Park.
HARVEST SCENE ON DALRYMPLE’S FARM, NORTH DAKOTA.—During the prosperous era of wheat-raising, this was one of the most celebrated farms in the world. It covered an area of 50,000 acres, and both steam and horse-power were employed, not only in plowing the soil, but in harvesting and threshing the grain as well. Fifteen riding plows are to be seen in this photograph, busily at work preparing the ground for the seed.
LONE STAR GEYSER CONE.
The geysers, such as are now active, are confined within a district whose radius does not exceed twenty-five miles, but there are unquestionable evidences that they were distributed over a much greater area before the last glacial epoch. Indeed, appearances indicate that at one time, in the very remote past, the whole present extent of the Park was occupied by either a sea of fire or a tremendous cluster of volcanoes. When the glacial catastrophe occurred the mountains on the north, whence the ice-flood descended, were pushed forward and deposited in the fiery basin. By this action the formerly mountainous lands to the north were leveled and became vast plains, as we now find them. The caldron of fiery activity was filled up by the material thus deposited, but confinement of the gases, which were being constantly generated, caused repeated explosions, the results of which we find in the cañons that ramify the district. It will not fail to escape the notice of the geologist that of the many rivers and streams that penetrate the Park, not one of them flows from the north, though immediately south of the Park the Snake River takes its rise, and has cut a way through the Teton Range that must have once opposed its passage. These mountains, as well as other ranges in the vicinity, are a part of the residue carried down by the glacial flood, and thus changed the slope, which was formerly towards the south, to a contrary direction. Several new basins were created by this enormous deposition, for it was impossible, by reason of the eruptions caused by escaping gases, that the deposit should show equal distribution. One of these basins is Death Valley, which, originally a geyser or volcano, was suppressed by the glacial deposit, though the furnace which fed it was not extinguished. The condition is therefore like that of a charcoal kiln, which, burning beneath a covering of earth, still allows the smoke and gases to escape. But since the geysers are not produced by the consumption of combustible material, but by chemical decomposition, though the action of fire and water, no smoke is created and thus none is seen escaping from the valley; but the deadly gases, all the more poisonous because of their temporary confinement, are constantly exuding through the earth-covering, having no connection with any active geyser through whose vent they might escape.
