PETRIFIED TREES OF THE BAD LANDS.
“One of the reefs which divides the river in mid-channel runs up to a peak, and on this a family of eagles have, through the years, may be through centuries, made their home and reared their young, on the very verge of the abyss and amid the full echoes of the resounding roar of the falls. Surely the eagle is a fitting symbol of perfect fearlessness, and of that exultation which comes with battle clamors.
“But these first falls are but a beginning. The greater splendor succeeds. With swifter flow, the startled waters dash on, and within a few feet take their second plunge into a solid crescent, over a sheer precipice, 210 feet to the abyss below. On the brink there is a rolling crest of white, dotted here and there, in sharp contrast, with shining eddies of green, as might a necklace of emeralds shimmer on a throat of snow, and then the leap and fall.
BEAUTIES OF THE BAD LANDS.
“Here more than foam is made. Here the waters are shivered into fleecy spray, whiter and finer than any miracle that ever fell from an India loom; while from the depths below, an everlasting vapor rises—the incense of the waters to the waters’ God. Finally, through the long, unclouded days, the sun sends down his beams, and to give the startling scene its growing splendor, wreathes the terror and the glory in a rainbow halo. On either sullen bank the extremities of its arc are anchored, and there in its many-colored robes of light it lies outstretched above the abyss like wreaths of flowers above a sepulchre. Up through the glory and terror an everlasting roar ascends, deep-toned as is the voice of fate, a diapason like that the rolling ocean chants when his eager surges come rushing in to greet and fiercely woo an irresponsive promontory.
CEDAR CAÑON, BAD LANDS OF DAKOTA.
“But to feel all the awe and to mark all the splendor and power that comes of the mighty display, one must climb down the deep descent to the river’s brink below, and pressing up as nearly as possible to the falls, contemplate the tremendous picture. There, something of the energy that creates that endless panorama is comprehended; all the deep throbbings of the mighty river’s pulses are felt, all the magnificence is seen. In the reverberations that come of the war of waters, one hears something like God’s voice; something like the splendor of God is before his eyes; something akin to God’s power is manifesting itself before him, and his soul shrinks within itself, conscious, as never before, of its own littleness and helplessness in the presence of the workings of Nature’s immeasurable forces.