Another day found them standing on the brink of an imprisoned river’s chasm, enchanted by the ponderous roaring of the awful force below. So vast were the canyon’s alternating gulfs and monoliths that lofty pines “dwindle to shrubs in the dizziness of distance!” Bald eagles far below screamed in angry protest upon this invasion of their secret eyries. Fishhawks hovered cautiously above, less fearful of new dangers than old. Nineteen lonely men stood amazed by an environment at once both grand and gloomy, mellow and terrible, an “empire of shadows and turmoil.”[126]
Then the sun came out and the whole gorge flamed! They beheld the marvelously variegated volcanic coloring as vivid and broken as the field of a kaleidoscope. It was as though rainbows had fallen from the sky and draped themselves like glorious banners upon the chasm below. How did it all come about?
All nature’s forces conspired to build this temple to her glory. The smooth, sharp tongue of glacial ice first plowed the great furrow deep into the bosom of the earth. Volcanic fires subdued the rigid hardness of the riven rock. Steam from boiling springs tempered to plastic yielding the surface of massive stone. And wind and water came with all their energies and skill to carve and sculpture it to befitting shapes. The air brought all its magic alchemy to bear upon the ingredients of the rock to call thence the gorgeous pigments for its coloring.[127]
Truly, here was a noble river, vibrating like a bundle of quivering electric wires a mile below, yet notching the centuries, revealing a record of geological time, and disclosing to men how God writes history. It was a canyon full of interest even to the most casual observer in the group. External senses were all appropriately appealed to. Indeed, the hidden recesses of the inner self were reached and stirred by the wild beauty and mystery of the scene. The world would surely want to visit such a place.
As they reluctantly journeyed along the river toward the lake, their ears were assailed by a series of resounding thuds. The source was the combined agitations of Mud Volcano and Dragons Mouth. These frightful vents reminded them of two vicious, frothing animals chained in cavernous lairs. There they spewed their foul compounds, as in terrible rage, growling and groaning in their perpetual regurgitations. It was one of the fascinating, if loathsome, sights in the Park.
Bighorn resentful toward invaders.
Later there was Yellowstone Lake, nestled serenely against its buttress-based, snow-capped mountain guardians. Many people have been made happy by its sparkling water. One capable writer has left his impression:
From a gentle headland, at last we overlooked the lake. It was like the fairest dream which ever came to bless the slumbers of a child. How still it was! What silence reigned! How lovingly it laid its hush upon you![128]
It was the Washburn party that fancied a resemblance between the lake and the human hand. Concerning this analogy Professor R. W. Raymond made an amusing observation: