On the northern side of Amethyst Mountain is another section of strata nearly two thousand feet high. The ground here is strewn with trunks and limbs of trees which have been petrified into a clear white agate. In one place rows of tree trunks stand out on the ledge like the columns of an old ruin. Farther down the mountain side are prostrate trunks fifty feet long. The strata in which these trunks are found is composed of coarse conglomerates, greenish sandstone and indurated clay.
These strata contain many vegetable and animal remains. Branches, roots, snakes, fishes, toads and fruits. Among these petrified objects one finds the most beautiful crystallizations of all shades of red from the delicate rose to a deep crimson. As to the trees the woody structure is in many cases well preserved.
Just beyond the eastern boundary of the park lies the Hoodoo region of the Shoshone Mountains. Here, in the very heart of the old Rockies the banshee, ghosts and goblins of all the region round about hold high jinks.
The scenery is wild and rough. The Goblin Mountain itself is over ten thousand feet high and a mile long. The storms of ages have carved the conglomerate breccia and volcanic rocks into the most strange, weird and fantastic shapes.
The vivid imagination of the Indian sees in these gigantic forms, beasts, birds and reptiles. Here a couchant tiger and there the huge figure of a Thunder Bird. Yonder a hungry bear sits on his haunches waiting for a passing Indian. In the moonlight strange spectral shapes seem to pass in and out these weird labyrinths. The rocks are all shades and colors. Mysterious sounds in the air above add interest to the most weird scene in the Rockies, a fit setting for the witch scene in Macbeth.
In yonder dark cavern the huge cauldron might boil and bubble as the fire lights up the faces of the sinister three who stir the grewsome mess, while around yon black bowlder stealthily steals guilty Macbeth.
Which of the grand scenes do I treasure the most? I do not know. I cannot tell. Each in turn holds, fascinates, and enthralls the mind. Each becomes in the language of Keats:
“An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.”
THE END