Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania Part 4

The chief wonder of Lower Firehole Basin is the Great Fountain Geyser.

Its formation is unique. At first sight one is led to believe that the broad circular structure which he sees is artificial. On close inspection numerous pools, moulded and nicely ornamented, are seen sunk in this stone table, while in the centre there is a large and deep pool filled with hot water, but looking like a beautiful spring. At the time of eruption this central pool of water is shot up to the height of one hundred feet or more. Near the Great Fountain Geyser is a small valley in the upper part of which is a large hot spring called the Firehole.

When this spring is visited on a windless day, a light-colored flame seems to be constantly issuing from the bottom, flickering back and forth like a torch, and the visitor feels sure he is gazing at the hidden fires beneath that heat the water. It is the illusion caused by superheated steam escaping through a fissure in the rock and dividing the water. The reflection from the surface thus formed and a black background formed by the sides and bottom of the pool account for the phenomenon.

Surprise Pool is found near the Great Fountain; it will make good its name should you throw into it a handful of dirt. Excelsior Geyser, not far away, is really a winter volcano, its crater being a seething caldron near the Firehole River, into which it sends six million gallons of water each day, even when not in eruption.

At times it sends up a column of water, fifty feet in diameter, to the height of two hundred and fifty feet. The eruptions take place at long intervals--seven to ten years. On account of the great depth and extent of this geyser it has sometimes been denominated "h.e.l.l's Half-Acre."

Following along Firehole River we pa.s.s into the Upper Basin, a section the most popular with the majority of tourists. Among the geysers in this basin we shall find Grotto, Castle, Giant, Giantess, Bee Hive, Splendid, Grand, and Old Faithful. Each of them has an interest peculiarly its own, but Old Faithful is always true to its name and is perhaps best appreciated by visitors.

The opening through which Old Faithful disgorges its water is at the summit of a mound built up by its own exertions. The wrinkles on its face tell of long-continued service. Every seventy minutes this faithful worker sends up a column of water to the height of one hundred and eighty feet, and at each eruption more than one million gallons of water are thrown out.

We now pa.s.s through a section noted for its wild and picturesque scenery and considered the pleasantest on the trip. In leaving the Upper Basin we follow along Firehole River to the mouth of Spring Creek, then along this creek to the Continental Divide. From there, travelling a few miles along the Pacific slope, we cross the Divide and descend the mountains into the valley of the Yellowstone.

Near the central part of the park, encircled by a forest and elevated nearly eight thousand feet above the sea-level, lies a remarkable body of water supplied by ice-cold streams formed by the melting snow on the surrounding mountains. This body of water, of which the Yellowstone River is the outlet, is the famous Yellowstone Lake, thirty miles long and twenty miles wide; it is filled with trout.

Here the fisherman can catch hundreds of trout in a short time, but unfortunately most of them are afflicted with a parasitic disease, rendering them unfit for food. Researches have been made seeking the cause of the disease in order, if possible, to apply a remedy, but so far to no purpose. It is conjectured that the superabundance of fish together with a dearth of suitable food lowers their vitality, thus rendering them liable to disease.

Yellowstone stands next to Lake t.i.ticaca as the highest large body of water in the world. The sunrise and sunset effects on the lake are most beautiful. A steamer plies on the lake carrying mail and pa.s.sengers. The bird life on this body of water and its sh.o.r.es is represented by swans, geese, ducks, cranes, pelicans, curlews, herons, plovers, and snipe.

For beauty and grandeur the lower falls and canyon of the Yellowstone River are unsurpa.s.sed. A body of water seventy feet wide rushes forward with impetuous speed and joyously takes a leap of more than three hundred feet to the rocks below, where, breaking into millions of particles, it forms a great cloud of spray. The water then dashes on with renewed vitality between the walls of a canyon fourteen hundred feet deep, and most gorgeously painted by nature in such a variety and lavishness of tints that they defy the most skilful artist to reproduce them.

As one gazes from the edge of the chasm into and along the depths below, he attempts in vain to measure the fulness and beauty of this handiwork of nature. He is too amazed for utterance and remains spellbound, communing only with himself and nature regarding the unfathomable significance of such marvels. When the famous painter, Thomas Moran, desired to reproduce in colors on canvas this masterpiece of nature, he gathered his inspiration from Artist Point, and after he had finished the celebrated painting which now adorns the Capitol at Was.h.i.+ngton, he acknowledged that the beautiful tints of the canyon were beyond the reach of human art.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone has no equal on the face of the globe. With a breadth equal to its depth, this richly decorated canyon stands out unique among the world's wonders. Its beautiful panorama of stained walls, down which trickle streams of water which brighten the tints in some places and soften them in others, extends for a distance of three miles. The entire canyon is fifteen miles in length.

A most interesting place to visit, but outside the itinerary of most tourists, is the Fossil, or Petrified, Forest. This section, especially attractive to the scientist, lies in the northeastern part of the park just north of Amethyst Mountain.

To one who can read Nature's books, a wondrous volume is open, disclosing in its strata the hidden secrets of many by-gone geological ages. Here on the north flank of the mountain are two thousand feet of stratifications. On the ledges, tier above tier and story above story, are seen the opal and agate stumps and trunks of twenty ancient forests, some of the trunks being ten feet in diameter.

What wonderful stories do they tell of life and death, of flood and volcanic fire, ranging through the eons of the past! So perfect are these petrifactions that the annual rings can be easily counted and even the grain of the wood is plainly visible.

As one traverses this wonderland he is impressed by the evidence of the stupendous forces that lie smouldering beneath the crust of the earth.

It is not improbable that at some future time, by the further wrinkling or sinking of the surface of this part of the American continent, the slumbering volcanic fires may be awakened to new life and activity.

CHAPTER IV

TWO PREHISTORIC CEMETERIES--GIANT REPTILES AND GIANT TREES

Although reptiles appeared first in the period known as the Carboniferous Age, or age of plant life, they did not attain their greatest development until Jura.s.sic and Cretaceous times, when many were of prodigious size and ruled the world. The gigantic ichthyosaurs, mesosaurs, and dinosaurs held dominion over the sea and land, and the monster flying reptile, the pterodactyl, over the air.

Ages ago a great inland sea embracing Wyoming and the surrounding region occupied the area east of the Rocky Mountains. For many years students of geology had found this section a fertile field for the study of rock formations and the collection of fossils; but not until 1898 was the geological wonderland of central-south Wyoming discovered.

This discovery proved to be a graveyard of prehistoric monsters dating back probably several millions of years ago. Entombed in the rocks of the Jura.s.sic and Cretaceous periods, many lizard-like animals of gigantic size called saurians were found. Several fossil skeletons of these animals have been chiselled out of the solid rocks and mounted in museums, the work entailing a vast amount of labor and expense. The discovery was made by Mr. Walter Granger, who had been sent out by the American Museum of Natural History, of New York, to hunt for fossils.

In the desert section near Medicine Bow River, Wyoming, he found what seemed to be a number of dark-brown bowlders. On a critical examination they proved to be ponderous fossils that had been washed out of a great bed of reptilian remains. The fossil graveyard in question was found to be two hundred and seventy-five feet in thickness. Near by was a Mexican sheep-herder's cabin, the foundations of which were constructed of huge fossils. The vicinity was christened Bone Cabin Quarry. Ten miles south of the Bone Cabin Quarry, in the Como Bluffs, another bed containing the remains of huge dinosaurs was discovered. From these remarkable cemeteries many fossils have been obtained.

The term saurian means "lizard," and it has many prefixes to indicate the different genera and species. The prefixes generally express to a certain extent the characteristic appearance or habits of the different kinds of saurians. Some were flesh-eaters; others were herbivorous. Some lived on land; others, in the shallow waters and lagoons, fed on succulent aquatic plants; still others frequented the deeper waters and lived on fish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Property of the American Museum of Natural History_ The Brontosaurus (herbivorous dinosaur)]

The name dinosaur, meaning terrible lizard, represents an order of fossil reptiles. They are allied to the crocodile, but, like the kangaroo, their hind legs were much longer than their front ones. The neck and tail were very long and the body short but of immense size.

These monsters were from twenty to eighty feet in length and weighed from thirty to one hundred tons. The long, slender neck supported a small head that contained a correspondingly small brain, from which it is thought that the creature possessed a low order of intelligence. The tail was much thicker than the neck and in some species was flattened.

When rising on its hind legs and resting on its tail it could look into the window of a four-story building. Some of these strange animals had bills like those of a duck; some possessed teeth for grinding and others sharp teeth for tearing. These were by far the largest land animals that ever lived. The different species often waged t.i.tanic battles with one another for the supremacy of the earth.

It is conjectured that their disappearance was due to violent upheavals of the earth, to the draining of the water, to changes of climate, and to deprivation of suitable food.

The mounted brontosaur in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, will enable one better to appreciate the size of these giants of the ancient world. This typical specimen, though not the largest found, is sixty-seven feet long and stands fifteen and one-half feet high. Its neck measures thirty feet in length and its tail eighteen. The body weighed about ninety tons. This huge fossil, enclosed in its stone matrix, was sent from the quarry to the museum. After it had been received two men were employed constantly for nearly two and one-half years in removing the matrix, repairing, and mounting the fossil.

Let us turn now to the burying ground of a giant forest. Long, long years ago, before man appeared on the earth, an inland sea occupied what is now the northeastern part of Arizona. It was a sea bordered with sandstone and surrounded by coniferous forests, where stately trees nodded in the breezes.

At length there came a great change. The rim of the basin gave way, and the great volume of water, freed from restraint, overwhelmed the forest with earthy material, prostrating and burying it deep beneath the flood of sand.

In time the woody structure disappeared, and was replaced by beautifully stained opal and agate. Again, in the lapse of time the old forest bed was once more lifted above its former level, forming a mesa, or plateau, of considerable extent. During subsequent ages, the elements scarred and furrowed the plateau, forming canyons, gulches, valleys, and b.u.t.tes, thus revealing in part this ancient forest. Could these dead trees but talk, how interesting would be their story! We can read their history but imperfectly by examining the mutilated breast of Mother Earth, in and on which lie these mute stone trees, dead yet made more beautiful through their transformation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Property of the American Museum of Natural History_ The Allosaurus (carnivorous dinosaur)]

This region is called the "Petrified Forest," or "Chalcedony Park." It is about one hundred square miles in extent, and is visited annually by thousands of people from all parts of the world. On account of its strange geological character it is of special interest to the scientist.

Let us make a brief trip to this wonderful stone forest. We take light hand-baggage and board a Santa Fe train. The railway pa.s.ses near the most interesting part of the forest, and we change cars before entering Arizona in order to take this line. The railway officials have made a station at Adamana, six miles from the edge of the forest, in order to accommodate the travelling public. We leave the train here and procure a team to carry us to the forest.

Unless informed of what is to be seen one is apt to be greatly disappointed. One's idea of a forest is usually that of a timber-covered area in which the trees stand erect, with outspreading branches; but we look in vain for a standing tree, or even a stump that is erect.

All are branchless trunks, prostrate on the ground, many wholly or partly buried; moreover, they are lying in all sorts of positions, some entire and others broken into sections; some are ma.s.sed closely together; others lie apart; and millions of pieces of all sizes are scattered around. At places we can travel a long distance by stepping from one log to another.

But what is that pile of variegated disk-like objects looking like the primitive Mexican ox-cart wheels? They are cross-sections of stone logs, some large and some small, seemingly thrown together carelessly. It is a characteristic of petrified trunks to break into cross-sections or blocks, varying from a few inches to several feet in length; and this tendency prevails here.

We are told that the trees of this forest antedate those of the Yellowstone Park by a long period of time. How the loftiest flights of the imagination are piqued as we contemplate the marvellous changes since this primeval forest depended on the soil and sun for their life-giving elements! As we wander through this wonderful forest our feet seem to be treading on the rarest gems. And well may it seem so, because when polished these pieces display a beauty of coloring and a l.u.s.tre that rivals the glint of precious stones. There is no other petrified forest in the world in which the mineralized wood a.s.sumes so many varied and interesting forms and colors.

Many years ago a firm at Sioux Falls undertook to manufacture table tops, mantels, pedestals, and various decorative articles out of sections of this agatized wood by cutting them into the desired forms and polis.h.i.+ng them. Tiffany and Company, the famous jewellers, also used this material for the base of the beautiful silver testimonial presented to the French sculptor, Bartholdi.

At a later date, an abrasive company of Denver conceived the plan of grinding up these trunks to make emery because of their extreme hardness; in fact, a plant was s.h.i.+pped to Adamana station for that purpose. Fortunately for the public, however, it was not put into operation because the company learned that a Canadian firm had put on the market an article at such a reduced price that to grind up these beautiful logs would be unprofitable.

Fragments, branches, and trunks of all sorts and sizes are found lying around, many of them richly colored, forming chalcedony, opal, and agate; some approach the condition of jasper and onyx.

Before the Petrified Forest was set aside as a national park by Congress, many acts of vandalism were committed, to say nothing about the quant.i.ties of mineral carried away by manufacturing firms and curiosity-hunters. Keepers now have charge of the park, and no one is permitted to take away specimens for commercial use. Previously many of the finest logs were destroyed by blasting in order to procure the beautiful crystals which are found in the centre of many of them.

One object of special interest in the park is the National Bridge, a petrified trunk which spans a chasm thirty feet wide and twenty feet deep. The part of the trunk crossing the gulch lies diagonally and is forty-four feet long. The length of the trunk exposed by erosion is one hundred and eleven feet; a fraction still remains embedded in the sandstone.

The ruins of several ancient Indian pueblos are scattered about the park, nearly all of them built of logs of this richly colored, agatized wood. The forest was a storehouse for ages, whence primitive men obtained material from which to make agate hammers, arrow-heads, and knives, as is shown by implements found hundreds of miles distant from these quarries.

CHAPTER V