13
YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1870
Tenth day -- August 31. -- The day was spent
without moving camp, examining the falls and cañon. Returning in
the morning to the upper fall we measured its height, given above, and
followed down the cañon. The brink of the lower fall is visible
from the ledges of the upper; distance between the falls, a little over
half a mile. The cañon between the falls is lava, alternating with
the sulphur formation; is 450 deep, and about 200 yards across. The stream
flows over lava, granite, and boulders. The lower fall at its brink is
90 feet across, and without rapids above, though the current is very swift.
It is precipitated clear of the rock a perpendicular descent of 350 feet,
the cañon at its foot being 800 feet in depth. A promontory of the
wall rises 120 feet above the brink, and overhanging the basin, from which
the view is inconceivably grand; the heavy body of water dissolving into
a sheet of foam, pours into an immense circular caldron, overhung by the
gigantic walls. From the depths of the abyss comes up a humming sound,
very different from the wild roaring of the upper cataract. From a projecting
promontory a mile below, the finest view is obtained. Both of these cataracts
deserve to be ranked among the great waterfalls of the continent. No adequate
standard of comparison between such objects, either in beauty or grandeur,
can well be obtained. Every great cascade has a language and an idea peculiarly
it own, embodied, as it were, in the flow of its waters. Thus the impression
on the mind conveyed by Niagara may be summed up as "Overwhelming power;"
of the Yosemite, as "Altitude;" of the Shoshone fall, in the midst of a
desert, as "Going to waste." So the upper fall of the Yellowstone may be
said to embody the idea of "Momentum," and the lower fall of "Gravitation."
In scenic beauty, the upper cataract far excels the lower. It has life,
animation, while the lower one simply follows its channel; both, however,
are eclipsed, as it were, by the singular wonders of the mighty cañon
below. This deepens rapidly; the stream flowing over rapids continually.
The ground on the brink rises also to the foot of Mount Washburn, the falls
being at a low point in the basin; therefore the cañon walls increase
in altitude in following down the stream. Several of the party descended
into the chasm a short distance below the fall, but could not reach its
foot. A mile below several steam jets play across, a few feet above the
water. The walls of the cañon are of gypsum, in some places having
an incrustation of lime white as snow, from which the reflected rays of
the sun produce a dazzling effect, rendering it painful to look into the
gulf. In others the rock is crystalline and almost wholly sulphur, of a
dark yellow color, with streaks of red, green and black, caused by the
percolations of hot mineral waters, of which thousands of springs are seen,
in many instances, flowing from spouts high up on the walls on either side.
The combinations of metallic lusters in the coloring of the walls is truly
wonderful, surpassing, doubtless, anything of the kind on the face of the
globe. The ground slopes to the cañon on the opposite or east side,
and from it to the low valley on the west. Three miles below the fall the
chasm is 1,050 feet deep. In some places masses of the rock have crumbled
and slid down in a talus of loose material at the foot; in others, promontories
stand out in all manner of fantastic forms, affording vistas of wonder
utterly beyond the power of description. On the caps of these dizzy heights,
mountain sheep and elk rest during the night. I followed down the stream
to where it breaks through the range, on horseback, threading my way through
the forest on game trails, with little difficulty. Selecting the channel
of a small creek, and leaving the horses, I followed it down on foot, wading
in the bed of the stream, which fell off at an angle of Go
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