Part 2 (1/2)
The keenest interest of the newly arrived tourist, however, usually centres in those constantly recurring evidences of tremendous force, the geysers. With few and unimportant exceptions, these are found within the limits of certain distinctly marked areas, known as the upper, middle, lower and Norris basins, to which one or two days' time is devoted, according to circ.u.mstances. The most celebrated of the geysers--those with whose names the world has been made familiar by the pen, brush or camera of author or artist--are in the upper basin. Here are found the Giant and Giantess, the Castle and Grotto, the Bee Hive, the Splendid and the Grand. Here, too, is Old Faithful, the constancy of whose hourly eruption makes it impossible for even the most hurried visitor to the upper basin to leave without witnessing at least one display of its tremendous energy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS HOTEL--YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.]
The reader, who, not having visited the National Park, has yet gazed into some of the profound gorges to be found in the great mountain ranges of the far West, will read with astonishment, if not with incredulity, that there is but one canon in the world,--the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone. Perhaps slightly exceeded in depth, as it certainly is in gloom, it is yet made to stand pre-eminent among the natural wonders of the world by the majesty of its cataract and the gorgeous blazonry of its walls. To say that the former--no mere silver ribbon of spray, but a fall of great volume--is a little more than twice the height of Niagara, would, by means of a familiar comparison, enable almost any one to form a not altogether inadequate conception of its grandeur. But for the matchless adornment of its walls, we have no available comparison; naught but itself can be its parallel. One great writer describes it as being hung with rainbows, like glorious banners.
Another, borrowing from Mr. Ruskin, likens it to a great cathedral, with painted windows, and full of treasures of illuminated ma.n.u.script.
But, as we take our stand on the brink of the Falls, with twelve miles of sculptured rock spread out before us, rising from 1,500 to 2,000 feet in height, and all aflame with glowing color, we have to acknowledge, with a distinguished writer and a no less celebrated artist, that, neither by the most cunningly wrought fabric of language, nor the most skillful manipulation of color, is it possible to create in the mind a conception answering to this sublime reality. For countless ages, frost and snow, heat and vapor, lightning and rain, torrent and glacier, have wrought upon that mysterious rock, evolving from its iron, its sulphur, its a.r.s.enic, its lime and its lava, the glorious apparel in which it stands arrayed. And the wondrous fabrication is still going on. The bewildered traveler would scarcely be surprised to see the gorgeous spectacle fade from his vision like a dream: but its texture is continually being renewed; the giant forces are ever at work; still do they--
”=Sit at the busy loom of time and ply, Weaving for G.o.d the garment thou seest Him by.=”
For the minor wonders of this world of marvels, the formations of geyserite and the petrified forests, Tower and Gibbon Falls and the cliffs of volcanic gla.s.s, the caldrons of boiling mud and transparent pools of sapphire blue, the reader is referred to special guides to the Park.
It only remains to be stated that there is regularly established transportation daily between all the princ.i.p.al points, that the distances are not fatiguing, that the charges are reasonable, and the equipment everything that could be desired.
The angler need scarcely be reminded that this is the far-famed region where the juxtaposition of streams of hot and cold water enables him to cook his fish as fast as he can catch them, without moving from his seat or taking them off the hook!
WESTWARD STILL.
Resuming his westward journey at Livingston, the traveler finds himself ascending the first of the two great mountain barriers that had to be surmounted by the engineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad. By a grade of 116 feet to the mile, the line reaches, twelve miles from Livingston, an elevation of 5,565 feet above sea-level. Here it is carried under the crest of the range by a tunnel 3,610 feet in length, from which it emerges into a fine, rocky canon, at the western portal of which is the military post of Fort Ellis. A few minutes more, and the train runs into Bozeman, a beautifully situated and flouris.h.i.+ng little city of twenty years' growth. Few cities can boast of more magnificent scenery, majestic snow-capped ranges standing out against the sky on every side.
Westward for thirty miles extends the rich and fertile Gallatin valley.
It is no uncommon thing to get forty bushels of hard spring wheat, or sixty bushels of fall wheat, to the acre in this valley, and its barley is of such superior excellence as to be in great demand for malting purposes at Milwaukee and other Eastern cities.
Twenty-nine miles west of Bozeman, are Gallatin City, and the bright little town of Three Forks, commanding the valleys of the Madison and Jefferson, the agricultural lands of which, now being brought under cultivation, are not inferior to those of the older settled valley of the Gallatin.
Four miles more, and the tourist comes upon a point of considerable geographical interest, the three mountain streams just mentioned pouring their waters into a common channel, to form the Missouri river. It is through a rocky canon, abounding in wild and magnificent scenery, that the greatest river on the continent enters upon its long course of 4,450 miles. For nearly fifty miles, the line follows its various windings, until finally the river runs away northward through that profound chasm known as the Grand Canon of the Missouri, or the Gates of the Rocky Mountains. Visitors to Helena will find an excursion to the Grand Canon, occupying not necessarily more than two days' time, one of the most delightful experiences of their transcontinental journey.
The most important town between Bozeman and Helena, is Townsend, the s.h.i.+pping and distributing point for no inconsiderable portion of one of the best counties in Montana. It has daily communication by coach with White Sulphur Springs, a health resort of great local repute. This coming rival of older and hitherto more famous spas, lies in a beautiful valley, 5,070 feet above sea-level, and surrounded by the grandest of Rocky Mountain scenery. Its accommodations for visitors of all cla.s.ses are most excellent, including, as they do, one of the best hotels in the Territory. Six miles distant are Castle Mountain and Crystal Cave, the latter a cavern of great extent, having twenty-three separate chambers, full of curious and beautiful stalact.i.tic and stalagmitic formations.
The town, mountain and cavern were all fully described and admirably ill.u.s.trated in the _West Sh.o.r.e Magazine_ for July, 1885.
Not so much by way of tribute, either to its own beauty or that of its situation, as in recognition of its wealth, its commercial importance and the commanding position it has so long occupied in the mining world, Helena, the capital of the Territory, is called the Queen of the Mountains. Situated on the eastern slope of the continental divide, 1,155 miles from St. Paul, it became a great distributing point and financial centre, even when hundreds of miles of mountain and prairie separated it from the nearest railroad. Dependent upon the Missouri river for its commercial intercourse with the world, it was in a state of well-nigh complete isolation during the greater part of every year.
Under other conditions, this comparative isolation would have stunted its growth and cramped the energies of its people. But with the a.s.sured product of their labor such a commodity as gold, with its universality of demand and stability of value, the st.u.r.dy settlers in Last Chance Gulch had always the most powerful of incentives to restless energy.
With the steadily increasing production of the precious metals, if not in its own immediate vicinity, at least in the country it dominated, Helena grew rich, until now it claims to be the wealthiest city of its size in the United States.
It was on the afternoon of the 15th of July, 1864, that a party of four miners, weary and sick at heart, pitched their tents in that desolate-looking gulch where now stands this flouris.h.i.+ng city.
Disappointed at not being able to secure claims in the then prosperous camp of Virginia City, and reduced to great extremity, they regarded the little gulch on the p.r.i.c.kly Pear as their ”last chance.” Finding gold in paying quant.i.ties, they resolved to settle down; and it is said, that, before two years had elapsed, each of them was worth $50,000.
In the meantime, the little camp in what was thenceforward known as Last Chance Gulch had attracted miners from all parts of the Rocky Mountains.
It is stated, in a recent official publication of the Territory, that the gulch yielded $30,000,000 during the first three seasons it was worked; but these figures so far exceed the popular estimate, that they are repeated only under reserve. The present annual production is said to be about $50,000. It would seem to the visitor as though every square foot of ground had been dug up, and, if it be his first experience of a placer mining district, its appearance will strike him as singularly novel.
The romance of mining is well ill.u.s.trated by the story of the citizen of Helena who was digging out a cellar to his house, when a pa.s.sing stranger offered to remove the pile of earth that was being heaped up in the roadway, and promised to return with one-half of whatever dust he might obtain by the was.h.i.+ng to which he proposed to submit it.
Permission granted and the earth removed, the citizen thought no more of the matter. Great, therefore, was his astonishment when, a few days later, the half-forgotten face of the stranger appeared at the door, and he was handed, as his share of the yield of that unpromising dirt, the equivalent of $650.
Possibly, however, a story involving only a paltry sum of three figures, may not answer to the reader's conception of the romantic. It does not excite his imagination. He expects to read of millions. If so, let us turn to the story of the miner, who, confident that he was the possessor of a valuable claim, held on to it in spite of the most adverse circ.u.mstances, hiring himself out in winter that he might have a little money wherewith to work upon his claim in summer, until, at last, after eight years of indomitable perseverance and patient toil, he was able to sell his property for $2,250,000; or that of the weary and penniless wanderer, who, having tramped all the way from Nevada, began a toilsome search, to be continued through much suffering and privation for several years, but destined to be rewarded at last by the discovery of one of the richest veins of gold in the Territory, a vein that has yielded, up to the present time, $4,000,000 worth of gold.
The tourist will find an hour's chat with an old-timer an interesting and not altogether unprofitable exercise, albeit he may find it hard to discriminate between statements that he may venture to repeat and those made for his especial benefit as a tenderfoot.