Part 23 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration:
_Terry Engr. Co._
Original Sketch.[BN]
[BN] See foot-note, page 168.]
To many visitors the stream far down in the bottom of the canon is the crowning beauty of the whole scene. It is so distant that its rapid course is diminished to the gentlest movement, and its continuous roar to the subdued murmur of the pine forests. Its winding, hide-and-seek course, its dark surface when the shadows cover it, its bright limpid green under the play of the sunlight, its ever recurring foam-white patches, and particularly its display of life where all around is silent and motionless, make it a thing of entrancing beauty to all who behold it.
It is not strange that this canon has been a theme for writer, painter, and photographer, from its discovery to the present time. But at first thought it is strange that all attempts to portray its beauties are less satisfactory than those pertaining to any other feature of the Park. The artist Moran acknowledged that ”its beautiful tints were beyond the reach of human art;” and General Sherman said of this artist's celebrated effort: ”The painting by Moran in the Capitol is good, but painting and words are unequal to the subject.”
In photography, the number of pictures by professional and amateur artists, that have been made of this canon is prodigious. But photography can only reproduce the form, it is powerless in the presence of such an array of colors as here exists.
[Ill.u.s.tration:
_Terry Engr. Co._ _Haynes, Photo., St. Paul._
Lower Fall of the Yellowstone--from above.]
[Ill.u.s.tration:
_Terry Engr. Co._ _Haynes, Photo., St. Paul._
Grand Canon in Winter.
Probably from Lookout Point.]
The pen itself is scarcely more effective than the pencil or camera.
Folsom, who first wrote of the canon, frankly owned that ”language is entirely inadequate to convey a just conception of the awful grandeur and sublimity of this masterpiece of nature's handiwork.” Time has shown this confession to be substantially true. From the clumsy work of the casual newspaper scribe, to the giddy flight of that eminent clergyman, who fancied he saw in this canon a suitable hall for the great judgment, with the nations of the earth filing along the bottom upon waters ”congealed and transfixed with the agitations of that day,” all descriptions do injustice to their subject. They fall short of their mark or overreach it. They are not true to nature. We shall therefore pa.s.s them by, with one exception, and shall commend our readers to a study of this great wonderwork from the pine-clad verge of the Grand Canon itself.
The exception to which reference is made relates to the Grand Canon in winter. It has been explained in another place why it is that the winter scenery of the Park must ever remain a sealed book except to those few hardy adventurers who are willing to brave the perils of winter travel in that region. It is a pleasure, therefore, to give at first hand what one of those intrepid spirits felt as he stood upon Lookout Point less than two years ago, and saw the famous canon clad in its annual mantle of white. He says:[BO]
”I suppose thousands have stood grasping the stem of that same st.u.r.dy, ragged tree, and have looked in silence as we did. They have seen the canon in summer, and I wish they might all see it also in the depth of winter. Now the glorious colors of the walls were gone, but the peaks and crosses and pinnacles were there, free of all color, but done in clean, perfect white. It was ”frozen music”--the diapason of nature's mightiest and most mysterious anthem all congealed in white, visible, palpable, authentic. No thinking man could stand there and not feel the exalted and compelling theme go thrilling to his heart.”
[BO] E. Hough, in _Forest and Stream_, June 30, 1894, p. 553.
[Ill.u.s.tration:
_Terry Engr. Co._ _U. S. Geological Survey._
Granite Block, near Inspiration Point.]
Back perhaps a quarter of a mile from Inspiration Point, but within fifty yards of the brink of the canon, is a huge rectangular block of granite which rests alone in the woods, a most singular and striking object. It is evidently an intruder in unfamiliar territory, for there is not a particle of granite outcrop known to exist within twenty miles. It must have been transported to this place from some distant quarry by the powerful agencies of the Glacial Epoch.
To the eastward from the Grand Canon are several interesting hot springs districts, and there is one notable group at the southern base of Mount Washburn.
CHAPTER XIX.
A Tour of the Park.