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Washburn
Report Index
YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1870
Page 6
rolling over volcanic boulders in some places, and
in others forming still pools of seemingly fathomless depth. At one point it
dashes here and there, lashed to a white foam, upon its rocky bed; at
another it subsides into a crystal mirror wherever a deep basin occurs in
the channel. Numerous small cascades are seen tumbling from the lofty
summits a mere ribbon of foam in the immeasurable distance below. This huge
abyss, through walls of flinty lava, has not been worn away by the waters,
for no trace of fluvial agency is left upon the rocks; it is a cleft in the
strata brought about by volcanic action, plainly shown by that irregular
structure which gives such a ragged appearance to all such igneous
formations. Standing on the brink of the chasm the heavy roaring of the
imprisoned river comes to the ear only in a sort of hollow, hungry growl,
scarcely audible from the depths, and strongly suggestive of demons in
torment below. Lofty pines on the bank of the stream "dwindle to shrubs in
dizziness of distance." Everything beneath has a weird and deceptive
appearance. The water does not look like water, but like oil. Numerous
fish-hawks are seen busily plying their vocation, sailing high above the
waters, and yet a thousand feet below the spectator. In the clefts of the
rocks down, hundreds of feet down, bald eagles have their eyries, from which
we can see them swooping still further into the depths to rob the ospreys of
their hard-earned trout. It is grand, gloomy, and terrible; a solitude
peopled with fantastic ideas; an empire of shadows and of turmoil. The great
plateau had been recently burned off to drive away the game, and the woods
were still on fire in every direction. In the morning I had ridden forward
on the trail hoping to find a passage through the caņon, and after having
endeavored to descend its precipitous banks in several places without
success, I had climbed to the summit of the plateau and followed the trail
of two hunters who had camped with us on the previous night and were gone in
advance after game. Mr. Everts and Private Williamson accompanied me; the
latter killed an antelope on the trail immediately after reaching the
summit, which we left as an indication to the party following. Our course
led along the great plateau, about three miles to the right of the caņon,
toward which the ground fell off with a slight declivity. Passing over the
high rolling prairie for several miles, we struck at length a heavy Indian
trail leading up the river, and finding a small colt abandoned on the range,
we knew they were but a short distance ahead of us. The plateau formation is
of lava, in horizontal layers, as it cooled in a surface flow; these have
been upheaved in places by a subterraneous action into wave-like
undulations, and occasionally granite shafts protrude through the strata,
forming landmarks at once permanent, and generally of picturesque form. They
resemble dark icebergs stranded in an ocean of green; rising high above the
tops of the trees, in wooded districts, or standing out grim and solid on
the grassy expanse of the prairie land. On the lower verge of this plateau
we bade farewell to drift, its altitude being far above the line of
operations of the ice period. I noticed that the grass in many places was
here too green to burn, though already parched n the lower valleys we had
already traversed, and that many flowers were just in bloom. It was still
early summer in this elevated region, far abovethe perpetual snow line of
the mountains on the Gallatin.
In the afternoon the trail led us through a deep
caņon to the south, which opened out on a small valley at the confluence of
the East Fork of the Yellowstone. The main stream here turns to the
southwest, the branch coming in through a deep rocky valley in a course due
east.
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