[Illustration:  YELLOWSTONE RIVER ABOVE THE FALLS.]

[Illustration:  THE GREAT FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE.]

[Illustration:  UPPER FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE.]

[Illustration:  THE CANON FROM BRINK OF FALLS.]

As for the gorge through which this river flows, imagine if you can a yawning chasm ten miles long and fifteen hundred feet in depth.  Peer into it, and see if you can find the river.  Yes, there it lies, one thousand five hundred feet below, a winding path of emerald and alabaster dividing the huge canon walls.  Seen from the summit, it hardly seems to move; but, in reality, it rages like a captive lion springing at its bars.  Scarcely a sound of its fierce fury reaches us; yet, could we stand beside it, a quarter of a mile below, its voice would drown our loudest shouts to one another.

[Illustration:  THE CANON FROM GRAND POINT.]

Attracted to this river innumerable little streams are trickling down the colored cliffs.  They are cascades of boiling water, emerging from the awful reservoir of heat which underlies this laboratory of the Infinite.  One of them is a geyser, the liquid shaft of which is scarcely visible, yet in reality is one hundred and fifty feet in height.  From all these hot additions to its waves the temperature of the river, even a mile or two beyond the canon, is twenty degrees higher than at its entrance.

“Are there not other canons in the world as large as this?” it may be asked.

[Illustration:  DOWN THE CANON FROM INSPIRATION POINT.]

Yes, but none like this.  For, see, instead of sullen granite walls, these sides are radiant with color.  Age after age, and aeon after aeon, hot water has been spreading over these miles of masonry its variegated sediment, like pigments on an artist’s palette.  Here, for example, is an expanse of yellow one thousand feet in height.  Mingled with this are areas of red, resembling jasper.  Beside these is a field of lavender, five hundred feet in length, and soft in hue as the down upon a pigeon’s breast.  No shade is wanting here except the blue, and God replaces that.  It is supplied by the o’erspreading canopy of heaven.

Yet there is no monotony in these hues.  Nature, apparently, has passed along this canon, touching the rocks capriciously; now staining an entire cliff as red as blood, now tingeing a light pinnacle with green, now spreading over the whole face of a mountain a vast Persian rug.  Hence both sides of the canon present successive miles of Oriental tapestry.  Moreover, every passing cloud works here almost a miracle; for all the lights and shades that follow one another down this gorge vary its tints as if by magic, and make of it one long kaleidoscope of changing colors.

[Illustration:  BELOW THE UPPER FALLS.]

[Illustration:  MILES OF COLORED CLIFFS.]