Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/852

* YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 720 YELLOWSTONE EIVEB. the Upper Falls, the river plunges again over a ledge of trachyte, and falls 310 feet into the Grand Canon. Here it rushes for 20 miles as an emerald green and foaming stream shut in by precipitous or e.xeeedingly steep walls of lava 1200 to 1500 feet high, which are brightly col- ored with red, yellow, and green incrustations, and crowned by dark green spruces above. Turn- ing again to the northwest, the river passes through another eaiion whose walls are lower and less definite, and then emerges from the park. Hot Si»rixgs and Getsebs. Springs of all kinds abound throughout the park. There are countless springs of cold pure water and some cold mineral springs, but the peculiar feature which has especially made the park famous are the hot springs due to the volcanic heat still present beneath the surface. There are hot springs everywhere, in the valleys and on the mountain summits, on the plateaus and at the bottoms and on the sides of the canons, and even at the bottoms of the rivers and lakes. They range in size from a few square inches to several acres, and most of them are highly charged with mineral matter, mostly siliceous, while many emit sulphurous fumes, and some are distinctly poisonous. The ground for many acres around the principal hot springs and geyser regions is covered with white incrustations of silica or calcareous minerals, often streaked with bright coloring matter, and the larger springs have built up small cones of these materials. Of the non-eruptive springs the most famous are the Mammoth Hot Springs, situated near the north- ern entrance to the park. They are charged with calcareous matter derived from the Cretaceous limestone beneath the lava, and have deposited this material in a dazzling white cone several hundred feet high and consisting of semicircular basins arranged in terraces on the hill slope. The basins are one to eight feet in diameter and one to two feet deep, and their walls are beauti- fully scalloped, ornamented with natural bead- work, and streaked with bright red and yellow. The water issues at a boiling temperature in the large basin at the summit, and cools gradually as it descends into the successive basins below. There are several extinct basin cones in the neighborhood covered with humus and vegeta- tion, such as Terrace Jlountain, which is much larger than the present Mammoth Springs. There are at least seventy eruptive hot springs or geysers in the park, including the largest gey- sers in the world. (See Geyser.) These are grouped in six basins, tlie Norris Basin in the north cen- tral part of the park on the JIadison River, the Lower. Middle, and Upper Basins on the Firehole River between the Central and Madison Plateaus, and minor basins near Shoshone and Heart Lakes. Among the most celebrated individual geysers is the (iiant, which at somewhat uncer- tain intervals throw.s up a column of hot water five feet in diameter and over 200 feet liigli. and maintains it for over an hoir. Old Faithful is the most regular in its intervals, spouting every sixty-five minutes a column 12.5 feet high. Ex- celsior Geyser has very long periods of (piiet, but its eruptions are extremely violent, the bed rock being sometimes torn up for many feet around it, while the volume of water ejected is enormous. Castle Geyser is one of the most beautiful, having a regular white cone situated in a glade sur- rounded by dark green jiine trees. Most of the geysers are irregular in their periods. Old Faith- ful being nearly the only one whose eruptions can be safely predicted. Some are doubly pe- riodic, having a smaller and a larger eruption at more or less regular intervals. New geysers occasionally burst forth, while others become extinct : thus one of the large geysers in the Norris Basin was formed suddenly in 1878. See Plate with article Geyseh. Government and Artificial Improvements. The park is under the sole jurisdiction of the Federal Government, and is administered by the Secretary of the Interior. It is directlj' in charge of a superintendent, who is an army otiicer, and uho is aided by a detachment of Federal troops in enforcing the regulations. Hunting, trapping, or killing any animal except to prevent it from doing serious injur}- is prohibited, but fishing for pleasure or food is permitted. All private com- mercial enterprises are excluded except that small plots of land may be leased to private parties for hotel purposes, and all hotels are thus privately conducted, but under Government in- spection. Licenses are also issued to private parties to provide traveling facilities within the park. Good carriage roads now give access to all the principal objects of interest, and a small steamboat plies on the Yellowstone Lake. The park is as j'ct accessible for ordinary visitors at only two places, through the vallej' of the Yel- lowstone River on the north, where a branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad has a terminus just outside the entrance, and through the Jladi- son Vallej- on the west. Several trails and less used roads, however, lead through the mountain passes on the east and south. The Yellowstone region was originallj' occu- pied lv peaceful Shcepeater Indians. There are evidences that white trappers had entered the region as early as 1808, but the rumors of its wonders, which from time to time reached the civilized world were given little credence until General Washburne, Surveyor-General of Mon- tana, published the first real account of it in 1870. In 1871 the region was explored and mapped by the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, and in 1872 Congress made it a Federal reservation. The Forest Reserve was added by Presidential proclamation in 1891. Consult: United States Gcolof/ical f^urvcy (Washington, 1880 et seq.) ; and Chittenden, Yellon-slone National Park, with bibliography (Cincinnati, 180.5). YELLOWSTONE RIVER. A tributary- of the Up)ier Missouri. It rises in the Shoshone Mountains in the northwestern part of Wyoming, and, after traversing the Yellowstone National Park, flows in a general northeast direction through the State of Montana to its junction with the Missouri immediately beyond the boundary in North Dakota (Map: Wyoming, F 2). "its length is about 1000 miles. (For a description of its upper course, see Yellow.stone National Park.) After emerging from the moimtains the river flows for the rest of its course over a wide, rolling plain: and it is navigable for light vessels about 300 miles. The greater ])art of its course is followed liy the Northern Pacific Railroad. The principal tribu-