Hayden recorded his thoughts as his party advanced up the River: “But the objects of the deepest interest in this region are the falls and the Grand Cañon (of the Yellowstone). I will attempt to convey some idea by a description, but it is only through the eye that the mind can gather anything like an adequate conception of them.... But no language can do justice to the wonderful grandeur and beauty of the cañon below the Lower Falls; the very nearly vertical walls, slightly sloping down to the water’s edge on either side, so that from the summit of the river appears like a thread of silver foaming over its rocky bottom; the variegated colors of the sides, yellow, red, brown, white all intermixed and shading into each other; the Gothic columns of every form standing out from the sides of the walls with greater variety and more striking colors than ever adorned a work of human art.” [Illustration: The Grand Canyon, from the Lower Falls.] Hayden continued to describe the falls: “Standing near the margin of the Lower Falls, and looking down the Cañon ... with its sides 1,200 to 1,500 feet high, and decorated with the most brilliant colors that the human eye ever saw, with the rocks weathered into an almost unlimited variety of forms ... the whole presents a picture that would be difficult to surpass in nature.” “From any point of view, the Upper Falls are most picturesque and striking. The entire volume of water seems to be, as it were, hurled off the precipice with the force which it has accumulated in the rapids above, so that the mass is detached into the most beautiful snow-white, bead-like drops, and as it strikes the rocky basin below, it shoots through the water with a sort of ricochet for the distance of 200 feet.” [Illustration: The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.] [Illustration: The Upper Falls of the Yellowstone.] [Illustration: Crater of the Grotto Geyser.] Of the Yellowstone itself, Hayden said: “The river, by its width, its beautiful curves, and easy flow, moves on down towards its wonderful precipices with a majestic motion that would charm the eye of an artist.” However, not all was majestic beauty, for there was also the power and mystery of the geysers, and the grotesque forms of the hot mud springs. Hayden described these phenomena, such as one geyser he named the Grotto: “A vast column of steam issues from a cavern in the side of the hill, with an opening about 5 feet in diameter. The roaring of the waters in the cavern, and the noise of the waters as they surge up to the mouth of the opening, are like that of the billows lashing the sea-shore. The water is as clear as crystal, and the steam is so hot that it is only when the breeze wafts it aside for a moment one can venture to take a look at the opening.”