Glimpses of America: A Pictorial and Descriptive History of Our Country's Scenic MarvelsBuel, James W. (James William)
History
Glimpses of America: A Pictorial and Descriptive History of Our Country's Scenic Marvels
Buel, James W. (James William)
United States -- Pictorial works
Shoshone Falls proper are 950 feet wide at the point of precipitation,
but only a few yards to the rear of it are Bridal Veil Falls, whose
width is 125 feet, and which constitute the first plunge or precipice,
which in turn is broken into a series of minor cascades, known as Bridal
Train and Natural Mill Race Falls, the divisions being produced by the
interposition of Eagle Rock and Bell’s Island. One mile and a half below
the cataract are Cascade Falls, while three miles above are Twin Falls,
which leap down a height of 180 feet, thus showing that there is a space
of nearly five miles in which the tremendous chasm has been torn by
convulsions which most probably occurred after the river was turned into
its bed. An exquisite word-painting by the journalistic pen of Hon. C.
C. Goodwin is here reproduced:
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[Illustration: MONUMENT ROCK, ECHO CAÑON.]
[Illustration: GIANT’S CLUB, GREEN RIVER.]
These two natural curiosities, the one in Echo Cañon and the other near
Green River, have been well named, for a glance at either immediately
suggests its proper use. Their immensity can be estimated by the size of
the man who stands at the foot of the Club, who, although he is taller
than the average of his race, is hardly able to reach to the first
wrinkle on the giant’s weapon.
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[Illustration: BANKS OF SNAKE RIVER.]
“The lava beds of Idaho are a marked feature of that Territory. Starting
near the eastern boundary, they extend southwesterly for a long
distance, and are from 300 feet to 900 feet in depth. This mass was once
a river of molten fire, the making of which must have succeeded a
convulsion of nature more terrible than any ever witnessed by mortals,
and long years must have passed before the awful fiery mass was cooled.
To the east of the source of the lava flow, the Snake River bursts out
of the hills, becoming almost at once a sovereign river, and flowing at
first southwesterly and then bending westerly, cuts through the lava
fields nearly in the center of the Territory, reckoned from east to
west, and about forty miles north of its southern border, and thence
flowing with great curves, merges finally with the Columbia. The two
rivers combined make one of the chief waterways of the continent, and
here and there take on pictures of great beauty. Never anywhere else was
there such a scene; never anywhere else was so beautiful a picture hung
in so rude a frame; never anywhere else, on a background so forbidding
and weird, were so many glories clustered. Around and beyond, there is
nothing but the desert—sere, silent, lifeless—as though Desolation had
builded there everlasting thrones to Sorrow and Despair.
[Illustration: BAD LANDS OF WYOMING.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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