The valley of the Yellowstone east of the Rocky Mountains in the north, like that of the Yosemite west of the sierras of the Pacific slope, is another wonder-land, presenting a bewildering variety of land and water formations which, in turn, awe, charm, fascinate, or amuse, but always astonish, the beholder. Among the most interesting objects in the Yellowstone Valley are the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River. "No language," says Professor Hayden, "can do justice to the wonderful grandeur and beauty of these scenes, and it is only through the eye that the mind can gather anything like an adequate conception of them. The two falls are not more than a fourth of a mile apart. Above the upper fall the Yellowstone flows through a grassy, meadow-like valley with a calm, steady current, giving no warning until very near the fall that it is about to rush over a precipice 140 feet high, and then, within a quarter of a mile, again leap down a distance of 350 feet. After the waters roll over the upper descent they flow with great rapidity along the upper flat, rocky bottom which spreads out to near double the width above the falls, and continues thus until near the fall, when the channel again contracts and the waters seem, as it were, to gather into a compact mass and plunge over the descent of 350 feet in detached drops of foam as white as snow." On the Snake or Lewis River, the largest tributary of the Columbia River, are three falls, the greatest of which is the Shoshone in Idaho, where the river, with a width of six hundred yards, is said to be of so great a depth that it discharges nearly as much water as the Niagara, over a precipice about two hundred feet high. This grand fall is situated in the midst of magnificent scenery, and is surrounded by a fertile country. Another lesser Niagara is found in the north-east, in the river St. Maurice, the largest tributary of the St. Lawrence, which falls into it from the north below Three Rivers and about twenty-two miles above its mouth. The fall--the Shawenegan--is the same height as Niagara, and while the width and depth of the river are not given, the volume of water pouring over the precipice is said to be forty thousand feet per second, a supply sufficient to produce a grand and impressive cataract. Eight miles below Quebec the river Montmorency discharges directly into the St. Lawrence, over a cliff two hundred and fifty feet high, with a width of one hundred and fifty feet. The falling foam-flecked sheet presents a beautiful and picturesque appearance. It is unique as being the only known instance in which a tributary falls perpendicularly into the main stream. CHAPTER XX. Tequendama--Kaiteeur--Paulo Affonso--Keel-fos--Riunkan-fos--Sarp-fos--Staubbach--Zambesi or Victoria--Murchison--Cavery--Schaffhausen.