The New Eldorado: A Summer Journey to AlaskaBallou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
History
The New Eldorado: A Summer Journey to Alaska
Ballou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Alaska -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
By the judicious expenditure of public money and the liberal outlay of
corporate enterprise in road and bridge building, not to mention other
facilities, one can now pretty thoroughly explore the Park in the brief
period of a week or ten days. To do this satisfactorily heretofore
required thrice this length of time, besides which, camping out was
necessary; but it is no longer so, unless one chooses to play the gypsy.
This plan is adopted by a few summer tourists, who take with them a
regular camp outfit, depending upon the fish they catch for a
considerable portion of their food supply during this out-of-door life.
The Park is under the control of the Secretary of the Interior. A local
superintendent lives here, who is assisted by a few game-keepers and
government police, besides which there is a small gang of laborers
constantly at work during the favorable season, building roads and
bridges, opening vistas here and there, and clearing convenient
footpaths, under the direction of an army engineer. Two companies of
United States cavalry make their headquarters in the Park during the
summer months, distributed so as to prevent any unlawful acts of
visitors. The size of the reservation is sixty-four miles in length by
fifty-four in width, thus giving it an area of over three thousand six
hundred square miles. Or, to convey perhaps a clearer idea of its extent
to the reader’s mind, it may be said to be nearly one half the size of
the State of Massachusetts. It is a volcanic region of incessant
activity, with mountains ranging from eight to twelve thousand feet in
height, and embracing a collection of spouting geysers, hot springs,
steam holes, petrified forests, cascades, extraordinary cañons, and
grand waterfalls, such as are unequaled in the known world.
We do not forget the well-known geysers of Iceland, or the Hot Lake
district of New Zealand, with which the traveled visitor finds himself
contrasting the phenomena of the Yellowstone.
The writer of these pages happened lately to see an article upon our
National Park, written by the Earl of Dunraven, in which that gentleman
questions whether the singular natural exhibitions here are not exceeded
by those of New Zealand. We are familiar with both localities, and shall
dismiss such a supposition simply by saying that the hot springs of the
British colony referred to are no more to be compared with those of the
Yellowstone Park, than is an artificial Swiss cascade comparable with
Niagara. If Nature has anywhere else shown so wonderful a specimen of
her handicraft, it has not yet been our lot to see it.
All the natural objects best worth visiting in the Park are now
accessible by daily stages, which start at convenient hours from the
hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs, making the round of the interesting
sights; thus affording the general public every needed facility for
examining the strangely attractive vicinity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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