John L. Stoddard's Lectures Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: UPPER FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAnON FROM BRINK OF FALLS.]

As for the gorge through which this river flows, imagine if you can a yawning chasm ten miles long and fifteen hundred feet in depth.

Peer into it, and see if you can find the river. Yes, there it lies, one thousand five hundred feet below, a winding path of emerald and alabaster dividing the huge canon walls. Seen from the summit, it hardly seems to move; but, in reality, it rages like a captive lion springing at its bars. Scarcely a sound of its fierce fury reaches us; yet, could we stand beside it, a quarter of a mile below, its voice would drown our loudest shouts to one another.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAnON FROM GRAND POINT.]

Attracted to this river innumerable little streams are trickling down the colored cliffs. They are cascades of boiling water, emerging from the awful reservoir of heat which underlies this laboratory of the Infinite. One of them is a geyser, the liquid shaft of which is scarcely visible, yet in reality is one hundred and fifty feet in height. From all these hot additions to its waves the temperature of the river, even a mile or two beyond the canon, is twenty degrees higher than at its entrance.

"Are there not other canons in the world as large as this?" it may be asked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOWN THE CAnON FROM INSPIRATION POINT.]

Yes, but none like this. For, see, instead of sullen granite walls, these sides are radiant with color. Age after age, and aeon after aeon, hot water has been spreading over these miles of masonry its variegated sediment, like pigments on an artist's palette. Here, for example, is an expanse of yellow one thousand feet in height. Mingled with this are areas of red, resembling jasper. Beside these is a field of lavender, five hundred feet in length, and soft in hue as the down upon a pigeon's breast. No shade is wanting here except the blue, and G.o.d replaces that. It is supplied by the o'erspreading canopy of heaven.

Yet there is no monotony in these hues. Nature, apparently, has pa.s.sed along this canon, touching the rocks capriciously; now staining an entire cliff as red as blood, now tingeing a light pinnacle with green, now spreading over the whole face of a mountain a vast Persian rug. Hence both sides of the canon present successive miles of Oriental tapestry. Moreover, every pa.s.sing cloud works here almost a miracle; for all the lights and shades that follow one another down this gorge vary its tints as if by magic, and make of it one long kaleidoscope of changing colors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BELOW THE UPPER FALLS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MILES OF COLORED CLIFFS.]

Nor are these cliffs less wonderful in form than color. The substance of their tinted rocks is delicate. The rain has, therefore, plowed their faces with a million furrows. The wind has carved them like a sculptor's chisel. The lightning's bolts have splintered them, until, mile after mile, they rise in a bewildering variety of architectural forms. Old castles frown above the maddened stream, a thousand times more grand than any ruins on the Rhine. Their towers are five hundred feet in height. Turrets and battlements, portcullises and draw-bridges, rise from the deep ravine, sublime and inaccessible; yet they are still a thousand feet below us! What would be the effect could we survey them from the stream itself, within the gloomy crevice of the canon? Only their size convinces us that they are works of Nature, not of Art. Upon their spires we see a score of eagles' nests. The splendid birds leave these at times, and swoop down toward the stream; not in one mighty plunge, but gracefully, in slow, majestic curves, lower and lower, till we can follow them only through a field-gla.s.s, as they alight on trees which look to us like shrubs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEMPLES SCULPTURED BY THE DEITY.]

But many of these forms are grander than any castles. In one place is an amphitheatre. Within its curving arms a hundred thousand people could be seated. Its foreground is the emerald river; its drop-curtain the radiant canon wall. Cathedrals, too, are here, with spires twice as high as those which soar above the minster of Cologne. Fantastic gargoyles stretch out from the parapets. A hundred flying b.u.t.tresses connect them with the mountain side. From any one of them as many shafts shoot heavenward as statues rise from the Duomo of Milan; and each of these great canon shrines, instead of stained gla.s.s windows, has walls, roof, dome, and pinnacles, one ma.s.s of variegated color. The awful grandeur of these temples, sculptured by the Deity, is overpowering. We feel that we must worship here. It is a place where the Finite prays, the Infinite hears, and Immensity looks on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAnON FROM ARTIST POINT.]

Two visions of this world stand out within my memory which, though entirely different, I can place side by side in equal rank. They are the Himalayas of India, and the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone. On neither of them is there any sign of human life. No voice disturbs their solemn stillness. The only sound upon earth's loftiest mountains is the thunder of the avalanche. The only voice within this canon is the roar of its magnificent cascade. It is well that man must halt upon the borders of this awful chasm. It is no place for man. The Infinite allows him to stand trembling on the brink, look down, and listen spellbound to the anthem of its mighty cataract; but beyond this he may not, cannot go. It is as if Almighty G.o.d had kept for His own use one part of His creation, that man might merely gaze upon it, worship, and retire.

[Ill.u.s.tration]