deposits on its sides, that
the best instruments of engineers are thrown into confusion, and
rendered useless, while the lightning on this favorite home of
electricity is said to be unparalleled.

[Illustration: ELECTRIC PEAK.]

[Illustration: THE GLASS MOUNTAIN.]

Presently a turn in the road revealed to us a dark-hued mountain
rising almost perpendicularly from a lake. Marvelous to relate, the
material of which this mountain is composed is jet-black glass,
produced by volcanic fires. The very road on which we drove between
this and the lake also consists of glass too hard to break beneath
the wheels. The first explorers found this obsidian cliff almost
impassable; but when they ascertained of what it was composed, they
piled up timber at its base, and set it on fire. When the glass was
hot, they dashed upon the heated mass cold water, which broke it into
fragments. Then with huge levers, picks, and shovels, they pushed
and pried the shining pieces down into the lake, and opened thus a
wagon-road a thousand feet in length.

[Illustration: AN INDIAN CHIEF.]

The region of the Yellowstone was to most Indian tribes a place of
horror. They trembled at the awful sights they here beheld. But the
obsidian cliff was precious to them all. Its substance was as hard as
flint, and hence well suited for their arrow-heads. This mountain of
volcanic glass was, therefore, the great Indian armory; and as such
it was neutral ground. Hither all hostile tribes might come for
implements of war and then depart unharmed. While they were here a
sacred, inter-tribal oath protected them. An hour later, those very
warriors might meet in deadly combat, and turn against each other's
breasts the weapons taken from that laboratory of an unknown power.

[Illustration: A TRAPPER.]

Can we wonder that, in former times, when all this region was still
unexplored, and its majestic streams rolled nameless through a
trackless wilderness, the statements of the few brave men who
ventured into this enclosure were disbelieved by all who heard them?
One old trapper became so angry when his stories of the place were
doubted, that he deliberately revenged himself by inventing tales of
which Muenchhausen would have been proud. Thus, he declared, that one
day when he was hunting here he saw a bear. He fired at it, but
without result. The animal did not even notice him. He fired again,
yet the big bear kept on grazing. The hunter in astonishment then
ran f