who have not seen them. No illustration can do
them justice; for no photographer can adequately reproduce their
clear, transparent depths, nor can an artist's brush ever quite
portray their peculiar coloring, due to the minerals held in
solution, or else deposited upon their sides. I can deliberately say,
however, that some of the most exquisitely beautiful objects I
have ever seen in any portion of the world are the superbly tinted
caldrons of the Yellowstone.

Their hues are infinitely varied. Many are blue, some green, some
golden, and some wine-colored, in all gradations of tone; and could
we soar aloft and take of them a bird's-eye view, the glittering
basin might seem to us a silver shield, studded with rubies,
emeralds, turquoises, and sapphires. Moreover, these miniature lakes
are lined with exquisite ornamentation. One sees in them, with
absolute distinctness, a reproduction of the loveliest forms that he
has ever found in floral or in vegetable life. Gardens of mushrooms,
banks of goldenrod, or clusters of asparagus, appear to be growing
here, created by the Architect and colored by the Artist of these
mineral springs.

[Illustration: THE ROAD NEAR THE GOLDEN GATE.]

[Illustration: THE EMERALD POOL.]

The most renowned of all these reservoirs of color is called the
Emerald Pool. Painters from this and other lands have tried
repeatedly to depict this faithfully upon canvas, but, finally, have
left it in despair. In fact, its coloring is so intense, that as the
bubbles, rising to its surface, lift from this bowl their rounded
forms, and pause a second in the air before they break, they are
still just as richly tinted as the flood beneath. Accordingly this
pool appeared to me like a colossal casket, filled with emeralds,
which spirit hands from time to time drew gently upward from its
jeweled depths.

[Illustration: SUNLIGHT LAKE.]

Close by this is another boiling pool called the Sunlight Lake. On
this I saw one of the most marvelous phenomena I have ever looked
upon. The colors of this tiny sheet of water appeared not only in
concentric circles, like the rings of a tree, but also in the order
of the spectrum. The outer band was crimson, and then the unbroken
sequence came: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet in the
centre! Moreover, the very steam arising from it (reflecting as it
did the varied tints beneath) was exquisitely colored, and vanished
into air like a dissolving rainbow. All these