olated mountain peaks, it marks the highest
portion of our country. In winter, therefore, when encircled by
mounds of snow, it rests upon the summit of our continent like a
crown of sapphire set with pearls. So evenly is it balanced, that
when it overflows, one part of it descends to the Atlantic, another
part to the Pacific. This little streamlet, therefore, is a silver
thread connecting two great oceans three thousand miles apart.
Accordingly, one might easily fancy that every drop in this pure
mountain reservoir possessed a separate individuality, and that a
passing breeze or falling leaf might decide its destiny, propelling
it with gentle force into a current which should lead it eastward to
be silvered by the dawn, or westward to be gilded by the setting sun.

[Illustration: THE "SILVER THREAD CONNECTING TWO OCEANS."]

On either side of this elevation, known as the Continental Divide,
the view was glorious. In one direction, an ocean of dark pines
rolled westward in enormous billows. The silver surfaces of several
lakes gleamed here and there like whitecaps on the rolling waves. Far
off upon the verge of the horizon, fifty miles away, three
snow-capped, sharply pointed mountains looked like a group of
icebergs drifting from the Polar Sea. They did not move, however, nor
will they move while this old earth shall last. They antedate by ages
the Pyramids which they resemble. They will be standing thus, in
majesty, when Egypt's royal sepulchres shall have returned to dust.
Forever anchored there, those three resplendent peaks rise fourteen
thousand feet above the sea, and form the grand tiara of our
continent, the loftiest summits of the Rocky Mountains.

[Illustration: THE THREE TETONS.]

As we began the descent from this great elevation, another splendid
vision greeted us. We gazed upon it with delight. Beyond a vast
expanse of dark green pines we saw, three hundred feet below us, Lake
Yellowstone. It stirred my heart to look at last upon this famous
inland sea, nearly eight thousand feet above the ocean level, and to
realize that if the White Mountain monarch, Washington, were planted
in its depths (its base line on a level with the sea), there would
remain two thousand feet of space between its' summit and the surface
of this lake! In this respect it has but one real rival, Lake
Titicaca, in the Andes of Peru.

[Illustration: LAKE YELLOWSTONE, FROM A DISTANCE.]

Descending to the shore, however, we found tha