minating peaks among the clouds; and the mountains that
extend into Yellowstone Park, the land of geyser wonders, are seen. The
Yellowstone Park is at the southern extremity of a great system of
mountain ranges, the northern Rocky Mountains, sometimes called the
Geyser Ranges. This geological province extends into British America,
but its most wonderful scenery is in the upper Yellowstone basin, where
geysers bombard the heavens with vapor distilled in subterranean depths.
The springs which pour out their boiling waters are loaded with quartz,
and the waters of the springs, flowing away over the rocks, slowly
discharge their fluid magma, which crystallizes in beautiful forms and
builds jeweled basins that hold pellucid waters.

To the north and west of Fremont's Peak are mountain ranges that give
birth to rivers flowing into the great Columbia. Conspicuous among these
from this point of view is the great Teton Range, with its towering
facade of storm-carved rocks; then the Gros Ventre Mountains, the Snake
River Range, the Wyoming Range, and, still beyond the latter, the Bear
River Range, are seen. Far in the distant south, scarcely to be
distinguished from the blue clouds on the horizon, stand the Uinta
Mountains. On every hand are deep mountain gorges where snows accumulate
to form glaciers. Below the glaciers throughout the entire Wind River
Range great numbers of morainal lakes are found. These lakes are
gems--deep sapphire waters fringed with emerald zones. From these lakes
creeks and rivers flow, by cataracts and rapids, to form the Green. The
mountain slopes below are covered with dense forests of pines and firs.
The lakes are often fringed with beautiful aspens, and when the autumn
winds come their golden leaves are carried over the landscape in clouds
of resplendent sheen. The creeks descend from the mountains in wild
rocky gorges, until they flow out into the valley. On the west side of
the valley stand the Gros Ventre and the Wyoming mountains, low ranges
of peaks, but picturesque in form and forest stretch. Leaving the
mountain, the river meanders through the Green River Plains, a cold
elevated district much like that of northern Norway, except that the
humidity of Norway is replaced by the aridity of Wyoming. South of the
plains the Big Sandy joins the Green from the east. South of the Big
Sandy a long zone of sand-dunes stretches eastward. The western winds
blowing up the valley drift these sands from hill t