Crags and Pinnacles where Eagles Build Their Nests, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Publication

Crags and Pinnacles where Eagles Build Their Nests, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Description

GRAND CANYON OF THE YELLOWSTONE, YELLOWSTONE NAT. PARK, WYO. At whatever time of day, under whatever conditions of light, one may view the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, he finds it always fascinating, surprising, marvelous. Dr. F. V. Hayden, for many years Director of the United States Geological Survey, who in 1871 began an exhaustive scientific examination of this wonderful region, though a man not much given to sentiment confessed that he used to stand gazing into the depths of this "Symphony in Stone" until tears filled his eyes and blurred his vision. Thomas Moran, the artist who wrought that superb painting of this canyon which graces a wall in our National Capitol said: "Its beautiful tints are beyond the reach of art." His contemporary, Albert Bierstadt, also a distinguished portrayer of the scenic grandeurs of western North America, when he first stood on the brink of this canyon, took off his hat, folded his arms and after gazing in silence for many minutes, said to his companion: "I always suspected that Moran, in that painting of his in the Capitol at Washington, had exaggerated the coloring of this canyon. But no artist can exaggerate it--no one can do it justice." Said Dvaid E. Folsom, who with charles W. Cook and William Peterson, in the fall of 1869 visited the present Yellowstone Park on the first expedition ever undertaken for the exclusive purpose of verifying, examining and reporting accurately upon its reputed wonders: "Language is entirely inadequate to convey a just conception of the awful grandeur and sublimity of this masterpiece of Nature's handiwork." (View looking S. Elev. abt. 7,600 ft. Lat. 45° N.; Long. 111° 30' W.)