mounds of all sizes, one feels, indeed in a land of marvels. Some of them send up volumes of water over two hundred feet in height, and with steam a thousand feet high, the irruption lasting several minutes. Here is the Giantess Geyser and some others, surprising a party of visitors, who I must say look anything but dignified.

LAURA: I suppose there is a Giant Geyser, as this is a Giantess.

MRS. VICTOR: Oh yes! And it has been known to be in irruption for three hours at a time, but its volume of water is not so high nor so beautiful as the GiantThen there is the Grand Geyser, the Castle Geyser, the Old Faithful Gey

ess.

ser, so called because of the regularity of its outbursts, about once every hour, the Turban Geyser, and hosts of others; making this district of the Yellowstone Park the most wonderful in the world for this kind of natural phenomena. Here is a small view of the Grotto Geyser with a dome-like crater and numerous apertures. THE PRESIDENT: Of the Castle Geyser, Professor Hayden writes: "It is the most imposing geyser formation in the valley, and receives its name from its resemblance to the ruins of a fortress. The deposited silver has crystallized in immense globular masses, like spongiform corals. The mound is forty feet high, and the

says:

lower portion rises in steps." Speaking of the prismatic coloring of the water he "About the middle of the day, when the bright rays descend nearly vertically, and a slight breeze makes just a ripple on the surface, the colors exceed comparison; when the surface is calm there is one vast chaos of colors, dancing, as it were, like the colors of a kaleidoscope. As seen through this marvelous play of colors, the decorations on the sides of the basin are lighted up with a wild, weird beauty, which wafts one at once into the land of enchantment: all the brilliant feats of fairies and genii in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments are forgotten in

the actual presence of such marvelous beauty; life becomes a privilege and a blessing after one has seen and felt its cunning skill."

MRS. MERRIMAN: I think I shall move that when we adjourn for the season we do so to meet next August in the Park of the Yellowstone.

MRS. VICTOR: I was going to say that all this volcanic energy so near the surface is suggestive of earthquakes, which occasionally take place in this region.

KATE: Then I object. I had rather do my sight-seeing in this way.

MR. GOLDUST: People on the Pacific coast, which is occasionally visited by earthquakes, do not dread them more than the people in the Eastern States dread thunder-storms, nor do I think they do nearly so much damage.

AUNT HARRIET: I sometimes think that it is a mercy we are not left to live and die without some evidences of the mighty and awful forces in the universe.

MRS. WARLIKE: They make us feel our insignificance and powerlessness, and perhaps they turn us in thought towards the great Father for forgiveness and

mercy.

DR. PAULUS: And yet man alone of all created things on this globe is gifted with the power of scientific research, even as he is with the faculty of discerning between good and evil. We can feel the deep significance of the psalmist's words: "Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels; and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hand; thou hast put all things under his feet."

THE PRESIDENT: Undoubtedly, man is a creature of mingled strength and weakness, and if he alone in the universe were capable of rising in thought and feeling above the finite, then were his position sad indeed. But if these mighty forces in nature are the works of an infinitely wise, holy, and gracious Being, the devout and humble-minded have every ground for hope and confidence in the tendency of things. As Scripture has been quoted I would again remind you of a passage from the Sacred Word, which always speaks eloquently to me, though it occurs in a sort of parenthesis (1 Cor. 8:5). "For though there be that are called God, whether in heaven or on earth; as there are gods many and lords many; yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we unto Him.”

MRS. VICTOR: I have reached almost the end of my notes and sketches, though I confess that I have not exhausted one-quarter of even the imperfect materials at my command. But there are many other noteworthy places for us to see, and too much time must not be given to any one of them. Here in these vast regions of mountain, forest, and desert, we seem to draw very close to the mysterious and awful powers of the universe. It is not all mere beauty in these mighty wilds, but beauty combined with awe-inspiring grandeur. How appropriate the thought of Milton, that much-neglected though always-praised poet, in the lines familiar to some of us from childhood: