About fifty years ago gold was discovered in the state of California which lies on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The news filled the country with excitement. As time passed by the gold mines did not prove as rich as the people expected, but they discovered that the country was valuable in other ways. Trees grew to enormous size there and the warm, moist climate of the western coast was the best possible for raising fruit. To-day the children of California feast on pears, plums, apricots, grapes, peaches, oranges, and still other fruits which grow very large and beautiful. There are many wheat farms, too, in California where rich harvests reward the men who own them.
Beyond the Rocky Mountains and lying between them and a lower range called the Sierra Nevada, is a high plateau, where the rain falls into streams which dry up or form lakes before they can make their way to the sea.
The largest of these is called the Great Salt Lake whose water is four times as salty as that of the sea.
There are still other plateaus southeast of the Great Basin where the streams have worn away deep valleys called canyons. The largest of these rivers is the Colorado, whose canyon is so wonderful that travelers in the west always wish to visit it.
In some parts of the canyon the steep cliffs rise on either side for about a mile up into the air. As the traveler in the valley below looks up he can see the stars shining in broad daylight. The rocks at the sides are of different colors—gray, brown, red and purple. The best time to visit the canyon is at sunrise or sunset. Then the light from above falls first upon one color and then upon another, making a beautiful sight as the shadows change from moment to moment.
The United States is a great country, as its people believe, and certainly no others in the world can boast of a park so large as theirs.
When Lewis and Clark had traveled a long distance up the Missouri River they reached that part of the country which is now called the Yellowstone Park. A better name would be “Wonderland” for such it is to the thousands of people from all over the world who visit it every year.
This great reservation is sixty-five miles from north to south and fifty-five miles from east to west. It contains not one, but many charming parks, lovely valleys, sparkling waterfalls, high mountains, deep valleys and one beautiful lake, called the Yellowstone Lake.
