"First flowing, 9.20 A.M. to 9.35 A.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Second flowing, 1.30 P.M. to 1.50 P.M.; length, 20 minutes.
"Third flowing, 5 P.M. to 5.15 P.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Fourth flowing, 8.30 P.M. to 8.50 P.M.; length, 20 minutes.
"Fifth flowing, 12.30 P.M. to 12.45 P.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Sixth flowing, 4 A.M. to 4.15 A.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Seventh flowing, 7.30 A.M. to 7.45 A.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Eighth flowing, 11 A.M. to 11.10 A.M.; length, 10 minutes.
"Total length of time, 26 hours. Aggregate time of flowing, three hours and 15 minutes. Average length of flowings, 15 minutes and 37 and one half seconds."
"Such a vision," exclaims the sober-minded chief of the Geological Survey, "is worth a lifetime; and only _one_ of such marvellous beauty will ever greet human eyes."
"Secluded amid the loftiest peaks of the Rocky Mountains," writes Mr. Langford, "possessing strange peculiarities of form and beauty, this watery solitude is one of the most attractive natural objects in the world. Its southern shore, indented with long narrow inlets, not unlike the frequent fiords of Iceland, bears testimony to the awful upheaval and tremendous force of the elements which resulted in its creation. The long pine-crowned promontories, stretching into it from the base of the hills, lend new and charming features to an aquatic scene full of novelty and splendor. Islands of emerald hue dot its surface, and a margin of sparkling sand forms its jewelled setting. The winds, compressed in their passage through the mountain gorges, lash it into a sea as terrible as the fretted ocean, covering it with foam. But now it lay before us calm and unruffled, save by the gentle wavelets which broke in murmurs along the shore. Water, one of the grandest elements of scenery, never seemed so beautiful before. It formed a fitting climax to all the wonders we had seen, and we gazed upon it for hours, entranced with its increasing attractions."
The beautiful sheet of water so enthusiastically yet fittingly described, is somewhat more than twenty miles long and fifteen broad, with an irregular outline, presenting some of the loveliest shore-lines that water ever assumed. Its form has been compared to that of an outspread hand, the northern portion representing the palm, the southwestern a swollen thumb, the first and second fingers aborted, the third and fourth disproportionately large. A glance at the map will show that a juster comparison would be to the head and shoulders of some grotesque animal with two slender ears and a pair of huge knobby horns--the head facing the north. The greatest stretch of water extends from the end of the heavy lower jaw (the outlet of the Yellowstone) to the top of the upper horn, where the Upper Yellowstone comes in; while the great body of the water lies between the forehead and the base of the shoulder. The superficial area of the lake is about three hundred square miles; its greatest depth 300 feet, and its elevation above the sea 7,427 feet. In the last respect it has but one rival, Lake Titicaca in South America.