Yellow River

“ The river-god cares naught for the fortunes or misfortunes of human beings. He appears suddenly and disappears in the same way, as best suits him.
Between the outer and the inner dam of the Yellow River are a number of settlements. Now it often happens that the yellow water moves to the very edge of the inner walls. Rising perpendicularly, like a wall, it gradually advances. When people see it coming they hastily burn incense, bow in prayer before the waters, and promise the river-god a theatrical performance. ”

“ It is so called from the yellowness of its water, caused by the vast quantity of mud which is swept down by its rapid current to the sea; hence, the common saying, "When the Yellow River runs clear," as an equivalent of the Greek Kalends. The huge embankments, built to confine it to a given course, are continually being forced by any unusual press of extra water, with enormous damage to property and great loss of life, and from time to time this river has been known to change its route altogether, suddenly diverging, almost at a right angle. ”

“ Davis suggests that a great derangement of waters of the Yellow River, one of the largest in the world, might even now cause the flood of Yaou to be repeated, and lay the most fertile and populous plains of China under water. In modern times the bursting of the banks of an artificial canal, into which a portion of the Yellow River has been turned, has repeatedly given rise to the most dreadful accidents, and is a source of perpetual anxiety to the government. ”

“ Legend says that he was commissioned to discover the source of the Yellow River, which was popularly supposed to flow from heaven and to be a continuation of the Milky Way. With this object he sailed up the stream for many days, until he reached a city where he saw a girl spinning and a youth leading an ox to the water to drink. ”

“ Every few years they tend to break a new way on one side or the other of their former path. Some of the greatest engineering work done in modern times has been accomplished by the engineers engaged in controlling the exits of large rivers to the sea. The outbreak of the Yellow River in 1887, in which the stream, hindered by its own accumulations, forced a new path across its alluvial plains, destroyed a vast deal of life and property, and made the new exit seventy miles from the path which it abandoned. ”

“ Whether it forms a sufficiently prominent feature of the landscape to justify christening the river from it, may appear to be open to doubt. At any rate the various descriptions of this valley by early explorers rarely refer to the same locality as being conspicuous from the presence of yellow rock. Some mention it in one place, some in another. Nowhere does it seem to have been so striking as to attract the attention of all observers. For this reason we shall go further in search of the true origin of the name, to a locality about which there can be no doubt, no difference of opinion. ”

“ Owing to the shifting of its current, and its snags and sand-bars, its navigation is less safe and pleasant than any other western river, but these difficulties are every year lessened by genius and enterprise.
2. Its water is always turbid, being of a muddy, ash color, though more so at its periodical rise than at other times. This is caused by extremely fine sand, received from the neighborhood of the Yellow Stone. During the summer flood, a tumbler of water taken from the Missouri, and precipitated, will produce about one fourth of its bulk in sediment. ”

“ The most considerable of them, are the Yellow Stone, La Platte and the Osage. The Yellow Stone rises in the same range of mountains with the main river, to which [Pg 250] it has many points of resemblance. It enters the Missouri from the south, eighteen hundred miles above its mouth, and is eight hundred and fifty yards wide. It is a broad deep river, sixteen hundred miles in length, boatable, one thousand; and at the junction, appears to be the larger stream. Its shores are heavily timbered, its bottoms are wide, and of the richest soil. ”

“ In fact, it taxes the most skilful angler's art to steer his fighting trout through boiling rapids to the net. For very soon the Yellowstone narrows and pitches down sharper slants to the climax of the falls and the mighty canyon.
This intermediate stretch of river is beautiful in its quietude. The forests often touch the water's edge. And ever it narrows and deepens and splashes higher against the rocks which stem its current; forever it is steepening to the plunge. ”

“ For, as we have said, after leaving Fort Bent, the way led through the fertile valley of the Yellowstone, a valley abounding in rich grasses, the little clumps of timber that fringed the river being filled with game, the stream itself well stocked with fish—a country that [Pg 10] only needed the strong right arm of civilization to bloom and blossom like a fruitful garden.
The wagon-trail through this lovely country was not without its dangers. Near Fort Bent, the fierce Mandan tribe of Indians flourished; their hunting-grounds stretching from the Big Horn river to the little Missouri. ”

“ In comparison with the broad, rolling tide of the Yellowstone the turbid current of the tributary appeared shallow and of no great volume—the last place in the world for a river steamer to venture with any hope of going its own length without grounding. And yet, I reflected, the Big Horn could have been scarcely higher on that sultry Sunday of June 25th, 1876, when Captain Grant Marsh, acting on orders from General Terry, sparred and warped and crabbed the wonderful old Far West up twenty-five miles of those rock-choked, foam-white rapids. ”

“ At this point the Yellowstone shrinks to half its usual size, losing itself among huge granite [28] boulders, which choke up the stream and create alternate pools and rapids, crowded with trout. Worn into fantastic forms by the washing water, these immense rock masses give an aspect of peculiar wildness to the scenery. But the crowning wonder of this region is the group of hot springs on the slope of a mountain, four miles up the valley of Gardiner's River. ”

“ There is a fairly rough riffle just below the Big Timber, and then a lot of rather mean navigating through the shallows where the boulders of Clark's famous "Rivers Across" litter the channel of the Yellowstone. The whiskered stranger, stroking with an oar from the stern, was of real help in making the passage of both comparatively quiet and dry. He also found me a smooth-running strip of green through the almost solid tumble of white where the river was chasing its tail in a sharply notched bend about five miles farther on. ”

“ Standing on the brink of the chasm the heavy roaring of the imprisoned river comes to the ear in a sort of hollow, hungry growl, scarcely audible from the depths, and strongly suggestive of demons in torment below. Lofty pines on the bank of the stream ‘dwindle to shrubs in dizziness of distance.’ Everything beneath has a weird and deceptive appearance. The water does not look like water, but like oil. ”

“ A lake, sixty miles long, cold and pellucid, lies embosomed among high precipitous mountains. On the west side is a sloping plain, several miles wide, with clumps of trees and groves of pine. The ground resounds with the tread of horses. Geysers spout up seventy feet high, with a terrific, hissing noise, at regular intervals. Water-falls are sparkling, leaping and thundering down the precipices, and collect in the pool below. The river issues from this lake, and for fifteen miles roars through the perpendicular cañon at the outlet. ”

“ When a party of explorers pressed westward up the valley of the Stinking Water to determine if an entrance might be effected from the east, they found the trails of horses leading up a tributary stream which broke in from the west where the main river flared back in a wide sweeping curve to the north and east. These tracks led up an elk trail, threaded the mazes of a frowning gorge, crossed the lower extremities of late-melting snow banks and came out at last upon the Yellowstone Slope. ”

“ Hiding his mule in a thicket, he ascended to the mountain top to take a view of the country, and decide upon his course. And what a scene was that for the miserable boy, whose chance of meeting with his comrades again was small indeed! At his feet rolled the Yellowstone River, coursing away through the great plain to the eastward. ”

“ Near the head of the Third Cañon a stream flows into the Yellowstone from the northeast, bearing the sonorous title, Hell-Roaring River. It is quite a large stream, rising high among the mountains, and flowing with tremendous impetuosity down the deep gorges. The mountains on either side come close down to the channel of the Yellowstone, and are among the most rugged in this rugged region. A huge peak of this sort, composed of stratified gneiss, with deep strata of massive red and grey granite, stands at the mouth of Hell-Roaring River, and takes to itself the same imposing name. ”

“ In this valley, the Yellowstone, a broad, strong stream, meanders back and forth, forming on both sides strong, perpendicular bluffs of rock and clay, forcing the road constantly out of the flat valley over the points, and causing wide deflections in the road to head the ravines or ‘coolies,’ which flow to the river. There is a strongly-marked wagon trail, but no bridge or cuts, a purely natural road, with steep ascents and descents, and frequent gullies, about as much as wagons could pass. We sometimes shifted into our light wagons, to save the fatigue of travel. ”

“ Of the Yellowstone River, he was told that it had its source “in a lake in the impenetrable fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains;” and that for some distance below the lake it flowed through a narrow gorge, up which “no one has ever been able to travel.” ”

“ DRAINAGE AREAS.
Three great rivers receive the waters of the Yellowstone Park—the Yellowstone, the Missouri, and the Snake. The first two rivers are on the Atlantic slope; the third is on the Pacific slope. The areas drained by them are approximately:
The Yellowstone River has its source in the snow drifts of Yount Peak, twenty-five miles south-east of the Park. ”

“ They halted three hours to rest their horses, and then pursued the buffaloe road along the bank of the river. Although just leaving a high snowy mountain, the Yellowstone is already a bold, rapid, and deep stream, one hundred and twenty yards in width. The bottoms of the river are narrow within the mountains, but widen to the extent of nearly two miles in the valley below, where they are occasionally overflowed, and the soil gives nourishment to cottonwood, rosebushes, honeysuckle, rushes, common coarse grass, a species of rye, and such productions of moist lands. ”

“ The Josephine's farthest west on the Yellowstone stands as the record for steamers by many miles, but what wouldn't I have given to have found that big cottonwood and tied up there myself! No one along the river could tell me anything about it, and there is little doubt that, like so many thousands of its less distinguished brethren, it has been swallowed up by the spring floods. Neither above nor below the bridge for many miles, however, could I locate a riffle sufficiently savage to fit Captain Marsh's description of "Hell Roaring Rapids." ”

“ The route ascends the Firehole River to the mouth of Spring Creek, which stream it follows to the Continental Divide. For seven miles it then lies on the Pacific slope, after which it descends the mountains to the Yellowstone Lake. The drive is one of the most pleasant in the Park, and the scenery is unconventional and wild. ”

“ The trail ascends the divide between Tower Creek and the Yellowstone, skirting for six or eight miles the cañon of Tower Creek. The ground rises rapidly and is much broken by creek-beds running parallel with the river. Following the highest ridges, the first explorers reached at last a point whence they could overlook the Grand Cañon cleaving the slopes and breaking through the lofty mountain ranges in front. ”

“ The water in this spring is constantly boiling, rising sometimes to a height of four or five feet. The Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, which are respectively one hundred and sixty and three hundred and fifty feet high, are very imposing, but hardly more so than the Nevada and Vernal Falls in the Yosemite, although the volume of water is a little larger. The river rises in Yellowstone Lake, which is in the southeastern part of the park, flows north, and going over the falls plunges down into the cañon. ”

“ Immense clouds of steam curl up from the surface, obstructing the view, but the noise of boiling and seething is always audible. The water is slightly salt, but not unpleasant to the taste, chemically neutral, and possesses petrifying, or rather incrusting qualities, in a high degree. The deposit is silicious, like that of the Iceland springs and the springs around Yellowstone Lake, not calcareous, like those of Gardiner's River ”

“ We caught the first glimpse of the great basin of the Yellowstone, with the lake, which reminded one much, from its bays, indentations, and surrounding mountains, of Great Salt Lake. To the south are the Tetons, rising high above all the rest, the monarchs of all they survey, with their summits covered with perpetual snow. To the southwest an immense area of dense pine forests extends for one hundred miles without a peak rising above the black, level mass. A little farther to the southwest and west are the Madison Mountains, a lofty, grand, snow-capped range, extending far to the northward. ”