resources for the improvement of that which is to support the people for all time. No private owner should be allowed to destroy wantonly that which comes from mother earth. What comes from the bosom of the land, and is not essential to feed and maintain the cultivator, should be given back to it. A man should be fined who burns manure. Man should not cut timber to such an extent as to reduce a necessary rainfall. Commissioners should determine from scientific data, how much of forest is necessary in fixed districts of the country, and when so determined no one should be permitted to cut a tree without replacing it by a young one. In the Old World millions of acres are now worthless which once supported teeming populations; all because they have been denuded of trees. Nearly all European countries as well as India are now, and have been for some years, earnestly endeavoring to check this evil. Commissioners of Forestry, earnest and educated men, have been appointed. Schools of Forestry are fostered by the state. The betterment has been so marked, that the ordinary pleasure seeking traveler sees a wonderful change between visits separated by twenty or thirty years. America has countless millions of acres scarcely capable of supporting a human being, which could be made to wave in cereals or grow fat in edible roots, if only trees were grown to induce a somewhat regular rainfall.

The arid plains of the Great West have the richest of known soils, if a little human sweat mixed with water in sufficient quantity could be kneaded into it. Government as the lord paramount of its domain, should force the growing of trees and should prevent the destruction of timber wherever the same is necessary to keep up or improve the land. It has parted with the title to the soil, but still retains the power to use it for its own support. It levies and collects taxes from lands as the paramount owner. The same power exists to prevent the waste of that from which its taxes spring or through which its people may live.

"No one is a man," says the Arab maxim, "until he has planted a tree, dug a well, and grown a boy." The nation is an aggregation of men and should follow the maxim. The statesman who devises a good system of taxation is entitled to the praises of all men, but he is but a pigmy to the man who turns sterile deserts into places of plenty, or who make many blades of grass grow where now only one springs up. I am ready to bow down before the man who will maintain and improve the soil of our Eastern States, or will shower over the West a copious rainfall.

Bismark was disappointing. It has not improved as could have been expected since we helped to lay the corner-stone of its Capitol seven years ago.

BAD LANDS OR "MAUVAISES TERRES."

The "bad lands" are as God-forsaken in appearance as they were years since. There the very earth has been burned and the Evil One seems to have set his foot-print on every rod. Men do live in them, but more blessed is he who dies in genial surroundings! What a hold upon us has the love of life! So short and such a bauble! How worthless when robbed, as it must be in this bleak tract, of every concomitant of the joyful! Only the All-powerful can reclaim the soil of the "bad lands," and not until a cataclysm has carried it 1,000 fathoms beneath the sea, will it be fitted for sunlight and ready to support life. It has been burned up with the coals and lignites which underlaid the surface. After striking the Yellowstone Valley the ride westward becomes pretty. The mountains are bold, with fine outlines, often lifting in picturesque precipices from the water's edge. Great strata of coal are frequently seen stretching in level parallel lines for considerable distances. Snow appears in seams and gorges on the loftiest heights. While not offering as grand displays as are seen in one or two points of other across-the-continent roads, the Northern Pacific presents more varied scenery, and far more that is pleasing and restful to the eye, than any other except the Canadian Pacific.

To most travelers much of the scenery of the Northern Pacific until Helena is reached is monotonous. But to one disposed to be a student of nature and a lover of its varied forms, many instructive lessons can be conned from the car window, and many pleasing pictures hastily enjoyed. The Yellowstone, along whose banks the road runs for three hundred and fifty miles, is a cheerful stream. When first reached it is muddy, but after the mouths of one or two large affluents have been passed it becomes clear and limpid. Its flow is almost constantly rapid and turbulent. But few still reaches are seen, and these are rarely over a mile or so in length. On one or the other bank considerable mountains lift from the water's edge, in lofty, clear-cut precipices. The upper slopes have but few trees and rarely any clumps or masses, but offer much variety in earth coloring. Light brown, sometimes deepening into chocolate, is the dominant tone. There are frequent stretches of yellow, here and there flecked with patches or bands of venetian red. This latter sometimes takes a tint so bright as to merit being called vermilion.

At Livingston, a thousand and odd miles from St. Paul, we left the Northern Pacific, and by a narrow-gauge road continued up the Yellowstone, fifty-one miles to Cinnabar; thence by Park coaches, wagonettes and surreys, eight miles along the wildly rushing Gardner river, and through a narrow defile hemmed in by lofty precipices beneath frowning crags—the gateway to the park—to the "Mammoth Hot Springs." Near the gateway on a lofty pinnacled rock, so slender as at first to be mistaken for the trunk of a huge tree, sat an eagle upon its eyrie, keeping watch and ward over the entrance to the people's pleasure ground. The bird's nest is built of loose sticks laid upon the rocky point, which is not broader than a good-sized tree stump. How it withstands the dash of storms, which often rage through the narrow pass, is a marvel. Yet it has been there for many years, and each year sends forth its young brood. I regret to say this eagle is not the genuine American screamer, which so grandly spreads its wings upon the daddy's dollar, but is the great white-headed fish-hawk. He is easily mistaken for the bald eagle, but is smaller and a somewhat sociable bird, building his home near by those of others of his species. The true eagle is sullen and solitary, and chooses his eyrie many miles removed from his fellows. Indeed he spurns all fellowship with his kind.

All tourists delight to look at the "Devils Slide" in the Gardner canyon. It is from five to six hundred feet high, a few feet broad, between thin slate dykes, and as smooth as a toboggan way. As there is no record that the father of lies was acquainted with sand paper, there is a peculiar pleasure in imagining the grinding away of the seat of his trousers, while he was polishing down his coaching slide. In spite of what the preachers say, there is no doubt that man, woman and child hate the devil, and are delighted by any evidence of annoyance to him.

LETTER II.

THE NATIONAL PARK, "THE WONDERLAND OF THE GLOBE." THE HOME OF THE EVIL ONE. STEAM VENTS. GEYSERS. THE GROTTO. THE GIANT. THE BEE HIVE. THE CASTLE AND OLD FAITHFUL IN THE UPPER GEYSER BASIN.

Grand Canyon,
Yellowstone National Park, July 22.

American dudes of both sexes wandering about the world have been sorely perplexed because Uncle Sam has had no huge ships of war with which to display his grandeur in foreign ports, and no embassadorial residences in which Yankee heels may air themselves to advantage. When foreigners have made allusion to our poverty in this regard, and their own wealth of splendor, we have been forced to fall back upon the Yankee's retort, "Yes; but you hain't got no Niagary." Luckily but few of those who taunted us were aware that Niagara was simply located in the United States but did not belong to it.