--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Lambourne, Alfred collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 11 published: 1911-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Lambourne, Alfred, "Word Pictures of the Yellowstone. IV," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 11 (September 1911): 989.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera14011unse start_page: 989 end_page: 989 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14011unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Word Pictures of the Yellowstone. IV Word Pictures of the Yellowstone. ALFRED LAMBOURNE IV HELL'S HALF ACRE— MIDDLE BASIN FLOWING through a narrow valley is seen a clear, green river. On one hand is a broad field of ashen gray, with wells and cauldrons sunk in its surface, and filled with sulphurous waters, trembling like liquid fire, or sleeping in sombre indigo. One cauldron is edged around with white and yel- low geyserine, and is being slowly undermined, its walls sinking piecemeal into the pool below. On one side of this cauldron is an opening through which its waters empty into the passing Fire Hole Photo by Hugo B. Ande River. This, the Cliff Cauldron, or Excelsior Geyser, whose erup- tions shake the surrounding earth. Now nothing but pearly-tinted steam rises from off its surface, and melts into the ultra-marine sky above. Near by, on the same huge mound, is the Prismatic Lake — beautiful even if terrible; its blue and green limpid depths gleaming with evil light, as the eyes of a tempting demon.. Streams of the surplus waters traverse the ashen fields, encrusting their backs with deposits of brilliant red and yellow. On the other hand, across the river, is greensward dotted with trees and enriched with a profusion cf wild flowers — a bit of the Fields of Lethe, bordering upon the City of Dis.