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Show A GLASS MOUNTAIN. Another marvel recently brought to light in the Yellowstone Park of North America is nothing less than a mountain of obsidian or volcanic glass. Near the foot of the Beaver Lake a band of explorers came up on the remarkable mountain, which rises in columnar cliffs and rounded bosses to many hundreds of feet in altitude from hissing hot springs at the margin of the lake as it was desirable to pass that way, the party had to cut a road through the steep glassy barricade. This they effected by making huge fires on the glass to thoroughly heat and expand it and then dashing the cold water of the lake against the heated surface so to suddenly cool and break it up by shrinkage. Large fragments were in this way detached from the solid side of the mountain then broken up small by sledge hammers and picks, not, however, without severe lacerations of the hands and faces of the men from flying splinters. In the Grand Canyon of the Gibson River, the explorers found precipices of yellow, black and banded obsidian, hundreds of feet high. The natural glass of these localities have from time immemorial been dressed by the Indians to tip their spears and arrows. |