Show trill 1 playgrounds OF SCENIC AMERICA I 1 by G ill HILBOURN mountain of glass gla ERY few of 0 the millions of people V VERT who have visited yellowstone national park probably realize that for a time they were riding above a ill highway hway of glass and of all vilio mho have whirled past the ellif of black volcanic glass by the roadside the great majority have never heard the story of how that cliff was beaten back to make room for or the roadway by heating beating the glass and then throwing cold water on it I 1 obsidian cliff the mountain of black glass stands in the northwest part of the park twelve miles milci by road from the park headquarters at mammoth hot springs and seventeen miles from tile the not northern abern pacific gateway at gardinor gardiner mont it Is not a spectacular sight and the park busses unless they have very recently changed their habits do not even stop there but before the white man came the cliff of glass was sometimes a very busy place tor for the indians often mado their arrowheads of this obsidian then at last itne came the year 1872 and with it the creation of yellowstone national park six years later the story of the obsidian cliff road finking was told in the annual report of the parks second superintendent philetus W norris as follows obsidian there rises like basalt in vertical columns many hundreds of fert feet high and countless huge buge masses had fallen from tills this utterly impassable mountain into the hissing hot spring margin of an equally impassable sp ble lake inke without either indian or game troll trail over the glistering blistering gli fragments of natures glass sure to severely lacerate As this glass barricade sloped from some or feet high a against the cliff at an angle of some 45 degrees to the lake we with the shivered fragments of timber thrown from the heights with huge fires heated and expanded and then men well screened by blankets held by others by dashing cold water suddenly cooled and fractured the large masses then with huge buge levers steel bars sledge pick and shovels and severe laceration of at least the hands and faces of every member of the party we rolled slid crushed and shoveled one fourth of a mile of good wagon road midway along the slope it being so far as I 1 am aware the only road of native glass upon the continent superintendent norris story la Is quoted in early editions of the yellowstone low stone national park by balg geu niram martin chittenden himself a yellowstone road builder of perhaps more authority lie he was assist assistant to ay g ibm 1 ar oab 1 I V A 14 r obsidian cliff the off officer licer in charge of roads in 1891 1801 92 and was in complete charge of road construction for about seven years following 1899 1809 in his revised and enlarged edition of 1915 general chittenden omitted emitted the direct quotation but restated its substance the building of the first road read along the base of this cliff cilly has some historic celebrity owing to the novel method adopted in clearing away the rock colonel nois the builder broke tile the glassy material into fragments by heating it with fires and then dashing cold water upon it time works many changes in yellowstone low stone however the lowland adjoining the cliff la is now more of a marsh than a lake while a few miles down the road a rounded ald ridge e that was perfectly respectable forest land as late its as 1902 has now become a steaming inferno to win the title of roaring mountains M G 1930 western newspaper union |