and hence has been dubbed by the voyageurs "the Sail Rock" (Fig. 33). A mile farther east we reach "The Grand Portal” (Fig. 34). This is an enormous arched gateway one hundred feet in height and one hundred and sixty feet broad, opening into a magnificent vaulted passage some three hundred feet deep, and expanding into a massive dome. These apartments, with their ramifications, have been hewn in an enormous quadrangular block of brown sandstone projecting sheer into the lake six hundred feet, and presenting a front of three or four hundred feet, with a frowning façade lifted full one hundred and thirty-three feet above the Fig. 35. Camp on the Beach near the Chapel. water which bathes the foundations and resounds through the vaulted passages of this most magnificent of Nature's cromlechs. The last and most grotesque of these mural structures is "The Chapel." At the height of forty feet above the lake 康 Fig. 36. The Chapel-"Pictured Rocks." is a rocky floor, from the four angles of which rise curiously wrought columns of masonry in thin and regular courses. These support a massive vaulted roof that covers a rustic auditorium forty feet in diameter and forty feet high, which suggested the name of the structure. At the base of one of the columns is excavated an arched niche, which may be reached by a flight of steps formed of the retreating layers of the sandstone. This is the pulpit. In front lies a tabular mass of rock which answers for the desk, while an isolated block on the right represents an altar. "If the whole had been adapted expressly for a place of worship, and fashioned by the hand of man, it could hardly have been arranged more appropriately. It is hardly possible to describe the singular and unique effect of this extraordinary structure. It is truly a temple of Nature-'a house not made with hands.'" Hard by this chapel, erected by the hand of Nature to symbolize the devotion which Nature's solitudes inspire, is one of Nature's preachers-a beautiful cascade-lifting up its voice perpetually in hearing of the spirits of the primeval wilderness in the rear, Fig. 37. Chapel Falls-"Pictured Rocks." |