OFFICE OLD FAITHFUL INN © Haynes, St. Paul
The office-room is 75 feet square and 92 feet high, and reaches to the roof, with a massive chimney that rises to the top. The building is surrounded with beautiful grounds, furnished with rustic seats. The chimney is fourteen feet square with eight fireplaces, and balconies are built around three sides. While everything is of the rustic order, there is nothing commonplace about the hotel or its furnishings. "It is a creation of art from the foundation to the peak of the roof."
Old Faithful Geyser in the forefront of Old Faithful Inn is like a sentinel, and so named because of the regularity of its eruptions. Its crater, from which the water is expelled to a height of 150 feet, is an oblong opening, two by six feet, at the top of a mound of geyserite. Its eruptions sometimes vary a few minutes, in the meantime giving warning with two or three short spurts, increasing in volume until the maximum height is reached. The display is short, most of the water falling back into the crater, but no more fascinating or impressive scene could be found. The formations around are brilliant in color, resembling the more subdued tints and hues seen at the Mammoth Hot Springs.
In the early part of the afternoon, a number of tourists, including my brother and sister, went with a guide to Geyser Hill. After their return, they had much to say about what they had seen and heard. Later in the day I felt rested and wanted to make the trip, and my brother and sister went with me. They had learned all they could from the guide and were ready to name the various geysers, springs, and pools, and describe their operations to me. Of these, the Giantess, Beehive, and Sponge Geysers, were the most interesting. The Giantess occupies the most prominent position on the hill. Its displays attain a height of about 100 feet, and are accompanied by shocks and tremors much like earthquakes. The entire eruption lasts from twelve to twenty-four hours. The crater appears to be about thirty feet in diameter, and after each eruption a steam period ensues. In 1911, the eruptions varied from four to twelve days. Some years previous to this, the eruptions took place about once a month. It is believed that while activity, as a whole, is decreasing in the geyser regions, a century brings only a slight change.
I stood near the crater of the Giantess during the steam period. For a moment the vapor cleared away, and I could see down the great neck of the crater into a yawning chasm, so angry and terrible, as to make me feel that I had seen with the eye what the Bible describes as the bottomless pit, where the sulphurous flames belch forth, and "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:44).
If there are those who have doubts as to the reality of the lake of fire, of which Jesus told His disciples, in the 16th chapter of St. Luke, they should by all means go to the regions of the Yellowstone: for here, vividly presented to the vision, are the realities of a burning underworld, with only a thin crust between it and the habitation of human beings.
The Bible clearly teaches that hell is located in the center of this earth, and therefore it must be conceded that the ebon throne of Diabolus is somewhere in the heated regions below, the intensity of which the geysers, pools, springs, and volcanoes are continually demonstrating.
