The most remarkable geyser country in the world, alike for the size and the number of its spouting fountains, is the Yellowstone region in the northwest part of the Territory of Wyoming, in the United States, which, by a special act of Congress, has been reserved as the Yellowstone National Park, exempt from settlement, purchase or preemption. Here nearly every form of geyser and unintermittent hot spring occurs, with deposits of various kinds, silicious, calcareous, etc. Of the hot springs, Dr. Peale enumerates 2,195, and considers that within the limits of the park—which is about 54 miles by 62 miles, and includes 3,312 square miles—as many as 3,000 actually exist. The same geologist notes the existence of 71 geysers in the area mentioned, though some of the number are only inferred to be spouting springs from the form of their basins and the character of the surrounding deposits. Of this vast collection of still and eruptive springs, between which there seems every gradation, those which do not send water into the air are, owing to the magnificent cascades which they form, often quite as remarkable as those which take the shape of geysers. The more striking of the latter may, however, be briefly mentioned.
In the Gibbon Basin is a geyser of late origin. In 1878 this consisted of two steam holes, roaring on the side of a hill, that looked as if they had recently burst through the surface; and the gully leading towards the ravine was at that date filled with sand, which appeared to have been poured out during an eruption. Dead trees stood on the line of this sand floor, and others, with their bark still remaining, and even with their foliage not lost, were uprooted hard by, everything indicating that the “steamboat vent,” as it was called, was of recent formation. In 1875 it had no existence, but in 1879 the spouting spring—which first opened, it is believed, on the 11th of August in the preceding year—had “settled down to business as a very powerful flowing geyser,” with a double period; one eruption occurring every half hour, and projecting water to the height of 30 feet; the main eruption occurring every six or seven days, with long continued action, and a column of nearly 100 feet.
The New Geyser in the same basin is also of quite recent origin. It consists of two fissures in the rock, in which the water boils vigorously. But there is no mound, and the rocks of the fissure are just beginning to get a coating of the silicious geyserite deposited from the water, so that it cannot long have been spouting. Again, in the Grotto Geyser—in the Upper Geyser Basin of Fire Hole River—the main or larger crater is hollowed into fantastic arches, beneath which are the grotto-like cavities from which it is named, which act as lateral orifices for the escape of water during an eruption. It plays several times in the course of the twenty-four hours, and sends a column of water sixty feet high, the eruption lasting an hour. As yet, however, the force of the water has not been sufficient, or of sufficiently long duration, to break through the arches covering the basin or crater. The Excelsior—claimed to be the largest of its order, which sent water nearly 300 feet into the air at intervals of about five hours, and of such volume as to wash away bridges over small streams below—was not, until comparatively recent years, known as a specially powerful geyser. But if it had for a time waned in importance, its immense crater, 330 feet in length and 200 feet at the widest part, shows that at a still earlier date it was a gigantic fountain. In this deep pit, when the breeze wafted aside the clouds of steam constantly arising from its surface, the water could be seen seething 15 or 20 feet below the surrounding level. Yet into the cauldron of boiling water a little stream of cold water, from the melting snow of the uplands, ran unceasingly. Since 1888 this great geyser has been inactive.
The Castle Geyser is so named on account of the fancied resemblance which its mound of white and grey deposit presents to the ruins of a feudal keep, the crater itself being placed on a cone or turret, which has a somewhat imposing appearance compared with the other geysers in the neighborhood. It throws a column usually about fifty or sixty feet high, at intervals of two or three hours, but sometimes the discharge shoots up much higher.
The Giant, in the Upper Geyser Basin, has a peculiar crater, which has been likened to the stump of a hollow sycamore tree of gigantic proportions, whose top has been wrenched off by a storm. This curious cup is broken down at one side, as though it had been torn away during an eruption of more than ordinary violence, and on this side the visitor is able to look into the crater, if he can contrive to avoid the jets which are constantly spouted from it. The periods of rest which it takes are varied, an eruption often not occurring for several days at a time; yet when it breaks out it continues playing for more than three hours, with a volume of water reaching a height of from 130 to 140 feet. In the interval little spouts are constantly in progress. Mr. Stanley saw one eruption which he calculated to have shot a column of water to the height of more than 200 feet. At first it seemed as though the geyser was only making a feint, the discharge which preceded the great one being merely repeated several times, followed by a cessation both of the rumbling noises and of the ejection of water. But soon, after a premonitory cloud of steam, the geyser began to work in earnest, the column discharged rising higher and higher, until it reached the altitude mentioned.
“At first it appeared to labor in raising the immense volume, which seemed loath to start on its heavenward tour; but it was with perfect ease that the stupendous column was held to its place, the water breaking into jets and returning in glittering showers to the basin. The steam ascended in dense volumes for thousands of feet, when it was freighted on the wings of the winds and borne away in clouds. The fearful rumble and confusion attending it were as the sound of distant artillery, the rushing of many horses to battle, or the roar of a fearful tornado. It commenced to act at 2 P. M., and continued for an hour and a half, the latter part of which it emitted little else than steam, rushing upward from its chambers below, of which, if controlled, there was enough to run an engine of wonderful power. The waving to and fro of such a gigantic fountain, when the column is at its height,
‘Tinselled o’er in robes of varying hues,’
and glistening in the bright sunlight, which adorns it with the glowing colors of many a gorgeous rainbow, affords a spectacle so wonderful and grandly magnificent, so overwhelming to the mind, that the ablest attempt at description gives the reader who has never witnessed such a display but a feeble idea of its glory.”
A DESCRIPTION OF THE GEYSER AT WORK
The only other geysers in this remarkable geyserland which we can spare room to notice are those known as the Giantess, the Beehive, and the Grand. The Giantess sends a column of water to the height of 250 feet. An eruption is usually divided into three periods—two preliminary efforts and a final one, divided from each other by intervals of between one and two hours, while the intervals of discharge are very long. Sometimes it does not play for several weeks. The Beehive, which is 400 feet from the Giantess, gets its name from the peculiar beehive-like cone which it has formed. The eruption is also almost unique. It is heralded by a slight escape of steam, which is followed by a column of steam and water, shooting to the height of over 200 feet. The column is somewhat fan-shaped, but it does not fall in rain, the spray being evaporated and carried off as steam—if, indeed, there is not more steam than water in the column. The duration of the discharge is between four and five minutes, and the interval between two eruptions from twenty-one to twenty-five hours.