The Geysers in Winter [larger]

The Geysers

They are variously located in three distinct basins which are far enough apart to give the traveler by stage a few geysers with each day's entertainment. These basins are great wastes of a white deposition called in Park vernacular "the formation" under which must be boiling one of the mighty cauldrons of the earth, for one can feel under foot a tremble, and can hear through a hundred orifices the hiss of steam and the angry murmur of the waters below.

The coming and going of the geysers is an astonishing and awe-inspiring spectacle, and so accurately timed and so certain to perform are they, that no one need miss the experience. The geyser passive is a hole at the summit of a cone. The cone rises gradually from the plane of the formation and, ragged and deep, growls hoarsely and steams fitfully. Thus it is a moment before its time for activity, and then comes the geyser active. There is a loud preliminary roar and then suddenly, with a rush and power almost terrifying, a white obelisk of scalding, steaming water is lifted into the air sometimes 250 feet, and there held scintillating and glistening in the sun until the play is over, when it sinks gradually back from whence it came, and the fitful growling and steaming begins anew.

Every geyser has a time of its own and there are thousands of them, varying in size from the little growler that sputters and spits a thimbleful from its tiny throat, to the Giant that three times a month plays for ninety minutes, 250 feet high.

How old the geysers are, recorded time does not tell, but one or two of the wise men, who are always measuring the duration of things by some system of calculation, have determined by multiplying the deposition from each eruption by the height of the cone, that the Giant, for instance, has been playing some thousands of years.

If those who come and go across the land every year on pleasure bent only knew how curious and beautiful geysers are, the National Park would count its visitors by multitudes.