Towing is not ordinarily required in any part of the canal, except in the locks, for steam or motor vessels. Tug service for sailing ships or vessels without motive power is at the rate of $15 per hour. If the channel in the cut has been disturbed by a slide, tugs may be used to handle vessels past the narrow places, but in such cases there is no charge for the service to vessels of less than 15,000 gross tonnage.
What is a Geyser?
The famous geyser shown in the [illustration] is called “Old Faithful” because of the clock-like regularity of its eruptions. For over twenty years it has been spouting at average intervals of sixty-five minutes.
Geysers were first observed in Iceland and the name, therefore, comes from that language, being derived from the word “geysa,” meaning “to gush” or “rush forth.” That is just what they do.
There are really three different kinds of geysers; one which throws up hot water, either continually or, like “Old Faithful,” at intervals; one which simply emits steam and no water and one which is a sort of a hot-water cistern.
The “Grand Geyser” at Firehole Basin in Yellowstone Park is the most magnificent natural fountain in the whole world. The “Great Geyser” and the “New Geyser” are the most remarkable ones in Iceland, where there are about a hundred altogether. The basin of the former is about seventy feet in diameter, and at times it throws up a column of hot water to the height of from eighty to two hundred feet in the air.
The hot-lake district of Auckland, New Zealand, is also famous in possessing some of the most remarkable geyser scenery in the world. It was formerly noted for the number of natural terraces containing hot water pools, and its lakes all filled at intervals by boiling geysers and hot springs, but the formation of the country was considerably altered by a disastrous volcanic outbreak in 1886, its beautiful pink and white terraces being destroyed. It still has, however, a circular rocky basin, forty feet in diameter, in which a violent geyser is constantly boiling up to the height of ten to twelve feet, emitting dense clouds of steam. This is one of the natural wonders of the southern hemisphere and is much visited by tourists traveling through New Zealand.