15
YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1870
with grassy margins, a slow current, and spread out
to a width of from 200 to 400 feet. The bottom is pebbly or quicksand,
the water of crystal clearness, and cold again. The little valley is marshy,
for which reason we traveled on the slopes of the ridges, crossing at intervals
open glades between them. Through one of these flows Alum Creek, a small
stream coming in from the west, its bed dyed of an inky blackness by the
deposit from its strongly impregnated waters. Six miles above the falls
we entered a wide valley of calcareous formation, open and branching among
timber ridges on either side of the river, which runs through its center
in a northeast course, an old lake bed, as are all the grassy sections
of the basin. On the north side of the river appeared the great steam jets
before alluded to, in ravines opening into this valley. A good-sized stream,
known as Hellroaring River, emptied in near by from the north. From the
southwest a shallow stream came in also, and in front, near the center
of the valley, were several large white hills to which we directed our
course. Elk were feeding in small bands on the other side of the valley,
and large flocks of water fowl were frequently seen sporting in the river
channel. The white hills, or the "Seven Hills," as we afterward named them,
proved well worth a visit. He is a group of large mounds varying from 200
to 500 feet in height, each of which has been deposited by the action of
a single spring, and at their basis a system of nature's chemical works
on the grandest scale. I climbed to the summit of the two loftiest of these
hills; their formations are identical, all being composed of calcareous
matter, solid within, but shelly on the exterior, and when decomposed of
a snowy whiteness. The slopes were covered with shales, slid down from
above. On the summits were ruins of craters of great size and former solidity,
now choked up with dèbris. From hydrostatic pressure all the springs
had burst out below at the foot of the slopes, but through innumerable
small vents all over the surface of the hills hot sulphur vapor escaped,
subliming around the vents in splendid crystals of large size. The rocks
were everywhere warm, and in some places hot to the touch; wherever the
horses feet broke through the crust hot vapor escaped. Everywhere
the rocks gave forth a hollow sound beneath our tread, and in many places
the intense heat caused them to bulge out in a scaly formation, which broke
through on the slightest pressure of the foot, whereupon scalding vapor
poured out in such volumes as to cause a hasty retreat. The greatest spring
in appearance lies at the base of the highest hill and is intensely sulphurous,
great clouds of vapor constantly escaping. It measure 15 by 20 feet on
the inside; the water boils up constantly from three to seven feet in height,
the whole surface rising and falling occasionally with a flux and reflux
of four feet additional, overflowing its basin and receding every few minutes.
The basin is built up with a solid rim or lining or pure crystalline sulphur,
four feet in width all around the edge, probably amounting to forty tons
in weight. The water is clear, but of a whitish cast, and above the boiling
point, steam being evolved from its surface. The basin cannot be approached
nearer than 20 feet distant on account of the scalding vapors. A small
channel leads down the slope and for several hundred feet its bed is incrusted
with a sulphur deposit, showing that the spring occasionally flows a considerable
quantity of water. This deposit is from three to ten inches deep. Farther
along the base of the same hill is a sulphurous cavern 20 feet in visible
depth and 8 feet in diameter, out of which issued jets of vapor with a
sound like the puffing of a high-pressure steamboat. These jets pulsate
regularly, and the vapor is intensely hot. Scattered along the bases of
the next hills Go
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