30
YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1870
stream, coming in from the south, are swampy flats,
from which many partially submerged craters project. These boil violently
and flow quantities of hot water, but do not throw jets. Near the mouth
of the stream, and on the west side, is a lake of bluestone water, 100
feet in diameter, with steam evolving from its waters, which flow over
a low rim in every direction down the slopes depositing a yellow bed, which
is now many feet in thickness. Below this, on the margin of the stream,
is a spring 30 feet in diameter, boiling with great fury, and flowing a
large stream into the creek. On the opposite side, at a distance of fifty
yards, a fissure in the strata becomes visible, six feet in width and of
unknown depth. It is bridged in most places with rock, but has frequent
steam vents, and runs a large stream of hot water from west to east with
a rapid movement. This stream can be traced for a distance of three hundred
yards, the rush of its subterranean waters being distinctly audible from
under ground. In the angle of the woods at the mouth of the creek are several
large bluestone springs, some flowing, others quiescent. Whole trees fallen
in the craters of these are incrusted with a white, calcareous deposit,
and gradually turn to stone; leaves, pine cones, grasshoppers, and twigs,
are also thus incrusted in the most delicate manner. In these springs are
calcareous deposits in the shape of mushrooms, with tops spreading out
at the surface of the water. These are often fifteen feet in diameter,
and supported by stems ten feet high and two feet thick, all of solid rock.
There are two cones on the opposite bank, 40 to 50 feet in height, with
small springs in their summits. The space in the angle between the streams
is partially filled with a slimy marsh. Along both banks of the Firehole
River are the greatest of the geysers. Our camp was a few hundred yards
below the first crater described, and the most beautiful of them all. Near
the bank of the river, and a half a mile below camp, rose on the farther
margin of a marshy lake the Castle Crater, the largest formation in the
valley. The calcareous knoll on which it stands is 40 feet in height, and
covers several acres. The crater is built up from its center, with irregular
walls of spherical nodules, in forms of wondrous beauty, to a castellated
turret, 40 feet in height and 200 feet in circumference at the base. The
outer rim, at its summit, is formed in embrasures between large nodules
of rock, of the tint of ashes of roses, and in the center is a crater three
feet in diameter, bordered and lined with a frost-work of saffron. From
a distance it strongly resembles an old feudal tower partially in ruins.
This great crater is continually pouring forth steam, the condensation
of which keeps the outside walls constantly wet and dripping. The deposit
is silver-gray in color, and the structure is wonderful in its massiveness,
completion, and exquisite tracery of outline. At the base of the turret
lies a large pine log, covered with a nodular and brilliant incrustation
to the depth of several inches. The wood of this log is also petrified.
The waters of this geyser have burst out in a new place, near the foot
of the old crater, flowing a large stream, boiling violently, and diminishing
the action of the great vent, yet we saw the latter on one occasion throw
water to the perpendicular height of 60 feet, with the escape of heavy
volumes of steam. It had doubtless been, when intact, the greatest fountain
of them all. Near by, and on the same hillock, is a bluestone spring, with
an indented marginal basin, 25 feet in diameter; this stands level-full.
Its interior lining is of a silver tint, and the water in its perpendicular
shaft appears to be of unfathomable depth.
A few hundred yards farther down the stream is
a crater of flinty rock, in shape resembling a huge shattered horn, broken
off half way Go
to next page
Go
back to Yellowstone Historical Almanac
Go back to
Yellowstone History Guide
Go back to The Magic
of Yellowstone front page