I have been to school. Dame Nature is a most kind and skillful
teacher. She first put me into the ABC class, and advanced me through
conic sections. The first thing in the geyser line she showed me was a
mound of rock, large as a small cock of hay, with a projection on top
large as a shallow pint bowl turned upside down. In the center of this
was a half-inch hole, and from it every two seconds, with a musical
chuckle of steam, a handful of diamond drops of water was ejected to a
height of from two to five feet. I sat down with it half an hour,
compelled to continuous laughter by its own musical cachinnations.
There were all the essentials of a geyser. There was a mound, not
always existent, built up by deposits from the water supersaturated
with mineral. It might be three feet high; it might be thirty. There
was the jet of water ejected by subterranean forces. It might be half
an inch in diameter; it might be three hundred feet, as in the case of
the Excelsior geyser. It might rise six inches; it might rise two
hundred and fifty feet. There was the interval between the jets. It
might be two seconds; it might be weeks or years.
[Illustration: Formation of the Grotto Geyser.]
A subsequent lesson in my Progressive Geyser Reader was the "Economic."
Here was a round basin ten feet in diameter, very shallow, with a hole
in the middle about one foot across. The water was perfectly calm.
But every six minutes a sudden spurt of water and steam would rise
about thirty feet, for thirty seconds, and then settle economically,
without waste of water, into the pool, sinking with pulsations as on an
elastic cushion a foot below the bottom of the pool. One could stride
the opening like a colossus for five and one half minutes without fear.
He might be using the calm depth for a mirror. But stay a moment too
long and he is scalded to death by the sudden outburst.
The next lesson required more patience and gave more abundant reward.
I found a great raised platform on which stood a castellated rock, more
than twenty feet square, that had been built up particle by particle
into a perfect solid by deposits from the fiery flood. In the center
was a brilliant orange-colored throat that went down into the bowels of
the earth. That was not the geyser--it was only the trump through
which the archangel was to blow. I had heard the preliminary tuning of
the instrument.
The guide book said the grand play of this "Castle" geyser began from
eight to thirty hours after a previous exhibition, and was preceded by
jets of water fifteen to twenty feet high, and that these continued
five or six hours before the grand eruption. I hovered near the grand
stand till the full thirty hours and the six predictive hours were
over, and then, as the thunder above roared threateningly and the rain
fell suggestively, I took a rubber coat and camped on the trail of that
famous spouter.
Geysers are more than a trifle freaky. "Old Faithful" is a notable
exception. Every sixty-five minutes, with almost the regularity of
star time, he throws his column of hissing water one hundred and fifty
feet high. Others are irregular, sometimes playing every three hours
for a few times, and then taking a rest for three or more days. This
Castle geyser is not registered to be quiet more than thirty hours, nor
to indulge in preparatory spouts for more than six hours. When I
finally camped to watch it out all these premonitory symptoms had been
duly exhibited. I first carefully noted the frequency and height of
the spouts, that any change might foretell the grand finale. There
were ten spouts to the minute, and an average height of twenty feet.
Hours went by with no hint of a change: ten to the minute, twenty feet
in height. People by the dozen came and asked when it would go off. I
said, "Liable to go any minute; it is long past due now." Stage loads
of tourists, scheduled to run on time, drove up, waited a few minutes,
and drove on, as if the grand object of the trip was to make time--not
to see the grandeur they had come a thousand miles to enjoy. A
photographer set up his camera to catch a shadow of the great display.
He stood, sometimes air-bulb in hand, an hour or two, then folded his
camera tent and stole away. Five hours had passed and night was near.
Everybody was gone. I lay down on the ground to convince myself that I
was perfectly patient. I attained so nearly to Nirvana that a little
ground squirrel came and ran over me, kissing my hand in a most
friendly way.
Six hours of waiting were nearly over when, without a single previous
hint of change, one descending spout was met by an ascending one, and a
vast column of hissing water rose, with a sound of continuous thunder,
one hundred feet in air; and stood there like a pillar of cloud in the
desert. The air throbbed as in a cannonade, and the sun brushed away
all clouds as if he could not bear to miss a sight he had seen perhaps
a million times. Then the top of this upward Niagara bent over like
the calyx of a calla, and the downward Niagara covered all that
elevated masonry with a rushing cascade. Shifting my position a
little, I could see that the sun was thrilling the whole glorious
outpour with rainbows. At such times one can neither measure nor
express emotions by words. In the thunder which anyone can hear there
is always, for all who can receive it, the ineffably sweet voice of the
Father saying, "Thou art my beloved son, and all this grand display is
for thy precious sake."
In sixteen minutes the flow of waters ceased, and a rush of saturated
steam succeeded. At the same time the fierce swish of ascending waters
and of descending cascades ceased, and a clear, definite note, as of a
trumpet, exceeding long and loud, was blown. No archangel could have
done better. As the steam rolled skyward it was condensed, and a very
heavy rain fell on about an acre at the east as it was drifted by the
air. It looked more like lines of water than separated drops. I found
it thoroughly cooled by its flight in the upper air.
I climbed the huge natural masonry, and stood on the top. I could have
put my hand into the hot rushing of measureless power. What a sight it
was! There were the brilliant colors of the throat, open, three feet
wide, and the dazzling whiteness of the steam. At thirty-two minutes
from the beginning the steam suddenly became drier, like that close to
the spout of a kettle, or close to the whistle of an engine. All pure
steam is invisible. At the same time the note of the trumpet
distinctly changed. The heavy rain at the east as suddenly stopped.
The air could absorb the present amount of moisture. One could see
farther down the terrible throat that seemed about to be rent asunder.
The awful grandeur was becoming too much for human endurance. The
contorted forms of rocks on the summit began to take the forms and
heads of dragons, such as the Chinese carve on their monuments. The
awful column began to change its effect from terror to fascination, and
I knew how Empedocles felt when he flung himself into the burning
Aetna. It was time to get down and stand further off.
[Illustration: Bee-Hive Geyser.]
The long waiting had been rewarded. "To patient faith the prize is
sure." The grand tumult began to subside. It was beyond all my
expectations. Nature never disappoints, for she is of God and in her
he yet immanently abides. The next day the sky and all the air were
full of falling rain. How could it be otherwise? It was the geyser
returning to earth. I sought the place. The awful trumpet was silent,
and the steam exhaled as gently as a sleeping baby's breath.
Only one more lesson will be recited at present. I had just arrived in
camp when they told me that the Splendid geyser, after two days of
quiet, was showing signs of uneasiness. I immediately went out to
study my lesson. There was a little hill of very gentle slopes, a
little pool at the top, three holes at the west side of it, with a
dozen sputtering hot springs scattered about, while in a direct line at
the east, within one hundred and forty feet, were the Comet, the Daisy,
and another geyser. The Daisy was a beauty, playing forty feet high
every two or four hours. All the slopes were constantly flowing with
hot water. This general survey was no sooner taken than our glorious
Splendid began to play. The roaring column, tinted with the sunset
glories, gradually climbed to a height of two hundred feet, leaned a
little to the southeast, and bent like a glorious arch of triumph to
the earth, almost as solid on its descending as on its ascending side.
No wonder it is named "Splendid."
Whoever has studied waterfalls of great height--I have seen nearly
forty justly famous falls--has noticed that when a column or mass of
water makes the fearful plunge smaller masses of water are constantly
feathered off at the sides and delayed by the resistance of the air,
while the central mass hurries downward by its concentrated weight.
The general appearance is that of numerous spearheads with serrated
edges, feathered with light, thrust from some celestial armory into the
writhing pool of agonized waters below. In the geyser one gets this
effect both in the ascending and in the descending flood.
Four times that first night dear old Splendid lured me from my bed to
watch her Titanic play in the full light of the moon. During all this
time not a hot spring ceased its boiling, nor a smaller geyser its
wondrous play, for this gigantic outburst of power that might well have
absorbed every energy for a mile around. Obviously they have no
connection. Then my beloved Splendid settled into a three-days' rest.
These are the essential facts of geyser display. There are very many
variations of performance in every respect, I have seen over twenty
geysers in almost jocular, and certainly in overwhelmingly magnificent,
activity.
"To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language."