FROM THE FALLS TO THE LAKE.
Half a mile above the Upper Fall the Yellowstone gives no intimation of
its approaching career of wildness and grandeur. It rolls peacefully
between low verdant banks and over pebbly reaches or spaces of
quicksand, with beautiful curves and a majestic motion. Its waters
are clear and cold, and of the emerald hue characteristic of Niagara.
Great numbers of small springs, fed by the slowly melting snows of
the mountains, flow from the densely wooded foot-hills, irrigating
the "bottoms," and sustaining a growth of grass and flowers that
clothes the lowlands with freshness and vividness of color. Everything
terrific, diabolic, volcanic, would seem to have been left behind.
The first hint to the contrary is given by a pretty little rivulet,
a yard wide and a few inches deep, clear as crystal, winding along
through the rank grass to join the Yellowstone. It looks like any
clear-watered mountain stream; but a single taste shows that it has
a different origin. It is strongly charged with alum--hence its name,
Alum Creek--and its source is in a remarkable group of sulphur and alum
springs two or three miles further on,--that is, about ten miles above
the falls.
All about these springs are evidences of volcanic action in great
variety and profusion. Mr. Langford says:
"The region was filled with boiling springs and craters. Two hills,
each 300 feet high, and from a quarter to half a mile across, had
been formed wholly of the sinter thrown from adjacent springs--lava,
sulphur, and reddish-brown clay. Hot streams of vapor were pouring
from crevices scattered over them. Their surfaces answered in hollow
intonations to every footstep, and in several places yielded to
the weight of our horses. Steaming vapor rushed hissingly from the
fractures, and all around the natural vents large quantities of sulphur
in crystallized form, perfectly pure, had been deposited. This could be
readily gathered with pick and shovel. A great many exhausted craters
dotted the hill-side. One near the summit, still alive, changed its
hues like steel under the process of tempering, to every kiss of the
passing breeze. The hottest vapors were active beneath the incrusted
surface everywhere. A thick leathern glove was no protection to the
hand exposed to them. Around these immense thermal deposits, the
country, for a great distance in all directions, is filled with boiling
springs, all exhibiting separate characteristics.
"The most conspicuous of the cluster is a sulphur spring twelve
by twenty feet in diameter, encircled by a beautifully scolloped
sedimentary border, in which the water is thrown to a height of from
three to seven feet. The regular formation of this border, and the
perfect shading of the scollops forming it, are among the most delicate
and wonderful freaks of nature's handiwork. They look like an elaborate
work of art. This spring is located at the western base of Crater Hill,
above described, and the gentle slope around it for a distance of 300
feet is covered to considerable depth with a mixture of sulphur and
brown lava. The moistened bed of a small channel, leading from the
spring down the slope, indicated that it had recently overflowed.
"A few rods north of this spring, at the base of the hill, is a cavern
whose mouth is about seven feet in diameter, from which a dense jet of
sulphurous vapor explodes with a regular report like a high-pressure
engine. A little farther along we came upon another boiling spring,
seventy feet long by forty wide, the water of which is dark and muddy
and in unceasing agitation.
"About a hundred yards distant we discovered a boiling alum spring,
surrounded with beautiful crystals, from the border of which we
gathered a quantity of alum, nearly pure, but slightly impregnated
with iron. The violent ebullition of the water had undermined the
surrounding surface in many places, and for the distance of several
feet from the margin had so thoroughly saturated the incrustation with
its liquid contents, that it was unsafe to approach the edge. As one of
our company was unconcernedly passing near the brink, the incrustation
suddenly sloughed off beneath his feet. A shout of alarm from his
comrades aroused him to a sense of his peril, and he only avoided being
plunged into the boiling mixture by falling suddenly backward at full
length upon the firm portion of the crust, and rolling over to a place
of safety. His escape from a horrible death was most marvellous, and in
another instant he would have been beyond all human aid. Our efforts to
sound the depths of this spring with a pole thirty-five feet in length
were fruitless."
The report of the Geological Expedition describes these curious
springs somewhat more minutely. The first that attracted Dr. Hayden's
attention was the powerful steam-vent above mentioned, which he calls
the Locomotive Jet. "The aperture is about six inches in diameter, a
sort of raised chimney, and all around are numerous small continuous
steam-vents, all of which are elegantly lined with the bright-yellow
sulphur. The entire surface is covered with the white silicious
crust, which gives forth a hollow sound beneath the tread; and we
took pleasure in breaking it up in the vicinity of the vents, and
exposing the wonderful beauty of the sulphur-coating on the inner
sides. This crust is ever hot, and yet so firm that we could walk over
it anywhere. On the south side of these hills, close to the foot, is
a magnificent sulphur-spring. The deposits around it are silica; but
some places are white, and enamelled like the finest porcelain. The
thin edges of the nearly circular rim extend over the waters of the
basin several feet, yet the open portion is fifteen feet in diameter.
The water is in a constant state of agitation. The steam that issues
from this spring is so strong and hot that it was only on the windward
side that I could approach it and ascertain its temperature, 197°. The
agitation seemed to affect the entire mass, carrying it up impulsively
to the height of four feet. It may be compared to a huge caldron of
perfectly clear water somewhat superheated. But it is the decorations
about this spring that lent the charm, after our astonishment at the
seething mass before us--the most beautiful scolloping around the rim,
and the inner and outer surface covered with a sort of pearl-like
bead work. The base is the pure white silica, while the sulphur gave
every possible shade, from yellow to the most delicate cream. No kind
of embroidering that human art can conceive or fashion could equal
this specimen of the cunning skill of nature. On the northeast side
of the hills, extending from their summits, are large numbers of the
steam-vents, with the sulphur linings and deposits of the sulphur over
the surface. These hills are entirely due to the old hot springs, and
are from 50 to 150 feet in height. The rock is mostly compact silica,
but there is almost every degree of purity, from a kind of basalt to
the snow-white silica. Some of it is a real conglomerate, with a fine
silicious cement inclosing pebbles of white silica, like those seen
around the craters of some geysers. Although at the present time there
are no true geysers in this group, the evidence is clear that these
were, in former times, very powerful ones, that have built up mountains
of silica by their overflow. The steam-vents on the side and at the
foot of these hills represent the dying stages of this once most active
group. Quite a dense growth of pines now covers these hills, which
rise up in the midst of the plains, and from their peculiar white
appearance are conspicuous for a great distance. At one point there is
a steam-vent so hot that it is difficult to approach it, emitting a
strong sulphurous smell, and within two feet of it there is a larger
spring, boiling like a caldron. So far as I can determine, there is no
underground connection of any of the springs with each other. Sometimes
the rims of these craters, as well as the inner sides of their basins,
have a beautiful papulose surface, the silica just covered with a
thin veil of delicate creamy sulphur. At this locality are some very
remarkable turbid and mud springs. One of them has a basin twenty feet
in diameter, nearly circular in form, and the contents have almost the
consistency of thick hasty-pudding. Indeed, there is no comparison that
can bring before the mind a clearer picture of such a mud volcano than
a huge caldron of thick mush. The surface is covered all over with
puffs of mud, which, as they burst, give off a thudlike noise, and then
fine mud-waves recede from the centre of the puffs in the most perfect
rings to the side. Although there are hundreds of these mudpots, yet it
is very rare that the mud is in just the condition to admit of these
peculiar rings. The thud is, of course, produced by the escape of the
sulphureted hydrogen gas through the mud. The mud is so fine as to
have no visible or sensible grain, and is very strongly impregnated
with alum. For three hundred yards in length and twenty-five yards in
width, the valley of this little branch of Alum Creek is perforated
with these mud-vents of all sizes, and the contents are of all degrees
of consistency, from merely turbid water to a thick mortar. The entire
surface is perfectly bare of vegetation, and hot, yielding in many
places to a slight pressure. I attempted to walk about among these
simmering vents, and broke through to my knees, covering myself with
the hot mud, to my great pain and subsequent inconvenience. One of the
largest of the turbid springs has a basin with a nearly circular rim
twenty feet from the margin to the water, and forty feet in diameter.
There are two or three centres of ebullition; temperature, 188°."
A couple of miles above these springs, near the banks of the
Yellowstone, is a not less remarkable group of sulphur and mud springs.
All the intermediate space abounds in the remains of similar springs,
now quiescent or dead, yet giving evidence of former power and activity
beyond that displayed by any now existing. "There were giants in those
days!" Mr. Langford describes a group of these "unsightly caldrons,"
varying in size from two to ten feet in diameter; their surfaces from
three to eight feet below the level of the plain: "The contents of the
most of them were of the consistency of thick paint, which they greatly
resembled, some being yellow, others pink, and others dark brown. This
semi-fluid was boiling at a fearful rate, much after the fashion of
a hasty-pudding in the last stages of completion. The bubbles, often
two feet in height, would explode with a puff, emitting at each time
a villainous smell of sulphuretted vapor. Springs six and eight feet
in diameter, but four feet asunder, presented distinct phenomenal
characteristics. There was no connection between them, above or below.
The sediment varied in color, and not unfrequently there would be
an inequality of five feet in their surfaces. Each, seemingly, was
supplied with a separate force. They were embraced within a radius of
1,200 feet, which was covered with a strong incrustation, the various
vents in which emitted streams of heated vapor. Our silver watches,
and other metallic articles, assumed a dark leaden hue. The atmosphere
was filled with sulphurous gases, and the river opposite our camp was
impregnated with the mineral bases of adjacent springs. At the base
of adjacent foot-hills we found three springs of boiling mud, the
largest of which, forty feet in diameter, encircled by an elevated
rim of solid tufa, resembles an immense caldron. The seething,
bubbling contents, covered with steam, are five feet below the rim.
The disgusting appearance of this spring is scarcely atoned for by the
wonder with which it fills the beholder. The other two springs, much
smaller, but presenting the same general features, are located near a
large sulphur spring of milder temperature, but too hot for bathing.
On the brow of an adjacent hillock, amid the green pines, heated vapor
issues in scorching jets from several craters and fissures. Passing
over the hill, we struck a small stream of perfectly transparent water
flowing from a cavern, the roof of which tapers back to the water,
which is boiling furiously, at a distance of twenty feet from the
mouth, and is ejected through it in uniform jets of great force. The
sides and entrance of the cavern are covered with soft, green sediment,
which renders the rock on which it is deposited as soft and pliable as
putty.
"About two hundred yards from this cave is a most singular phenomenon,
which we called the Muddy Geyser. It presents a funnel-shaped orifice,
in the midst of a basin one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, with
sloping sides of clay and sand. The crater or orifice, at the surface,
is thirty by fifty feet in diameter. It tapers quite uniformly to
the depth of about thirty feet, where the water may be seen, when the
geyser is in repose, presenting a surface of six or seven feet in
breadth. The flow of this geyser is regular every six hours. The water
rises gradually, commencing to boil when about half way to the surface,
and occasionally breaking forth in great violence. When the crater is
filled, it is expelled from it in a splashing, scattered mass, ten or
fifteen feet in thickness, to the height of forty feet. The water is of
a dark lead color, and deposits the substance it holds in solution in
the form of miniature stalagmites upon the sides and top of the crater.
As this was the first object which approached a geyser, we, naturally
enough, regarded it with intense curiosity....
"While returning by a new route to our camp, dull, thundering sounds,
which General Washburn likened to frequent discharges of a distant
mortar, broke upon our ears. We followed their direction, and found
them to proceed from a mud volcano, which occupied the slope of a
small hill, embowered in a grove of pines. Dense volumes of steam
shot into the air with each report, through a crater thirty feet in
diameter. The reports, though irregular, occurred as often as every
five seconds, and could be distinctly heard half a mile. Each alternate
report shook the ground a distance of two hundred yards or more, and
the massive jets of vapor which accompanied them burst forth like the
smoke of burning gunpowder. It was impossible to stand on the edge of
that side of the crater opposite the wind, and one of our party, Mr.
Hedges, was rewarded for his temerity in venturing too near the rim,
by being thrown by the force of the volume of steam violently down the
outer side of the crater. From hasty views, afforded by occasional
gusts of wind, we could see at a depth of sixty feet the regurgitating
contents."
[Illustration: THE MUD VOLCANO.]
"This volcano, as is evident from the freshness of the vegetation
and the particles of dried clay adhering to the topmost branches of
the trees surrounding it, is of very recent formation. Probably it
burst forth but a few months ago. Its first explosion must have been
terrible. We saw limbs of trees 125 feet high encased in clay, and
found its scattered contents two hundred feet from it."
On the east side of the Yellowstone, close to the margin of the
river, are a few turbid springs, and mud-springs strongly impregnated
with alum. The mud is yellow and contains much sulphur. These, the
discoverers, Dr. Hayden and his company, called Mud-sulphur Springs.
The main basin is 15 by 30 feet, and has three centres of ebullition,
showing that deep in the earth are three independent orifices for the
emission of heated waters. Dr. Hayden's description of the roaring
spring issuing from a cavern, coincides with that given above. He
called it the Grotto. Around all these springs he observed an abundance
of grasses, rushes, mosses, and other plants growing with a surprising
luxuriance. The recent mud-volcano described by Mr. Langford was
considered by Dr. Hayden as the most remarkable mud-spring thus far
discovered in the West.
"It does not boil with an impulse like most of the mud-springs,"
he says, "but with a constant roar which shakes the ground for a
considerable distance, and may be heard for half a mile. A dense column
of steam is ever rising, filling the crater, but now and then a passing
breeze will remove it for a moment, revealing one of the most terrific
sights one could well imagine. The contents are composed of thin mud
in a continual state of the most violent agitation, like an immense
caldron of mush submitted to a constant, uniform, but most intense
heat.... All the indications around this most remarkable caldron show
that it has broken out at a recent period; that the caving in of the
sides so choked up the orifice that it relieved itself, hurling the
muddy contents over the living pines in the vicinity."
The steam rising from this spring--the Giant's Caldron--can be seen
for many miles in every direction. The movements of Muddy Geyser were
closely watched for twenty-four hours by Mr. Campbell Carrington, who
was specially detailed for that duty by Dr. Hayden. His observations
began about nine o'clock A.M., July 1st. Then the pool was calm.
Shortly after, he heard the loud, hissing noise of escaping steam.
Hurrying to the geyser, he saw a wave about three feet in height
rise and die away to the left; three similar waves followed in quick
succession. Their dense columns of steam burst up to the height of
twenty feet, with a dull, heavy explosion, the action continuing for
fifteen minutes, when the spring ceased flowing as suddenly as it
had begun. The average height of the flowing was about fifteen feet,
though some of the jets reached fully thirty feet. Five minutes after
the eruption the pool measured twenty-five feet in circumference and
three in depth, where before it was a hundred feet in circumference and
eleven in depth. Ten minutes later the mud began to rise slowly in the
pool. This continued for a little over three hours, when the spring
began to boil near the centre. The ebullition gradually increased in
violence for twenty minutes, then it suddenly stopped, and the eruption
began as at first. This rising, falling, and overflowing took place
eight times in twenty-four hours. The following table shows the time of
the observed flowings and their length:
"First flowing, 9.20 A.M. to 9.35 A.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Second flowing, 1.30 P.M. to 1.50 P.M.; length, 20 minutes.
"Third flowing, 5 P.M. to 5.15 P.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Fourth flowing, 8.30 P.M. to 8.50 P.M.; length, 20 minutes.
"Fifth flowing, 12.30 P.M. to 12.45 P.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Sixth flowing, 4 A.M. to 4.15 A.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Seventh flowing, 7.30 A.M. to 7.45 A.M.; length, 15 minutes.
"Eighth flowing, 11 A.M. to 11.10 A.M.; length, 10 minutes.
"Total length of time, 26 hours. Aggregate time of flowing, three hours
and 15 minutes. Average length of flowings, 15 minutes and 37 and one
half seconds."