All kinds of pools, geysers and paint-pots are heated more or less highly, all of them nearly up to, and some much above boiling point.
The heating is not from the visible water being near to any fire or heated surface, but from super-heated steam, generated far below, being forced through the surface water. Sometimes only steam escapes through the surface orifices. These are called vents. The steam coming from some of these is so hot that the skin would be taken from the hand by a single instantaneous application. They seem to be a sort of safety valves from the great steam generators in the bowels of the earth. No wonder the Indian gives this country a clear berth, or that a good schoolmarm tourist constantly had on her lips Hades! Hades!! Hades!!!
To be candid, I think she used the old fashioned word.
LETTER III.
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. A WONDERFUL FORMATION. THE WHITE ELEPHANT. A THEORY ACCOUNTING FOR THE HOT SPRINGS AND GEYSERS. MUD GEYSERS.
MARVELOUS COLORINGS OF SOME POOLS.
The tourist entering the National Park by way of Livingston through the Gardner Canyon, and rocky Gateway, at about sixty miles reaches the "Mammoth Hot Springs". Here he sees a surprising formation. Before him rises in terraces each from twenty to thirty feet high, a great white cataract looking ma.s.s, several hundred feet high, bulging out into the valley. The center projects with rounded contour far beyond the wings, which recede on either side, and to be seen must be skirted.
The entire bent crest is not far from three miles in length. When first approached, it strikes the eye as a succession of water falls tumbling from terrace to terrace. To a second glance it appears a system of falls one above the other hardened into dirty ice. To one who has visited lofty snow clad mountains, an act of deliberation is required to prevent him believing that the terraces are a part of a glacier of more or less purity.
The crests of the different terraces are almost level--some of them apparently exactly so. They are built by water, and, water here levels as it builds, for if there be a depression it seeks it, and depositing the solid matter held in solution, levels it up with the rest. From the crest of the upper terrace runs back a plateau of silicious incrustation covering 300 to 400 acres. Scattered over this, are shallow pools of hot water of a bluish white tinge. About their shallow sides these pools have concentric, tinted borders, some a few inches wide, others of one or two feet. These are bent to conform to the irregular shape of the pools, one within the other, and are several deep. The borders differ from each other in color, being red, orange, yellow and brown and of intermediate shades.
Near the front bulge of the upper terrace, lifts the princ.i.p.al spring or pool on its individual terrace, high above the main plateau. It looks like a turret when seen from below. Flowing in thin sheets over the margin, sometimes a simple ooze, the water from each pool makes a deposit as it spreads over the surrounding surface. At the foot and in front of the great precipice, stand two isolated slender pillars of geyserite, one of them about forty feet high. They are hollow and are the cones or nozzles of extinct geysers. One is called the "Liberty Cap" the other the "Devil"s Thumb." They lift sheer up from the level in front of the great formation, and are a sort of sentinels keeping watch and ward over the wonderful picture. A large part of the precipitous projection of each terrace is moist from slowly trickling water.
At the rear of the great plateau half hidden among scattered trees, is a long fissure in the solid rock foundation of the mountain slope.
Through this has poured up hot water from below, building, as it flowed, a huge white formation two to three hundred feet long, ten to fifteen feet high, and about as broad, rounded and smooth on its crest.
This is supposed to resemble an elephant in rec.u.mbent position and has been aptly named "The White Elephant." If one pauses to listen, he will hear a gurgling of running water down in the leviathan"s inside, not unlike that made when its living namesake pours a draught of water from his trunk down into his throat. Here, as everywhere else in active spring formations, the sound of running water can be heard beneath the surface incrustation. In some instances the ear must be bent down to catch a gentle rippling; in others it deepens into a hoa.r.s.e gurgle.
The silicious crest of all of the plateaux on which a person walks, gives out so hollow a sound, that one is apt to feel somewhat anxious lest it break beneath his weight. I suspect, however, if it should do so, the bottom would be found generally at only a few inches, and a crimped shoe would be the most injurious result. Occasionally, however, the crest may cover a deep pool, but not often. When a pool is very still a film of solid matter spreads over its margin as grease does over cool water. This attaches itself to the edge and spreads towards the center. Gentle ripples then overflow this but do not break it down, but thicken it by further deposits. Sometimes one sees these edges projecting well over a deep pool, and strong enough to bear up the weight of several men; some of these may at some time be the cause of very scalding accidents. The princ.i.p.al danger, however, to a moderately prudent tourist is to his shoe leather. One frequently steps into a little puddle after a geyser ceases to act, or walks into a thin sheet to see more closely the coloring of a pool. Either of such imprudences may cost a pair of good shoes. The safest course is to wear old ones for a ramble and to keep a good dry pair at the hotel.
THEORIES ABOUT THE FORMATIONS.
It may not be amiss to suggest some solution of the problems under which the silicious incrustations are produced and the active geysers act.
[Ill.u.s.tration: JUPITER TERRACE, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. (SEE PAGE 48.)]
The entire Yellowstone Park is an elevated plateau thrown up by volcanic eruption, or more probably was left when the plains sank beneath the ocean, leaving the crumpled back bone of the continent pushed far above. The rocky ribs of earth were pitched here into a more or less vertical position, leaving seams and fissures running deep down into the bowels of the earth in the neighborhood of intense internal fires. Volcanic forces have left their marks throughout the Park. The hot springs and geysers are their feeble remnants.
On the mountain heights, melting snows and rains fill great lakes and copious flowing rivers. These send veins more or less large, or percolate down into the earth crust, supplying the intensely heated rocks with moisture for a vast volume of super-heated steam. The steam seeks an outlet through fissures made in the plutonic rocks by volcanic forces and through seams in the upper crumpled and pitched stratified formations. Pa.s.sing through these latter this intensively heated steam erodes the softer rocks into throats, recesses and pockets, and taking up minerals in chemicals solution bears them upward, meeting the cooler crust and mingling with percolations from melting snows and rains, it becomes more or less condensed and pours out in small springs. These as they flow, deposit the silicious and other mineral matter held in solution, building up the lower side of the spring, until the rim is level. Thus the spring becomes a more or less rounded pool.
The over flow now becomes very gentle and even over the entire rim. The atmosphere reaches the whole of the overflow as it spreads over the surface of the ground and causes rapid precipitation. The constant outpour causes a constant lifting of the pool and of the incrustations about it. This spreading crust is in laminae or thin sheets. As the pool rim lifts, the weight of the column of water forces some of it between the sheets and carries it hot and rich in mineral and earthy solid matter to the outer edges of the formation, where it escapes to spread the incrustation wider and wider. The streams beneath the crust gradually wear away their channels leaving open s.p.a.ces above them, which give out a hollow sound when one walks over them, and in them the rippling or gurgling of flowing water is to be heard more or less, beneath the crust.
When such underflowing streams cut a large enough channel, they frequently build up new small pools more or less removed from the parent spring. In other words one vein of hot water coming from below may be the source of several pools. Yet there are many only a few yards apart, which have sources far removed from each other, or at least the steam which supplies them with their heat and solid matter in solution, has pa.s.sed through widely different and distant rock formations. This is shown by the different and distinct minerals which color the water and the formations deposited by them.
The water in one pool will be comparatively pure, while close by, is that of another strongly impregnated with sulphur, depositing great tufts in yellow and brown, and still another with red borders and olive throat full of oxide of iron. Here will be a pool beautifully green, with exquisitely tinted formations, proving that copper or a.r.s.enic are held in solution; and then within a half stone"s throw is still another of intense cerulean blue and a third of most delicate sapphire.
In one of the paint pots, in the "Lower basin" not over forty feet in diameter, about half of the putty is pearl gray, while the other half is a rich peach blow. I said that the overflow of the pools was generally small. I recall several small ones and a few fully thirty or more feet in diameter, from which the overflow in a calm day was almost uniform from the entire veins, and nowhere thicker than a very thin sheet of gla.s.s. And in some instances the out put was so thin as to be a simple ooze. And yet in many of such pools the boiling action in the centre was great enough to lift bubbles and turbulations many inches high. In one pool called the "Spouter" there are constant large jets lifting from a few inches up to three or more feet, a wild fearful boiling and still only a small stream ran from it. And still others which boiled furiously but had no outflow at all. It is not improbable that from these latter there are water exists below the crusts, which have been lifted up as rims or pool margins. The bubbles and turbulations are not strictly speaking from boiling hot water, but from steam rushing up and striving to escape.
MARVELOUS COLORINGS.
No ordinary stretch of imagination will enable one who has not seen them to realize the variety and exquisiteness of the tints and colorings of many of the pools. The caves of Capri near Naples, furnish not a more wondrous blue, and the grottoes of tropical seas do not afford such variety. The tints are partly derived from the minerals held in solution by the water, but are probably owing more to the reflected tones of the geyserite formation surrounding the throats, walls and margins.
One can easily understand the solution of the problem resulting in the formation and actions of the pools, and of the building of the encrustations of the plateaux, which extend over hundreds of acres. But the actions of geysers are so weird and strange that science has probably not fully explained them. I confess myself too much of a tyro to fully comprehend the more scientific elucidation, which explains the action on chemical principles. I can, however, comprehend the more practical but possibly less scientific theory, which is sufficient for me and will probably also be so for the majority of my readers. The pools and hot springs are formed at all elevations in the valleys and on mountain slopes.
THEORIES AS TO GEYSER ACTION.
The Geysers are always in the valleys and generally contiguous to the lowest points. When lifted up they are probably so raised by their own energies as builders.
On the following page is a cut showing a section of the earth crust, running across a valley and up the mountain side. Along its lowest point flows rapidly a stream of cold clear water fed by melting snows and dews on mountains towering above and more or less distant.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Map]
"_G_" is a geyser cone. Below is the geyser throat or well sinking down to "_W_".
"_S_" is a shaft more or less vertical opening into the geyser well and running far down into the softer rocks to "_C_" a somewhat horizontal continuation leading into "_R_" a recess or pocket in the softer upper rocks of sufficient capacity in some cases to hold hundreds or thousands of tons of water.
"_P_" is another recess opening into "_R_" near its apex. These recesses or pockets have been scooped out by superheated steam pouring up from far below through plutonic rocks contiguous to living central fires. Such steam is generated from veins and percolations of water always sinking from the earth"s surface and from moisture believed to exist in or about all rocks.
"_D_" "_D_" and "_D_" are reservoirs on the surface of the earth or beneath it high up on the mountains, perennially supplied by rains and melting snows.
"_V_" "_V_" "_V_" are veins through which water flows from reservoirs "_D_" "_D_" "_D_" into recess "_R_" at "_X_". These veins are also fed by percolations throughout the formations through which they run.
"_F_" "_F_" are fissures or seams in the upper rocks running into and extending deep down in the primative or igneous rocks below, along which highly heated steam generated near the internal fires underlying earth"s solid crust, rushes upward into recess or pocket "_P_". We will a.s.sume that there are no veins conveying cold water into this latter recess or pocket.
Now we a.s.sume also that at a given moment recesses "_R_" and "_P_" and shaft "_S_" and its continuation "_C_" are free or nearly free of water. Steam, however, is rushing from them and out of geyser "_G_" in hot, roaring volume. In recess "_R_" it is encountering cold water flowing in at "_X_" and rapidly loses its high temperature and is being condensed. As such condensation goes on, the horizontal continuation "_C_" is being filled. As it fills the escape of steam at "_G_" lessens rapidly, until continuation "_C_" becoming full of water, it ceases entirely or only a small amount lifts lazily up from the hot shaft "_S_". The inflow at "_X_" and condensation fills recess "_R_" with water more or less cool. The steam coming up through "_F_", "_F_" no longer having an escape, heats the water in "_R_" until it reaches a line "_L_" in recess "_R_," where it becomes so hot as no longer to condense steam or does it to a very small extent. The pressure of the high heated steam now stops a further inflow at "_X_"
and forces the water upward into shaft "_S_" and is capable of sustaining the column at the geyser throat "_W_" and the column in veins "_V_" at a like height. Condensation having ceased the steam in "_R_" above "_L_" and in "_P_" becomes superheated and acquires enormous expansive power. Finally its energy is so vast that a sudden expansion or explosion takes place. The water at "_L_" is pressed enormously downward and the contents of recess "_R_" are forced upward through shaft "_S_" into the geyser well and then through the contracted nozzle at "_G_" in a mighty jet high into the open air. The action of suddenly expanded or exploded steam is spasmodic and immediate. All of the water in recess "_R_" is therefore rapidly thrown out at "_G_". The water gone, fearfully hot steam follows it through "_G_" until its spasmodic energy ceases almost if not quite as suddenly as it was at first aroused. Immediately the steam, now coming from recess "_R_" begins to go through the cooling process before described, until again the shaft is closed at "_C_" and again a repet.i.tion of the eruption is brought about.
This series of actions is more or less regular in all geysers. In old "Faithful" the round is completed in about sixty-three minutes. The recesses or pockets are of various sizes in different geysers requiring different periods of time to be filled. The time taken to empty them, and in some measure the height of the jets depend probably very largely upon the size of the throat and of the nozzle of the geysers. "Old Faithful" has a comparatively small nozzle. His jet continues for several minutes and mounts to a great height. The same is true of the "Splendid." "The Castle" spurts up a very much larger volume of water; but not nearly so high, from a huge throat and in very much less time.
The "Excelsior" has a throat many feet in diameter, and ejects a column proportionately large. Its actions are not regular and indeed it is rather a water volcano than a geyser, throwing up large stones and gravel.
"Young Faithful" emits no steam. It is probably only a sort of adjunct of some of the violently boiling pools near by. Steam, which in some of these cause violent turbulations at regular intervals, forces water through lateral shafts up through this little gem. Its throat is very small. A considerable body of water pa.s.sing from behind with only a moderate force, yet finding only the small throat, makes a jet of considerable height. Jets resembling it are frequently seen on low rocky cliffs on the sea sh.o.r.e, caused by the ocean swell pa.s.sing into grottoes and caverns and forcing water up along small fissures through the overhanging rock, called "puffing holes". The foregoing theory of geyser action may not bear the test of close criticism, but it is probable that such criticism may be answered by hypotheses not here alluded to. At all events it may be sufficiently satisfactory for the ordinary mind.
LETTER IV.
HOW TO DO THE PARK. HOTELS AND VEHICLES. MY INNOCENTS. CHARMING SCENERY. NATURAL MEADOWS. WILD ANIMALS. BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS. DEBTS TO THE DEVIL. CAMP LIFE AND FISHING. WONDERFUL CANYON. PAINTED ROCKS.
GLORIOUS WATERFALLS. NATURE GROTESQUE AND BEAUTIFUL.
GRAND CANYON, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, July 24, 1890.
I will say at the beginning of this letter, a few words as to how the Park"s wonders can be seen. There are a.s.sociations under leases from the Government and supposed to be under its control, which regulate the movements of regular tourists, in and through the park; one for transportation alone, and the other for feeding and housing.
The latter has five hotels, two of them completed--two others sufficiently so to house their guests. The completed houses are, one at "Mammoth Hot Springs," the other at "Grand Canyon." These are fairly appointed hotels and each is capable of nicely accommodating several hundred guests. Aside from these there are two where a tourist can live in comfort, provided he be not over fastidious. The largest and best hotel is at "Mammoth Hot Springs," at an elevation of 6,200 feet. The next best and next largest one is at "Grand Canyon," 7,500 feet up.
Several other hotels are partially finished.
The transportation company has some seventy-five vehicles, two-thirds, if not three-fourths of them Concord stages and wagonettes carrying six to seven pa.s.sengers, but capable of carrying three or four more by placing three on a seat; the other vehicles are four-pa.s.senger surreys.
The coaches and wagonettes each have four horses, the surreys two. The tourist purchases tickets for the round trip. Forty dollars carries one from Livingston on the railroad to Mammoth Hot Springs and then around the park, occupying five and a quarter days. This includes hotel expenses. One thus sees everything in the grand tour, but somewhat hurriedly. However, quite a number stop over at the "Upper Geyser Basin" and at "Grand Canyon;" the stop-overs thus making room for those who had halted the day before. There are at this time tourists enough to start out each day from Mammoth Hot Springs about five coaches and several surreys all leaving at a fixed hour and reaching points of interests or other hotels close together, each vehicle maintaining its position in the line throughout the tour. Thus racing is prevented. A great mistake is made in keeping the vehicles in line too close together. For at times the dust on some of the roads is very deep, causing pa.s.sengers in some of the vehicles to be choked and rendered very uncomfortable. It rains frequently throughout the park; but for this the tour would be almost unbearable. Our party was in this respect very fortunate.