Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
down to the Firehole River; and thus "Old Faithful" keeps it up
regularly every hour. The eruption being ended, you can look down into
the abyss whence it came. Through the hot steam, rushing out with a
strong draught, there is a view far down into the rocky recesses of
the geyser. The water left by the eruption stands about in transparent
shallow pools, and is tinted a pale blue. "Old Faithful's" mound is
built up of layers of geyserite--hard, brittle, porous, full of
crevices, and having all about little basins with turned-up rims that
retain the water. This geyser is the favorite in the region, not only
because of its regular performance, but possibly because its odors are
somewhat less sulphurous than those emanating elsewhere.
The geysers of the Upper Basin contribute practically the whole
current of the Firehole River, their outflow sending into the stream
ten million gallons daily. Across the river to the northward, close to
the bank, is the Beehive, its tube looking like a huge bird's nest,
enclosed by a pile of geyserite resembling a beehive, three feet high
and about four feet in diameter. Nearby is a vent from which steam,
escaping a few minutes before the eruption, gives notice of its
coming. The water column shoots up two hundred feet, with clouds of
steam, but it is quite uncertain, spouting once or twice in
twenty-four hours, and usually at night. Behind the Beehive are the
Lion, the Lioness, and their two Cubs, and to the eastward of the
latter the Giantess. The Lion group has only uncertain and small
action, while the Giantess is on the summit of a mound fifty feet
high, with a depressed crater, measuring eighteen by twenty-four feet,
and usually filled with dark-blue water. This is the slowest of all
the geysers in getting to work, acting only at fortnightly intervals,
but each eruption continues the greater part of the day, with usually
long-previous notice by violent boiling and internal rumblings. When
it comes, the explosion is terrific, the column mounting two hundred
and fifty feet, a perfect water-spout the full size of the crater,
with a half-dozen distinct jets forced through it. To the northwest of
the Lion and across the river is the Castle, so named from the
castellated construction of its crater. It stands upon an elevation,
the side towards the Firehole falling off in a series of rude steps.
The tube is elevated about ten feet within the castle and is four feet
in diameter. It is of uncertain eruption, sometimes playing daily and
sometimes every other day, throwing a column of one hundred and fifty
feet, falling in a sparkling shower, continuing about forty minutes,
and then tapering off in a series of insignificant spurts. The
Saw-Mill is not far away, rather insignificant, its tube being only
six inches in diameter, set in a saucer-like crater about twenty feet
across; but its water column, thrown forty feet high, gives the
peculiar sounds of a saw, caused by the action of puffs of steam
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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