The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870Langford, Nathaniel Pitt
History
The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870
Langford, Nathaniel Pitt
Langford, Nathaniel Pitt, 1832-1911 -- Diaries; Yellowstone National Park -- Discovery and exploration
From the mud volcano we moved up the valley about four miles to our camp
on the river, passing several mud puffs on the way. One of the soldiers
brought in a large string of river trout, but the water of the river is
strongly impregnated with the overflow from springs near its bank, and
is not palatable. Some of our party who have drank the water are feeling
nauseated. Others think that their illness is caused by partaking too
freely of one of the luxuries of our larder, canned peaches. I assuaged
my thirst with the peaches, and have not partaken of the water, and
there is no one in our camp in finer condition than I am.
Lieutenant Doane's felon has caused him great suffering to-day, and I
have appealed to him to allow me to lance it. I have for many years
carried a lancet in my pocketbook, but I find that I have inadvertently
left it at home. So all this day, while on horseback, I have been
preparing for the surgical operation by sharpening my penknife on the
leathern pommel of my saddle as I rode along. I have in my seamless sack
a few simple medicines, including a vial of chloroform. Lieutenant Doane
has almost agreed to let me open the felon, provided I put him to sleep
with the chloroform; but I feel that I am too much of a novice in the
business to administer it. However, I have told him that I would do so
if he demanded it. Our elevation to-day is about 7,500 feet above sea
level.
Saturday, September 3.--This morning General Washburn and I left camp
immediately after breakfast and returned four miles on our track of
September 1st to Crater Hill and the mud springs, for the purpose of
making farther examinations. We found the sulphur boiling spring to be
full to overflowing, the water running down the inclined surface of the
crust in two different directions. It was also boiling with greater
force than it was when we first saw it, the water being occasionally
thrown up to the height of ten feet. About 80 or 100 yards from this
spring we found what we had not before discovered, a boiling spring of
tartaric acid in solution, with deposits around the edge of the spring,
of which we gathered a considerable quantity. In the basin where we had
found so many mud springs we to-day found a hot boiling spring
containing a substance of deep yellow color, the precise nature of which
we could not readily ascertain. We accordingly brought away some of it
in a bottle (as is our usual custom in such cases of uncertainty), and
we will have an analysis of it made on our return home. In the same
basin we also found some specimens of black lava.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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