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Page 23
"Perpetual masses here intone,
Uncounted censers swing,
A psalm on every breeze is blown;
The echoing peaks from throne to throne
Greet the indwelling King;
The Lord, the Lord is everywhere,
And seraph-tongued are earth and air."
THE YELLOWSTONE PARK GEYSERS
THEIR ESSENTIAL FACTS AND CAUSES
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.
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