CHAPTER IX.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, YELLOWSTONE PARK, ETC.

RS. VICTOR: We will now leave the Grand Cañon, grateful for all the suggestions it offers us as to the great changes that are taking place on this globe of ours, and proceed to inspect the beautiful Tower Creek Falls. Tower Creek is a small tributary of the Yellowstone, flowing through a ravine which, I am sorry to say, has a Titanic stamp upon it, in its name-the Devil's den. The falls have a height of 156 feet, and the creek at their base runs through a romantic glen to the main river. The pictures will describe this better than any words of mine.

And now, after just a peep at the Lower Cañon, about which much could be said descriptively if we had time, I will proceed to the Geyser districts of the Yellowstone. These are classified into two divisions, the calcareous hot springs of Gardiner's River at the north of the Park, and the upper and lower geyer basins of the Madison River, farther to the south and west of Madison Lake. Here is a view of the hot springs on Gardiner's River. The club will look at it while I tell them all I know about it.

CYRIL: The artist has had the good sense to introduce two people-members of the J. U. T. C. I suppose-in the foreground. One has a large portfolio under his arm.

MRS. VICTOR: You may imagine a river falling over a series of steep rapids— down, down it goes, terrace after terrace; only instead of being simple terraces they are hollowed into basins, of different sizes, giving to the terraces a very irregular appearance. The water comes from an almost innumerable number of hot springs-thousands of them-which form themselves into a stream, and then rush over the declivity in the manner shown in the picture. When the water issues from the springs it is very hot. It fills the little reservoirs on the terraces, and in

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each leaves, of course, a residuum of lime or silica. As you look at this cataract from a distance, it gives you the idea of an irregular white wall. It looks, indeed, like a mass of snow and ice. Columns of steam rise up from it here and there, and towards the foot of the declivity the water becomes cool enough for people to bathe in it. Those basins into which the water no longer flows are crumbling away into a calcareous powder; but where the water still flows, the rims of the basins are constantly replenished with wavy, frill-like borders of all kinds of vivid colors. There are evidences of many

hot springs which have stopped flowing, and it is supposed that there is a gradual diminution of the volume of water falling over these terraces.

KATE: How large are these basins?

MRS. VICTOR: Averaging perhaps five or six feet in diameter and two or three feet in depth. The total depth of the descent is about two hundred feet. There are some larger basins on the top of the terrace, one of forty feet in diameter, and twenty-five feet deep. The white appearance of the cascade suggested the name of

"White Mountain Hot Springs" to this locality. I believe a good many people visit the Parks for the purpose of bathing in these springs for purposes of health.

PRESIDENT:

It is due to the chemical properties of the

water and the action

of the atmosphere.

HOT SPRINGS.

Prof. Hayden says that as the water flows along the valley it lays down in its course a pavement more beautiful and elaborate in its adornment than art has ever yet conceived. The sulphur and the iron, with the green

microscopic vegetations, tint the whole with an illumination of which no decorative painter has ever dreamed.

MRS. VICTOR: But I must now show you the Geysers.

KATE: What is the origin of that word?

LAURA: The dictionary will tell you that, Kate. Icelandic, geysa, to burst forth violently. You know that these peculiar fountains were first discovered in Iceland. But I would like you to tell me what causes the hot water to burst out of these springs.

KATE: I am afraid I must plead ignorance.

THE PRESIDENT: I think Bertram has been reading on this subject. Perhaps he will tell us all about it.

BERTRAM: I do not know that I quite understand what little I have read, but I suppose that in some way these deep and large springs or underground reservoirs of water become heated-by volcanic heat, whatever that is—and that the steam forces itself into the tube connecting them with the surface, where the water of course is cooler. The steam is condensed, but the water in the tube increases in temperature, and is raised higher and higher by successive pressures of the steam below, until the water in the basin ceases to act as a condenser, and the steam and boiling water are forced up through the tube, as they are out of the spout and lid of a kettle, until the reservoir is exhausted for the time being-until as we may say, the water has all boiled away. Then the springs gradually refill, and the process is repeated.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well explained, I think; and I may add that the reason all the hot springs are not geysers is that they do not all happen to build up by their deposits a vertical tube high enough to hold a column of water to keep these boiling springs in check until they have accumulated sufficient force to make a violent demonstration. The nature of the soil, therefore, in which these springs occur may have something to do with the matter.

MRS. VICTOR: Whatever the cause or theory, the effect is astounding, for a district of twenty or thirty square miles is pretty thickly covered with these geysers, large and small; and what with the springs themselves boiling and bubbling and bursting out in this peculiar way at intervals, together with the weird aspect of the ground, covered with silicious and calcareous deposits, and the crater-like