The San Francisco Calamity

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'Tinselled o'er in robes of varying hues,'

and glistening in the bright sunlight, which adorns it with the glowing
colors of many a gorgeous rainbow, affords a spectacle so wonderful
and grandly magnificent, so overwhelming to the mind, that the ablest
attempt at description gives the reader who has never witnessed such a
display but a feeble idea of its glory."


A DESCRIPTION OF THE GEYSER AT WORK


The only other geysers in this remarkable geyserland which we can spare
room to notice are those known as the Giantess, the Beehive, and the
Grand. The Giantess sends a column of water to the height of 250 feet.
An eruption is usually divided into three periods--two preliminary
efforts and a final one, divided from each other by intervals of between
one and two hours, while the intervals of discharge are very long.
Sometimes it does not play for several weeks. The Beehive, which is 400
feet from the Giantess, gets its name from the peculiar beehive-like
cone which it has formed. The eruption is also almost unique. It is
heralded by a slight escape of steam, which is followed by a column of
steam and water, shooting to the height of over 200 feet. The column
is somewhat fan-shaped, but it does not fall in rain, the spray being
evaporated and carried off as steam--if, indeed, there is not more steam
than water in the column. The duration of the discharge is between four
and five minutes, and the interval between two eruptions from twenty-one
to twenty-five hours.

The Grand is one of the most important in the Upper Geyser basin. Yet,
unlike the Grotto, the Giant, or the Old Faithful,--so called from its
frequent and regular eruptions--it has no raised cone or crater, and a
much less cavernous bowl than the Giantess and other geysers. The column
discharged ascends to the height of from eighty to two hundred feet, and
the eruptions last from fifteen minutes to three-quarters of an hour,
with intervals on an average of from seven to twenty hours. This
fountain is apparently very irregular in its action, though it is just
possible that when the Yellowstone geysers have been more consecutively
studied, it will be found that these seeming irregularities depend on
the varying supplies of water at different times of the year.


THE MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS


The marvellous phenomena of the Yellowstone region are not confined
to geyser action, hot springs of steady flow being, as above stated,
exceedingly numerous. Of these the most striking are those known as the
Mammoth Hot Springs, whose waters find their way through underground
passages, finally flowing from an opening as the "Boiling River," which
empties into the Gardiner River.

These springs are marvels of beauty. Their terraced bowls, adorned with
delicate fret-work, are among the finest specimens of Nature's handiwork
in the world, and the colored waters themselves are startling in their
brilliancy. Red, pink, black, canary, green, saffron, blue, chocolate,
and all their intermediate gradations are found here in exquisite
harmony. The springs rise in terraces of various heights and widths,
having intermingled with their delicate shades chalk-like cliffs, soft
and crumbly, these latter being the remains of springs from which the
life and beauty have departed. The great spring is the largest in the
country, the water flowing through three openings into a basin forty
feet long by twenty-five feet wide. From this the hot mineral waters
drip over into lower basins, of gracefully curved and scalloped outline,
the minerals deposited on the lips of the basin forming stalagmites of
variegated hue, yielding a brilliant and beautiful effect. The terraced
basins bear a close resemblance to the former New Zealand pink and white
terraces, and since the annihilation of the latter are the most charming
examples in existence of this rare form of Nature's artistic handiwork.