PROF. BERTHOUP. EXPLORATIOXS IX IDAHO AXD MOXTAXA. •>0 



the amount of objects that three days exploration of that extraor- 

 dinary region developed. We were then in the first days of Octo- 

 ber. Before reaching the geyser region, hard frosts at night, and 

 a temperature one morning to zero Fahrenheit, rendered our 

 couches on the volcanic soil cold and restless. Once, however, in 

 the midst of this region of subterranean fires and lakes of scalding 

 water, we felt no more the cold chill of the lower valleys. A soft 

 moist air in the day, foggy mists, or columns of steam, rendered 

 more visible from the greater coolness of the atmosphere, made our 

 mornings enjoyable by their novelty. In the pines, in the open 

 prairies along Fire Hole River, we could see the steam rising from 

 myriads of scalding springs or clear basins of scalding water. Oc- 

 casionally a magnificent column of steam and boiling water would 

 rush aloft swiftly and play from one to ten minutes in durati<m. 

 Old Faithful, the Giant, the Giantess, the Castle geyser, the 

 Beehive, the Fountain, and a countless host of smaller spurting 

 fountains made it difficult to follow any determined course. 

 Everywhere — above, below, arovmd — the hidden energies of sub- 

 terranean forces were manifest. When near some of the more ac- 

 tive vents — some of the more demonstrative »ofety volves they 

 might be called — we could hear the smothered, labored pent-up 

 groans, or what one would imagine were the desperate struggles 

 of some cavern-full of struggling life striving to escape. We 

 stood, as it were, in the m\-1:hological Hades ; we wandered in im- 

 agination on the banks of Coc^-tus. 



•* Cocvtus. named of lamentations loud 

 Heard on the rueful stream." 



The whole ground surface in the geyser basins seems to be 

 made up wholly from the varied mineral deposits of the countless 

 myriads of hot springs. We notice in every direction a peculiar res- 

 onance when we ride or drive over the ordinary surface. We seem 

 to wander over a dome erected over immense subterranean lakes of 

 pent-u]i steam and boiling water. At the surface, the general boiling 

 point varied from 199" lo '200'. Dr. Peale, however, (who was then 

 in the Park,) informed me that a self-registering thermometer shoved 

 some 15 or 16 feet down the geyser orifices gave him a temperature 

 of 209", evidently due to an abnormal compression, having in these 

 subterranean reservoirs raised the boihng point. 



The National Park is well worthy of that title, and for future time 

 its capabilities and its surprising natiu-al phenomena will always ren- 



