170 GEYSERS. 
to give loud expression to their feelings. Unfortunately, this monarch 
of all geysers has ceased to erupt, but may be expected to break forth 
again at any time. 
Everywhere save at the Norris basin, of the Yellowstone Park, geyser 
vents are surrounded by cones, mounds, or platforms of white siliceous 
sinter, which, though built up mto very beautiful forms, hides the true 
relation of the geyser vent to the fissures in the rocks, so that it hag 
been generally believed, as stated by Tyndall,* that the hot springs 
built up tubes of siliceous rock, that made them geysers. That this is 
not true is shown by several great fountains at the Norris basin, that, 
spout directly from fissures in the solid rock, notably the Monarch, 
Tippecanoe, and Alcove geysers. 
GEYSHR WATERS. 
The descriptions which have been given of the chief geyser regions 
of the world lead to the question: What is the source and character 
of the geyser waters? It has been plainly indicated that, in the fields 
described, the vents are always situated along lines of drainage, on 
the shores of lakes, or under conditions where ordinary springs of 
meteoric water would naturally occur. 
That the geyser waters are surface waters which have percolated 
through the porous lavas and have been heated by encountering great 
quantities of steam and gases rising from the hot rocks below there is 
no reasonable doubt. The proximity of ordinary cold springs and 
those of boiling hot water lends support to this view. 
These hot waters, traversing the rocks in irregular fissures, readily 
dissolve out the more soluble constituents of the rocks, the amount and 
the character of the salts present varying somewhat with the nature 
and amount of gases held in the waters. Chemical analyses of geyser 
waters from the three regions described show no greater variation than 
those from different vents in any one of these regions. The following 
table of analyses shows that the waters are all similar in character. The 
analysis of the Yellowstone water was made by Prof. F. A. Gooch and 
for the U.S. Geological Survey. Analyses are also given of the water 
from the great geyser of Iceland, and from the New Zealand geysers, 
the former by Damour,t the latter by Smith. 
* Heat as a mode of motion. 
t Ann. Chem. wu. Pharm., vol. Lx11, 1847, p. 49. 
{ Jour. fiir prakt. Chemie., vol. LXX1x, 1869, p. 186. 
