1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



699 



Well, that is not all. As the waters flow 

 from the spring and get cooled off, a sort of 

 vegetation begins to line the bottom and sides 

 of the rivulet. This is a sort of algte, and it 

 looks like flowing hair (or "silken tresses" 

 if you choose) more than a plant. And these 

 algae also show brilliant shades of green. As 

 the ripples move through these tresses in the 

 colored water, with the carved and colored 

 walls lining each side of the rivulet, it seems 

 like a fairy tale or a creation from the Arabian 

 Nights. 



MINERVA TERRACE. 



Perhaps you have gathered already that I 

 am greatly in love with babbling brooks. 

 Well, here I was treated to visions of babbling 

 brooks such as I never dreamed of before. 

 Suppose the hot water starts to run off down 

 to the river from one of these boiling hot 

 springs. As it cools off it drops the minerals 

 all along the way, and it drops rather more on 

 the edges of the stream than anywhere else, 

 because the edges are thinner, and are cooled 

 by striking the comparatively cool wall. 

 Well, this gradually builds up so as to make a 

 little rise, as it were. The stream starts out 

 from the spring with the bottom and sides of 

 the brook of snowy whiteness. As they get 

 cooler it begins to take on a shade of brilliant 

 yellow ; then orange further down stream, 

 then red. Now the algte commence to grow 

 with a brilliant shade of green; and sometimes 

 an obstruction forces the little brook to over- 

 flow on one side; then we have a little branch 

 with all the same variations and colors. 



A man at Mammoth Hot Springs carried 

 the hot water in a little ditch over to his gar- 

 den where he has a greenhouse. I followed 

 the ditch quite a distance, noting the colors 

 and admiring it, but I did not notice where it 

 terminated in the greenhouse; but I was told 

 about it several days after I had passed by. 

 Now, imagine acres and acres of terraces like 

 the one I have described, and you will have a 

 pretty good idea of Mammoth Springs. It 



takes pretty nearly half a day to look them 

 all over. 



Oh, yes! there is one thing more that makes 

 the visitor utter exclamations of delight. You 

 can look down into the bottom of some of 

 these larger springs, and see, through the 

 transparent water, the most gorgeous struc- 

 tures. Away down you look, as if into the 

 bottom of a deep well. As water is very 

 deceptive when you look down at an angle, I 

 judged that in some places you could see 

 straight down into the water fully fifty feet. 

 Great stalactites and stalagmites form 

 marble pillars like those in Mam- 

 moth Cave ; and many times you 

 can look off in caverns showing that 

 the ground above these boiling 

 lakes is so thin it seems as if it would 

 break through. In fact, there are 

 places that have been labeled by the 

 government, ^^ Dangerous.''^ No 

 stock or horses are allowed to go 

 near these springs, because they 

 might break through this thin crust. 

 My impression is they are great sub- 

 terranean lakes of boiling water. 

 The roof is supported by arches and 

 pillars. Now, this is not my imag- 

 ination, because at the Devil's 

 Kitchen, where the water is not now 

 flowing, you can go down through 

 an opening only a few feet across, 

 by means of a very long ladder. I 

 went down and down until it was 

 so hot, and smelled so strongly of 

 sulphur, that I began to think of 

 getting back. But as I saw foot- 

 tracks up on either side along the 

 bottom, I concluded it would be safe 

 to go where other people had. But I made 

 my investigations rather hurriedly, and was 

 very glad indeed to get a breath of fresh air 

 when I got out. Down in this cave are won- 

 derful forms of carving, the result of the hot- 

 water currents, I presume. Angel Terrace is 

 so named on account of the great delicacy, not 

 only of the carving (if that is the right word), 

 but on account of the rich coloring. 



These hot springs sometimes cease to act, 

 as in the case of the Devil's Kitchen, and then, 

 again, they break forth with a sort of eruption 

 in unexpected places. Narrow Gauge Terrace 

 is a place where the flat rock seems to have 

 been lifted up so as to form a ridge like the 

 roof of a house. The hot water comes out all 

 along the ridgepole, and this ridgepole is 

 about 300 feet long. The water runs down 

 the roof of the house, as it were, and is color- 

 ed with a most brilliant coloring. 



Near Narrow Gauge Terrace is what is call- 

 ed the White Elephant Terrace. A hot spring 

 is in the middle of the back of said elephant. 

 It runs over and down the sides, and then ac- 

 tuall}' runs down and out of sight between 

 what might be called the elephant's legs. One 

 is tempted to call the spring stupid, because it 

 goes away up to the top of the elephant's back 

 before it gets out. Now, this white elephant 

 illustrates vividly the way in which the hot 

 springs operate. Very likely the water comes 

 up through one or more openings in the ele- 



