446 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 951 



DISCUSSION AND COEEESPONDENCE 



THE YELLOWSTONE 



To THE Editor of Science : In a recent lec- 

 ture before the students of Lehigh University 

 describing a camping trip through the Wind 

 Eiver Mountains and through the Yellowstone 

 Park during the summer of 1911, I exhibited 

 a working model of a geyser which erupted 

 about forty times per hour, and a working 

 model of the curious Handkerchief Pool which 

 is located in the Upper Geyser Basin about a 

 mile west and north of Old Faithful Inn. 

 Perhaps some of the readers of Science may 

 be interested in the model of the Handker- 

 chief Pool and the explanation of its action. 



J/bf roch 



The eruptive action of a geyser is probably 

 due, as Bunsen suggested, to the heating of 

 the water at the bottom of a deep hole to a 

 temperature much above 100° C, and the con- 

 sequent violent boiling of this over-heated 

 water when the pressure is suddenly lowered 

 by the blowing out of the water in the upper 

 part of the hole. A small working model of 

 the geyser can not conveniently be made on 

 this principle. The principle of operation of 

 the model geyser I used in my lecture is shown 

 in Pig. 1, and the actual apparatus is shown 

 in Fig. 2. 



The principle of operation of the Handker- 

 chief Pool is shown in Fig. 3. Hot water is 

 pushed in a sudden pulse through a channel 

 and through the small throat TT into a shal- 

 low pool PP, and the condensation of the 

 driving steam causes a sudden backward suc- 

 tion through the throat. This action is re- 

 peated several times per minute, and the hot 

 water in the shallow pool being cooled, flows 



downwards at the edges of the pool and to- 

 wards the throat as indicated by the arrows. 

 Placing the handkerchief at the edge of this 



Fig. 2. 



pool it is carried towards the throat by the 

 downward flow of cool water, and when it 

 comes near the throat it is suddenly sucked 

 out of sight into the chamber C. The impres- 



steAtn 



Fig. 3. 



sion is that one will never recover his hand- 

 kerchief, but in the course of about half a 

 minute the handkerchief is thrown violently 

 out of C by an upward surge of hot water. 

 If the handkerchief is left in the pool this 

 behavior is repeated over and over again. 



Fig. 4. Working Model of Handkerchief Pool. 



In all probability the numerous small hot 

 springs in the Geyser Basin and perhaps also 

 at Mammoth Hot Springs come from jets of 



