PEALE.] UPPEK GEYSER BASIN GIANT GROUP. 197 



■broken up and turned loose again upon owt sinful world. A steady cohinm of water, 

 graceful, majestic, and vertical, except as swayed by the passiog breezes, was by 

 rapid and successive impulses impelled upward above the steam until reaching the 

 marvelous height of more than 200 feet. At first it appeared to labor in raisiug the 

 immense volume, which seemed loath to start on its heavenward tour, but it was with 

 perfect ease that the stupendous column was held to its place, the water breaking 

 into jets and returning in glittering showers to the basin. The steam ascended in 

 dense volumes for thousands of feet, when it was freighted upon the wings of the wind 

 and borue away in clouds. The fearful rumble and confusion attending it were as the 

 sound of distant artillery, the rushing of many horses to battle, or the roar of a fearful 

 tornado. It commenced to act at 2 p. m., and continued for an hour and a half, the 

 latter part of which it emitted little else but steam rushing upward from its cham- 

 hers below, of which, if controlled, there is enough to run an engine of wonderful 

 power. I advanced and stood near enough on the windward side to cast large masses 

 of silica into the ascending volume, which were hurled with force many feet into the 

 air. The waving to aud fro of such a gigantic fountain when the column is at its 

 highest — 



"Tinseled o'er in robes of varying hues." 



and glistening in the hright 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. Our entire 

 party were perfectly wild with enthusiasm. We could not suppress emotion, but 

 shouted and cheered till out of breath, and some fired revolvers and guns in the air, 

 so great was their excitement in the midst of such a display. Every person in the 

 basin — tliirty-four in number — was soon on the ground, and lawyers, judges, profess- 

 ors, farmers, merchants, miners, aud i^hilosophers, were all alike filled with enthusi- 

 asm by the magnificent spectacle. A perfect river of water, equal to the volume of 

 the Fire Hole, rushed down the slope; and in our excitement to get a view from every 

 point of vision, we several times slightly tested its temperature by a misstep, landing 

 us half-way to our boot-tops in the steaming flood. Every one thought the column 

 250 feet high, though we had no means of measuring it. 



He does not mention the date on whidi this occurred, but it was either 

 the last of August or the early part of September, for on page 90 he says : 

 "Xext day, August 29, we were to arrive at the real Geyser land." 



Professor Comstock left the Upper Basin for Yellowstone Lake Au- 

 gust 26, so that he did not see this eruption. During the time he was 

 in the basin "the action was constant, the water being rarely thrown 

 in successive jets to a height of 3 feet or less above the summit of the 

 enQircling wall, but as a rule the column did not rise sufficiently to 

 throw the liquid over the edges."* 



1874. — The Earl of Dunraven, in his "Great Divide" (p. 273), says: 



I was f<u"tunate enough to see the Giant play, hut I was not sufficiently near to form 

 anything like an accurate estimate of the quantity of water cast up, or of the height 

 to which it was thrown. The volume of water appeared immense, and huge clouds of 

 steam arose from it. The eruption lasted only a few minutes; which is strange, as 

 Professor Hayden describes it as playing for an hour and twenty minutes, and throwing 

 a column of water to a height of 140 feet. 



Although I cannot say so positively, yet I am of the opinion that the 

 eruption seen by Dunraven was not of the Giant, but of the Oblong Gey- 

 ser. The description and the duration agree better with the action of 

 the Oblong; and if, as his notes seein to show, he was at a distance he 

 might easily have made the mistake, as the two are near each other, 

 and in 187<S we thought, on several occasions, that the Giant was in ac- 

 tion, but discovered afterwards that it was the Oblong. The two being 

 on a line, as seen from the upper portions of the basin, was the cause of 

 the mistake on our part, and I suspect the same mistake was made by 

 him, especially as he was probably not aAvare of the existence of the 

 Oblong Geyser. 



1875.— Dana & Grinnell say (p. 132 of Ludlow's Report): "The Giant 

 was quiet, occasional 8])urts of water to the top of the crater being the 

 only sign of latent energy." 



* Reconnaissance of N. W. Wyoming, by Capt. W. A. Jones, in 1873, p. 251. 



