66 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



eye alone could convey any adequate conception to the mind. The steep 

 sides of the hill were ornamented with a series of semicircular basins, 

 ^vith margins varying in height from a few inches to 6 or 8 feet, and so 

 beautifully scalloped and adorned with a kind of bead- work that the be- 

 holder stands amazed at this marvel of nature's handiwork. Add 

 to this, a snow-white ground, with every variety of shade, of scarlet, 

 green, and yellow, as brilliant as the brightest of our aniline dyes. 

 The pools or basins are of all sizes, from a few inches to 6 or 8 

 feet in diameter, and from 2 inches to 2 feet deep. • As the water flows 

 from the spring over the mountain side from one basin to another, it 

 loses continually a portion of its heat, and the bather can find any desir- 

 able temperature. At the top of the hill there is a broad flat terrace 

 covered more or less with these basins, one huudred and fifty to two 

 hundred yards in diameter, and many of them going to decay. Here we find 

 the largest, finest, and most active spring of the group at the present 

 time. The largest spring is very near the outer margin of the terrace 

 and is 25 by 40 feet in diameter, the water so perfectly transparent that 

 one can look down into the beautiful ultramarine depth to the bottom 



pjg^ J2. of the basin. 



The sides of 

 the basin 

 are orna- 

 mentedwith 

 coral-like 

 forms, with 

 a great va- 

 r i e t y of 

 shadeSjfrom 

 pure white 

 to a bright 

 cream -yel- 

 low, and the 

 blue sky re- 

 flected in 

 the trans- 

 parent wa- 

 ters gives an 

 azure tint to 

 the whole 

 which sur- 

 passes all 

 art. The calcareous deposit around the rim 

 is also most elegantly ornameuted, but, like 

 the icy covering of a pool, exteuds from the 

 edge toward tlie center, and this i^rojects over 

 the basin untU it is not more than a fourth of 

 an inch thick. These springs have one or 

 more centers of ebullition, and in this group it 

 is constant, seldom rising more than two to 

 four inches above the surface. From various 

 portions of the rim the water flows out in 

 moderate quantities over the sides of the hill. 

 Whenever it gathers into a channel and flows 

 quite swiftlv, basins with sides from 2 to 8 feet 

 '^^"^^s.ITo.okJ'ZVs^'.I: ^^^^ are formed, with the ornamental designs 



proportionately coarse, but when the water 



