42 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



like inverted waterfalls, are ever and anon rush- 

 ing up out of the hot, black underworld. Some 

 of these ponderous geyser columns are as large as 

 sequoias, — five to sixty feet in diameter, one 

 hundred and fifty to three hundred feet high, 

 — and are sustained at this great height with 

 tremendous energy for a few minutes, or per- 

 haps nearly an hour, standing rigid and erect, 

 hissing, throbbing, booming, as if thunderstorms 

 were raging beneath their roots, their sides 

 roughened or fluted like the furrowed boles of 

 trees, their tops dissolving in feathery branches, 

 while the irised spray, like misty bloom is at times 

 blown aside, revealing the massive shafts shining 

 against a background of pine-covered hills. 

 Some of them lean more or less, as if storm-bent, 

 and instead of being round are flat or fan-shaped, 

 issuing from irregular slits in silex pavements 

 with radiate structure, the sunbeams sifting 

 through them in ravishing splendor. Some are 

 broad and round-headed like oaks ; others are 

 low and bunchy, branching near the ground like 

 bushes ; and a few are hollow in the centre like 

 big daisies or water-lilies. No frost cools them, 

 snow never covers them nor lodges in their 

 branches ; winter and summer they welcome alike ; 

 all of them, of whatever form or size, faithfully 

 rising and sinking in fairy rhythmic dance night 

 and day, in all sorts of weather, at varying periods 

 of minutes, hours, or weeks, growing up rapidly, 



