26 RECONNAISSANCE FROM CARROLL, MONTANA, 
arches and exceedingly gracefulforms. It played whenever we were by to see it, and evidently con- 
tinues in operation for considerable perivds, from the dimensions of the crater it has built. These 
craters are all constructed, by the geysers themselves, of the grayish-white silica, or geyserite, depos- 
ited by the cooling of the water; the process being very gradual and stow. The water in all is of 
the same pure clear blue, without a trace of anyimpurity. The taste, when cool, is the flat, insipid 
one of distilled water. 
Close by the “Grotto” stands the picturesque crater of the “Giant”, or “ Broken Horn”, a geyser 
of the first class. From the aperture of this, large volumes of steam were escaping, and the water 
was boiling violently 8 or 10 feet below the surface, occasionally rising in huge spurts and splashing 
over, symptoms which led us to watch it unavailingly for an hour in hope of a discharge. 
Meanwhile the pack-train had been making its way along the regular trail up the east bank, and, 
Camp in Upper Teaching the Upper Basin, camp was established in the center of the basin on the 
Geyser: Basin, west bank of Fire Hole River, in a small group of trees, with a fairly good marsh 
in front for the cattle. We found the waters of the river cool and palatable, and sufficient wood for 
camping purposes at hand. At short range from camp, and in full view of it, were the first-class 
geysers named “ Old Faithful”, the ‘‘Bee Hive”, the “ Giantess”, the “Grand”, and the “Castle”; 
while the “ Giant” and “ Grotto” were but a short distance farther down stream. Beside these, 
the “ Pyramid” and “ Punch Bow!”, near the “ Giant”, could be easily seen. Almost as we reached 
camp, ‘Old Faithful”, which stands at the head of the valley overlooking it, and 
which has earned its name from the regularity of its dischai ges, gave us his first 
display. The time was noted and the second discharge awaited. An hour after, we walked over to 
the elevation which marked his crater, 400 yards from camp. In a few minutes, after some prelim- 
inary spurts and splashes, the geyser, emitting a deep roar which shook the'ground, shot up a clear, 
straight shaft of water, which, with two or three rapid impulses, gained an altitude of over 100 feet ; 
clouds of steam towering far above and drifting with the wind. For full five minutes, the superb 
column maintained its height, and then, with some unavailing efforts to check its fall, sank down, 
and was swallowed up in the crater. An examination of this followed. An immense quantity of 
water had been ejected, which, after bathing the crater and refilling the adjacent pools, flowed down 
Crater of “ola the slopes and discharged by various channels into the river. The crater of “ Faith- 
Maithiult ful” is one of the most beautiful of all. The lips are molded and rounded into 
many artistic forms, beaded and pearled with opal, while closely adjoining are little terraced 
pools of the clearest azure-hued water, with scalloped and highly-ornamented borders. The wetted 
margins and floors of these pools were tinted with the most delicate shades of white, cream, brown, 
and gray, so soft and velvety it seemed as though a touch would soil them. The material, however, 
is the constant silica, of which also are composed the pretty pebbles which furnish an additional 
charm to the pools. 
The only blemishes on this artistic handiwork had been occasioned by the rude hand of man. 
Vandalism of the Lhe ornamental work about the crater and pools had been broken and defaced in 
visitors. the most prominent places by visitors, and the pebbles were inscribed in pencil 
with the names of great numbers of the most unimportant persons. Such practices should be 
-stopped at once. The geysers are more than worthy of preservation. It is not only that they con- 
stitute a superb spectacle in themselves: they are likewise unique, both in performance and design. 
Nature, abandoning for the time all thoughts of utility, seems to have been amusing herself in this 
far-off and long-hidden corner of the world by devoting some of her grandest and most mysterious 
2owers to the production of forms of majesty and beauty such as man may not hope to rival. 
The geysers, in the slow process of centuries probably, have built up miracles of art, of an 
snduring though brittle material, that can be ruined in five minutes by a vandal armed with an 
Destruction of the @X, and nearly all the craters show signs of the hopeless and unrestrained bar- 
craters by visitors. —_ arity of many of their visitors. It cannot fail to fill the mind with indignation to 
see the utter ruthlessness of these sacrilegious invaders of nature’s sanctuary. To procure a specimen 
of perhaps a pound weight, a hundred pounds have been shattered and destroyed, and always in 
those places where the most cunning art has been displayed, and the ruin produced is correspond- 
ingly great. Upon our arrival in the basin, we found several persons already encamped, and a 
“Old Faithful”. 
