244 On the Geiisers of California. 



feldspar appears to be converted partly into alum. In the 

 mean time the boulders and angular fragments brought down 

 the ravines and river by the floods are being cemented into 

 a firm conglomerate, so that it is difficult to dislodge even a 

 small pebble, the pebble itself sometimes breaking before the 

 cementation yields. 



" The thermal action on wood in this place is also highly 

 interesting. In one mound I discovered the stump of a large 

 tree, silicified ; in another, a log changed to lignite or brown 

 coal. Other fragments appeared midway between petrifac- 

 tion and carbonization. In this connection, finding some 

 drops of a very dense fluid, and also highly refractive, I was 

 led to believe that pure carbon might, under such circum- 

 stances, crystallise and form the diamond. Unfortunately 

 for me, however, I lost the precious drop in attempting to 



secure it. 



* 



" A green tree cut down and obliquely inserted in one of the 

 conical mounds, was so changed in thirty-six hours, that its 

 species would not have been recognised, except from the 

 portion projecting outside, around which beautiful crystals 

 of sulphur had already formed. 



" From the thermal exhalations and the amount of sulphur 

 deposited, it might be supposed that the progress of vegeta- 

 tion would be retarded ; but such is not the fact, on the con- 

 trary, it is greatly facilitated. The Quercus sempervirens, or 

 evergreen oak, flourishes in beauty within fifty feet of the 

 boiling and angry geysers. Maples and alders, from one to 

 two feet in diameter, grow within twenty or thirty feet of 

 the hottest steam pipes. This, however, may be accounted 

 for by the cold surface water flowing down from the adjacent 

 mountains. Multitudes of grizzly bears make their beds on 

 the warm grounds. Panthers, deer, hares, and squirrels, also 

 take up their winter quarters in the very midst of the geyser 

 mounds. Farther down the stream, on the terraced banks 

 of the limpid Pluton, vegetation actually runs wild; and the 

 winter months exhibit all the fancied freshness of primeval 

 Eden. I have traced the influence of this* thermal action 

 from two to three hundred miles on the Pacific coast in Cali- 

 fornia, out only in this place have I been permitted to witness 



