ide of a hill, that looked as if
they had recently burst through the surface; and the gully leading
towards the ravine was at that date filled with sand, which appeared to
have been poured out during an eruption. Dead trees stood on the line of
this sand floor, and others, with their bark still remaining, and
even with their foliage not lost, were uprooted hard by, everything
indicating that the "steamboat vent," as it was called, was of recent
formation. In 1875 it had no existence, but in 1879 the spouting
spring--which first opened, it is believed, on the 11th of August in the
preceding year--had "settled down to business as a very powerful flowing
geyser," with a double period; one eruption occurring every half
hour, and projecting water to the height of 30 feet; the main eruption
occurring every six or seven days, with long continued action, and a
column of nearly 100 feet.

The New Geyser in the same basin is also of quite recent origin.
It consists of two fissures in the rock, in which the water boils
vigorously. But there is no mound, and the rocks of the fissure are just
beginning to get a coating of the silicious geyserite deposited from the
water, so that it cannot long have been spouting. Again, in the Grotto
Geyser--in the Upper Geyser Basin of Fire Hole River--the main or
larger crater is hollowed into fantastic arches, beneath which are
the grotto-like cavities from which it is named, which act as lateral
orifices for the escape of water during an eruption. It plays several
times in the course of the twenty-four hours, and sends a column of
water sixty feet high, the eruption lasting an hour. As yet, however,
the force of the water has not been sufficient, or of sufficiently long
duration, to break through the arches covering the basin or crater.
The Excelsior--claimed to be the largest of its order, which sent water
nearly 300 feet into the air at intervals of about five hours, and of
such volume as to wash away bridges over small streams below--was not,
until comparatively recent years, known as a specially powerful geyser.
But if it had for a time waned in importance, its immense crater, 330
feet in length and 200 feet at the widest part, shows that at a still
earlier date it was a gigantic fountain. In this deep pit, when the
breeze wafted aside the clouds of steam constantly arising from its
surface, the water could be seen seething 15 or 20 feet below the
surrounding level. Yet into the cauldron of