boiling water a little
stream of cold water, from the melting snow of the uplands, ran
unceasingly. Since 1888 this great geyser has been inactive.

The Castle Geyser is so named on account of the fancied resemblance
which its mound of white and grey deposit presents to the ruins of a
feudal keep, the crater itself being placed on a cone or turret, which
has a somewhat imposing appearance compared with the other geysers in
the neighborhood. It throws a column usually about fifty or sixty feet
high, at intervals of two or three hours, but sometimes the discharge
shoots up much higher.

The Giant, in the Upper Geyser Basin, has a peculiar crater, which
has been likened to the stump of a hollow sycamore tree of gigantic
proportions, whose top has been wrenched off by a storm. This curious
cup is broken down at one side, as though it had been torn away during
an eruption of more than ordinary violence, and on this side the visitor
is able to look into the crater, if he can contrive to avoid the jets
which are constantly spouted from it. The periods of rest which it takes
are varied, an eruption often not occurring for several days at a time;
yet when it breaks out it continues playing for more than three hours,
with a volume of water reaching a height of from 130 to 140 feet. In the
interval little spouts are constantly in progress. Mr. Stanley saw one
eruption which he calculated to have shot a column of water to the
height of more than 200 feet. At first it seemed as though the geyser
was only making a feint, the discharge which preceded the great one
being merely repeated several times, followed by a cessation both of
the rumbling noises and of the ejection of water. But soon, after a
premonitory cloud of steam, the geyser began to work in earnest,
the column discharged rising higher and higher, until it reached the
altitude mentioned.

"At first it appeared to labor in raising the immense volume, which
seemed loath to start on its heavenward tour; but it was with perfect
ease that the stupendous column was held to its place, the water
breaking into jets and returning in glittering showers to the basin.
The steam ascended in dense volumes for thousands of feet, when it
was freighted on the wings of the winds and borne away in clouds. The
fearful rumble and confusion attending it were as the sound of distant
artillery, the rushing of many horses to battle, or the roar of a
fearful tornado. It commenced to act at 2 P. M