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Washburn
Report Index
YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1870
Page 16
near by were great numbers of small sulphur springs
of the same character and deposits of the larger one, any one of which would
be counted a great curiosity in any district but this. About one hundred
yards below is a spring of slate-colored water, 70 by 30 feet, an immense
caldron, boiling constantly. Still farther on is a basin of perhaps four
acres, containing from twenty to thirty mud springs, varying from 2 to 20
feet in diameter, and of depths below the surface from three to eight feet.
The mud ejected is of different degrees of consistency, but generally about
the thickness of common mortar, and mostly of an iron brown color. It boils
slowly, like mush, with bubbles of gas escaping, and is spouted to various
heights from 2 to 40 feet, falling with dull splashes around the edges of
the craters, which are being built up continually and continually caving in,
to be worked over and ejected as before. Some of the springs throw up yellow
mud, others white, and a few pink. The different springs of all classes had
no apparent connections with each other, though often but a few feet apart;
the mud being of different colors, the basins having different levels, and
the pulsations being independent; one being frequently in violent
ebullition, while another near by was quiescent. A plasterer would go into
ecstasies over this mortar, which is worked to such a degree of fineness
that it can be dried in large lumps, either in the sun or in a fire, without
a sign of cracking, and when once dry is a soft, finely grained stone,
resembling clay slate when dark, or meerschaum when white. Mortar might
well be good after being constantly worked for perhaps ten thousand years.
In a ravine near by was a large flowing spring of
alum water, and several of sulphate of copper. Springs of this latter class
are always clear and deep, with beautiful basins, raised slightly at the
rim, and lined with incrustations of brilliant colors. Scattered over the
whole area of one-fourth of a mile in diameter, in addition to the above,
were hundreds of small spouts of vapor, water, and mud. In a basin by itself
was a black mud spring, 20 by 40 feet, throwing mortar a distance of 70
feet; this substance was so strongly impregnated with sulphuric acid as to
burn the tongue like fire in its intense sourness. All the mud springs are
double, and most of the water springs also; each one having, in addition to
its crater, and generally in the margin thereof or near it, a honey-comb
vent in the ground, or rock, through which sulphur vapor escapes with a
frying sound; doubtless a vent for the internal fires below. This rule
applies in all localities in the basin. The amount of pure crystaline
sulphur deposited in this locality is very great, probably one hundred tons
could be gathered in sight on the surface. The continuous supply will one
day be turned to account, in the manufacture of acids on a large scale.
There being no water fit to drink in the vicinity,
we moved on up the valley, about five miles, through grassy hills and level
bottoms, passing several isolated caldrons of gray mud on the way, and
camped in a group of them, on the river bank, at the head of the valley.
Here trout were caught in abundance, and we fared sumptuously, with the
single exception that the river water tasted strongly of chemicals, and that
all other available water tasted still worse than the river. Those of the
party who sported silver watches now discovered that they were no longer
silver, but a greasy, pinchbeck yellow; discolored by the gases in the
atmosphere of the spring. Arms were also affected, the polished surfaces
becoming spotted with black. Distance, 12 miles.
Barometer, 22.75; thermometer, 60°; elevation,
7.487 feet.
Twelfth day -- September 2. -- We remained
in camp on the river, and visited springs in the neighborhood. Along the
bank of the stream
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