A Weird and Wild Beauty by Erin Peabody

Author:Erin Peabody
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Published: 2014-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

One of Yellowstone’s steaming landscapes.

Gold hunters who had marched through the area in 1867 called it Hell.129 A similar scene in Yellowstone reminded European tourist Lord Dunraven of a ravaged city “sunk amid flames into the bowels of the earth.”130

Hayden treaded through thick, moist vapors that hung on him like a cloak. The sulfurous fumes stunk of spoiled eggs and tarnished his silver watch. He tested the earth’s surface, threading his way carefully around dozens of boiling pots and vents. The ground felt hollow and a bit unsteady, but the farther he walked the more assured he became that he “could walk over it anywhere.”131

Suddenly a deep rumbling sound, like the roar of an incoming train, grabbed his attention. As he walked towards it, the sound reverberated even louder. Its source, however, turned out to be just a small hole in the ground, a miniature chimney about as wide across as Hayden’s hand. He called it Locomotive Jet.

All around the steaming vent, the earth was crumbly and deposited in fine layers similar to a pie crust. Hayden used a stick to probe at its flaky surface. Hot steam erupted immediately and revealed clusters of neon-yellow gems. He recognized their source: sulfur! Sulfur was also responsible for the rotten-egg smell.

The men couldn’t help but poke at the crust and uncover more of the gaudy crystals. “We took pleasure in breaking it up . . .” Hayden wrote later, “and exposing the wonderful beauty.”132

Farther on, Hayden spied a large cloud of steam gushing from the earth. He hiked in closer, through a curtain of hot fog that temporarily blinded him. Even though he had trouble seeing for several seconds, he heard fiercely bubbling water and smelled more nauseating sulfur fumes. He walked toward the source of the steam but suddenly stopped. The heat was simply too unbearable.

Finally a gust of air broke the curtain of steam and revealed a large seething pool. It was a “magnificent sulphur spring,” Hayden later wrote, about fifteen feet across.133

Its water was crystal clear. Bubbles raced to the surface. Watching it, Hayden noticed that its simmering grew louder. Larger clouds of steam puffed into the sky. Then, suddenly, the center of the pool surged and began lifting itself up—first one, two, then three and four feet up out of the middle of the pool! Boiling waters flooded the crater and poured out the sides of the rim. Hayden dashed away from the steaming streams. The temperature of the spring, which he eventually called Sulphur Spring, was 197 degrees Fahrenheit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.