hapeless masses of
terrace-built structures is surprising. But more surprising yet is the
vividness of color assumed by the limpid springs in certain lights and
at certain angles.

Climbing the terraces at the expense of wet feet, one stands upon
broad, white, and occasionally very damp plateaus which steam vigorously
in spots. These spots are irregularly circular and very shallow pools of
hot water, some of which bubble industriously with a low, pleasant hum.
They are not boiling springs; the bubbling is caused by escaping gases;
but their waters are extremely hot. The intense color of some of these
pools varies or disappears with the changing angle of vision; the water
itself is limpid.

Elsewhere throughout the park the innumerable hot springs seem to be
less charged with depositable matter; elsewhere they build no terraces,
but bubble joyously up through bowls often many feet in depth and
diameter. Often they are inspiringly beautiful. The blue Morning Glory
Spring is jewel-like rather than flower-like in its color quality, but
its bowl remarkably resembles the flower which gives it name. Most
springs are gloriously green. Some are the sources of considerable
streams. Some stir slightly with the feeling rather than the appearance
of life; others are perpetually agitated, several small springs
betraying their relationship to the geysers by a periodicity of
activity.

When the air is dry and the temperature low, the springs shoot thick
volumes of steam high in air. To the incomer by the north or west
entrance who has yet to see a geyser, the first view of the Lower Geyser
Basin brings a shock of astonishment no matter what his expectation. Let
us hope it is a cool, bracing, breezy morning when the broad yellow
plain emits hundreds of columns of heavy steam to unite in a
wind-tossed cloud overlying and setting off the uncanny spectacle.
Several geysers spout vehemently and one or more roaring vents bellow
like angry bulls in a nightmare. This is appropriately the introduction
to the greater geyser basins which lie near by upon the south.

Who shall describe the geysers? What pen, what brush, shall do justice
to their ghostly glory, the eager vehemence of their assaults upon the
sky, their joyful gush and roar, their insistence upon conscious
personality and power, the white majesty of their fluted columns at the
instant of fullest expansion, the supreme loveliness of their feathery
florescence at the level of pois