tance.

'As our principal object in coming so far was to see an eruption of
the Great Geyser, it was of course necessary to wait his pleasure;
in fact, our movements entirely depended upon his. For the next two
or three days, therefore, like pilgrims round some ancient shrine,
we patiently kept watch, but he scarcely deigned to vouchsafe us
the slightest manifestation of his latent energies. Two or three
times the cannonading we heard immediately after our arrival
recommenced--and once an eruption to the height of about ten feet
occurred; but so brief was its duration, that by the time we were
on the spot, although the tent was not eighty yards distant, all
was over; as after every effort of the fountain, the water in the
basin mysteriously ebbed back into the funnel. This performance,
though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of
approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down its scalded
gullet. In an hour afterward the basin was brimful as ever.

'On the morning of the fourth day a cry from the guides made us
start to our feet, and with one common impulse rush toward the
basin. The usual subterranean thunders had already commenced. A
violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a
dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten
feet--then burst and fell; immediately after which a shining liquid
column, or rather sheaf of columns, wreathed in robes of vapor,
sprang into the air, and in a succession of jerking leaps, each
higher than the last, flung their silver crests against the sky.
For a few minutes the fountain held its own, then all at once
appeared to lose its ascending energy. The unstable waters
faltered--drooped--fell, 'like a broken purpose,' back upon
themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the recesses of
their pipe.

'The spectacle was certainly magnificent; but no description can
give an idea of its most striking features. The enormous wealth of
water, its vitality, its hidden power, the illimitable breadth of
sunlit vapor, rolling out in exhaustless profusion--all combined to
make one feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movement.

'And yet I do not believe that the exhibition was so fine as some
that have been seen: from the first burst upward to the m