ore yesterday), after half an hour of inspection of the falls and
canon, he said: "Well, boys, I have seen all there is, and I am ready to
move on."

However, the perceptible decline in our larder, and the uncertainty of
the time to be occupied in further explorations, forbid more than these
two days' stay at the falls and canon. The sun this morning shone
brightly, and its rays were reflected upon the sides of the dismal
canon--so dark, and gray, and still--enlivening and brightening it.
To-day has been warm, and nature this morning seemed determined that our
last look should be the brightest, for the beauties of the entire
landscape invited us to make a longer stay, and we lingered till the
last moment, that the final impression might not be lost.

Pursuing our journey, at two miles above the falls we crossed a small
stream which we named "Alum" creek, as it is strongly impregnated with
alum.

[Illustration: W.C. Gillette.]

Six miles above the upper fall we entered upon a region remarkable for
the number and variety of its hot springs and craters. The principal
spring, and the one that first meets the eye as you approach from the
north, is a hot sulphur spring, of oval shape, the water of which is
constantly boiling and is thrown up to the height of from three to seven
feet. Its two diameters are about twelve feet and twenty feet, and it
has an indented border of seemingly pure sulphur, about two feet wide
and extending down into the spring or cauldron to the edge of the water,
which at the time of our visit, if it had been at rest, would have been
fifteen or eighteen inches below the rim of the spring. This spring is
situated at the base of a low mountain, and the gentle slope below and
around the spring for the distance of two hundred or three hundred feet
is covered to the depth of from three to ten inches with the sulphurous
deposit from the overflow of the spring. The moistened bed of a dried-up
rivulet, leading from the edge of the spring down inside through this
deposit, showed us that the spring had but recently been overflowing.
Farther along the base of this mountain is a sulphurous cavern about
twenty feet deep, and seven or eight feet in diameter at its mouth, out
of which the steam is thrown in jets with a sound resembling the puffing
of a steam-boat when laboring over a sand-bar, and with as much
uniformity and intonation as if emitted by a high-pressure engine. From
hundreds of fissures in the adjo