Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1881-03-02
A Trip to the Great Geysers.

In the late afternoon, the sky being some
what overcast, ''koch, the guide. though
it good time to see the ''Great Geysers.
From the hotel piazza they did not look st
great" in any sense of the word. In fact
all we could see was q constant steam.
cloud, drifting up and away from rusty
brown streak on the hillside. But tLt
place turned out to be internally interest
ing. The approach is very deceptive. A
winding trail from the hotel leads down to
Sulphur Creek-cool and clear; and oveI
a rustic bridge and q series of steps on the
opposite bank you come to the mouth OF
Geyser Canyon, where Pluton Creek tum.
bles along its hot and sulphur blue-greeu
water, as the first intimation of the toll and
trouble and cauldrun bubble further up
the narrow and smoking way. Across the
bank again, in and out, over and around
rocks and under laurel bushes the narrow
trail leads into the great laundry. First
we step up to the Devils Off1ce'-but
not to settle, as many of us will have to do
some day; but pass through 'Proserpne's s
Grotto'' TO sit ifi the Devils Armchair. +"
The Devils Kitchen" little further on,
is more than ordinarily fascinating, al
though the old fellows diet appears to be
principally hell broth. This kitchen is a
cross between the "Poodle-Dog' range and
a steam fire-engine. Here and there in
the shelving rock are little springs and ba-
sins, bubbhng, blubbering, and only wait
Ing for some rrot-haired Eastern tourist
to fall in, in order to transform the whole
ravine into savory soup-house. Just out
side the ''DeviPs Kitchen" is the ''Devips
Inkstand," and the '.Devil's Punch-bowP'
and ''Geyser Smoke stack, and Witches
Cauldron,' and ''Devil's Canopy, y and the
Safety Valve" and the steamboat
Spring." and the ''Devil's Pulpit, and the
devil knows what else. These things have
been so often described that it Is a crime to
do it again. Suffice it to say, that there is
a canyon filed with fretting steam and boil
ing water. and spongy mineral-streaked
ground, that smokes like the ruins of re-
Gently burned city. Commotion every
where. Water hot enough to boil eggs
harder than Pharaoh's heart. Steam that
puffs and blows and shrieks and wheeZes
and climbs up your trousers-legs, and takes
all the starch out of the Boston school
ma'aln's underskirts, and brings the bando-
line out o. the New York girls hair, and
turns the bismuth powder on the San Fran
CISCO belle blacker than her bang. 1t is as
though the devil had upset here his entire
apothecary shop and then turned on the
hydrant. Leaving the canyon, we come
suddenly on the 'Postoffice, and tSe
Lovers Retreat, and the Lovers Leap"
and the Lava Beds" and the ''Indian
Sweat BATH where the natives in their
early days used to parboil their old rheu-
matte bucks. While pitching pebbles into
the nozzle of the DEVILS Tea-kettle.
ssKoch' told US of all sorts Of wonderful
springs-the iron spring, the hot acid
spring, tine eye-water spring, the lemonade
spring, and a dozen other springs-but
none of them half as interesting or nimble
as the Xix spring. wnen he saw what he
took for "a bear reaching for leaf" A
bear skin had been stuffed and placed on
the hillside, and by strings cleverly con-
trlved and worked from behind tree the
fraud was made to go through bear mo-
tions to life. One look was enough for
everybody. the guide included, and the
boys beat the lovers retreat all to pieces in
their frantic endeavors 10 shake the dust
of that hillside from of their flying feet.
The bear adventure wound up the first
day to everybody's satisfaction.