Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1883-11-16
THE CALIFORNIA GEYSERs.
A Vivid, IDiabOlical ana Unearthly
Realm Where Youth Is Renewed,

Correspondence St Louis Globe Democrat.
Our guide was dear old white. haired
German, who lived many years in St. Louis
before be came westward to mine, to pros
pect and finally to be guardian Of this sput-
tering and snortlng ravine of the geysers.
His moss-grown and medieval jokes were
received with solemnity, and 1t was only
when he showed us the cool stream, where
you caught u trout and whipped it over into
the boiling spring to cook it, tina. our scoffer
was unfeeling enough to ask for the "egg
sauce or Worcestershire sauce spring. that
ought to be near by. There is one spring in that
narrow little canyon for every alment in the
doctors category, the iron, the sulphur, the
alum, the magucsia and the epson salts,
boiling and gurgling away ut all tempera-
lures and in all combinations, aud as we
wound our way up that tortuous canyon the
guide continually did tempt us with his cup
full of some scamipg draught. The strain
cd imagery and the far-fctchcd rcscmblanccs
which have ruled the naming OF the differ
cnt places in the canyon are lame and tedious
TO degree, and We listened vaguely to the
pucrile tales of the devil having hung up
his spectaclcs on q rock when he had tried
the eyc-water syring. We saw the dew
lis office, his writing-desk, his bank
and his medicine chest filed with crystals
of epson salts. We saw his stcw.pan,
his teakettle, his steamboat, his laboratory,
and listened TO the rumble of his workshop,
his pumps and his engines, and the hiss OF
the great safety valve on which his majcstys
cousin is supposed to sit Half way up the
steaming dcfile photographer has his little
den, and the same impulse that lures human
ity into being photographed against the back
ground of Niagara Falls leads them to the
camera here. The shifting clouds Of steam
and the canyon walls streaked and daubed
with brilliant patches of color make fine pic
lures to the eye every moment, but no photo
graph can do justice to it, and only well
executed aquarelc could give an accurate
realm.
Although this group Of hot and boiling
springs have long been denomiuacd geysers,
they are not geysers at all, and there are no
eruptions of columns of water or the recur-
rent bursts of water aud steam to great
heights, which characterize the geysers OF
Iceland, New Zealand and the Yellowstone.
One inky;pool, of unknown depth and dia.
meter Of seven feet boils away at furious
rate, but this witches caldron does not au-
thorize the ambitious name that dcsignatcs
this collection of boiling springs and steam
blow-holcs. The heat and steam have so
decomposcd the rocks through which they
find vent, that one can thrust his stick into
what appears to be solid rock, and
the ground jars and trcmbles beneath any
heavy or emphatic footstep. At the head of
the canyon there is the inevitable DEVILS
Pulpit, from which the ruler is supposed TO
view his realm, and on which our guide
wants Iugersoll and Beechcr to stand aud be
In the early morning and at
sunset the canyon is one cloud of steam, and
htp Gfrlra ,rh hat
misty and shifting medium are suggestive of
all the witches, COLLINS and demons that
haunt the fairy tales and the Broken, but,
at noon, when the hot sun pours straight
down into the canyon, the steam rises in faint
and titful gusts, and the wonderful coloIing
of the canyon walls is seen at its best.
Cinnabar streaks the sides with red mag
nesia lies in great white masses sui
phur crystals form yellow patches around
each little steam hole, and rocks are covered
with blue and green compounds OF copper
that have condensed from the heavy fumes.
Tossed together in the widest way the rocks
show all these vivid tin;s, while the general
effect on the eye is the endless range of reds
and ycllows. The putting, steamlng and
suffering holes in the hillsides eliminate in
the great tea-kettle's spout, which emits a
hoarsc blast of steam that makes the guides
cup whirl like ily-wheel when he hangs it
on his stick and holds it across the onfice.
The Indians knew Of this canyon ages az
and it is not many years since they tore
down the rude tepee that they had built over
one OF the springs for sweat bath. The OLD
men were cured of their rheumatic woes by
The sulphcr steam, and marvellous effects arc
now produced on the white man who dares
TO ''sulphur the dcepIdamnation" Of one of
The steam baths provided n, the bath house
near the hotel. The bath-house is bull, over
a collection of boiling sulphur springs, and
The patient, or the victim, is fret con-
iuccd 10 II box of a room where the steam
,rcaps in at every crack OF the floor as hot as
/ came from the center of the earth. After
, thorough parboiling there comes the hot
md tcpid showers, n plunge into a tank of
old sulphur water, and then a glow and u
apturous and delightful sensation Of having
,rown twenty years younger and sprycr,