The Livingston enterprise. [volume] (Livingston, Mont.) 1883-1914, 1888-06-09
Excelsior Geyser.


the next fiscal year.
Excelsior Geyser.
i 1t might be deemed rash conclusion
to ascribe the recent floods of rain that
are deluging the valley of the upper
and lower Yellowstone to the unrrece-
dented activity of Hells Half Acre.
But when parties at the Castle Noun
tain mines can see the formation of
clouds in the Midway geyser basin and,
as in the case OF Mr.. Preston Gibson,
who, not knowing that the Excelsior
was booming, declared that there was
nothing in the Yellowstone Park that
could possibly fill the whole sky with
clouds that seemed to form over ver-
tical column several thousand feet high
and from thence spread over the whole
heavens like pail. Castle Mountain
is at least It's miles from Hell's Half
Acre, so you can imagine Mr.. Glbson's
surprise on reaching Livingston to be
Informed that the great Excelsior had
been in hourly eruption since April
3Oth. He started at once for the geyser
region, we'll knowing that such an ex-
hibition Of volcanic energy might never
occur again. Your correspondent met
him at the Fire Hole hotel on his way
up, and myself, with Mr. and Mrs. Wei
lington Payne of Lexington, Kentucky,
had seen nine eruptions on that and the
day before. In the gloom of the even
ing l called the party out to witness
phenomenon seen at a distance of four
miles as remarkable as that seen at the
great geyser itself. An eruption had
just taken place, when there was formed
over the crater an immense pillar
reaching up into the sky to the height
of over 1900 feet. Mr. Payne was in
clined to give it even greater eleva-
ton, but all agreed that it could not be
less. At that altitude the clouds parted,
drifting east and west, and in less than
an hour the whole heavens were over
cast with dense masses of clouds and
the rain fell in torrents all night. A
week later / was in the Midway geyser
basin, accompanied by Mr.. Orrin Goan
of Chicago, and we saw three eruptions,
during which the clouds condensed so
rapidly that the rain began to fall dur
ing the afternoon and kept it up during
the night. 1t is a fair inference made
by all observers that this great liquid
volcano not only floods the Firehole
river with many thousands of barrels
of boiling water every hour, but that it
floods the sky with vapor during the
day, forming vast clouds that condense
in the cool evening and is flooding the
two great valleys that lie along the
Madison and Yellowstone rivers. 1t
must be borne in mind that the Fire.
hole river itself for several miles below
the Excelsior is SO heated as to give off
vast clouds, in addition to those contin-
ually rising above the crater. In 1882
a great forest fire had been raging dur
ing the last of August and the early
part of September. The Excelsior be-
ing then in activity, the same phenom-
enon was present; but what fell in rain
in the lower portions of the Park be-
came snow on the high lands and was
the sole means of effectually stopping
the confagration that had already de-
stroyed all the forests on Terrace mOun-
tain and among the Hoodoos, leaving
behind it wilderness of charred and
blackened forest. The tongues of flame
were shooting up Sheepeater mountain
and had gone half way up to Bunsen's
peak when the snow storm of Septem-
Der 18th and 18th swept over the moun-
tains from Hell's Half Acre and
quenched the fires of He'll that were
devouring every green thing that came
in their path. G.. HENDERSON.
Hendry's Monument.