The Baraboo news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1884-1911, 1910-03-10
Ye1loUSfone Pork Fl
Great Wonderland
Il. d. Dorsetf Formerly Editor of Obs Paper
Cells of tie MareeLs 06ere.

time, no extra nap or unnecessary
primping, for at 1880 the coaches art
| ready and the days journey must bt
begun. A pretty college girl plays {
merry ting-a-ling on triangle, and the
| rich and the poor and the just ordinary
| file into the big dining tent anG
touch elbows at common
table. The food is spread on the table
in family style, and for half hour
the farmer from Kansas and the
broker from New York pass to each
other anything from hot biscuits to
pleasant words. This human kinShiI
that is aroused is really one of the best
features of the weeks outing, for it is
good for the average person to throw
off for time the veneer in which class
distinction encrusts him, and realize
that there is brotherhood between
man and man not formed by wealth or
by position, by church or by fraternity,
or by any other thing except sym =
pathy.
The Geysers.
People go to the park to see the
geysers. There are lots of wonderful
things in the park, but leave out the
geyserS and it would be worlds fair
without midway. The geysers make
all the fuss and noise and furnish most
of the entertainment. It seems to be
natural for people to regard the geysers
as playthings of the devil, and per-
sonal devil has come to be such joke
that anything he does at once makes
people feel funny and ready to laugh.
It is an easy matter for the mind to
connect these erupticns of boiling
water and steam from the interior of
the earth with his satanic majesty,
for they are popularity supposed to
come from that great depth where
small men with large imaginations
once located the place of eternal tor
ment, and most of them bear in their
vapors rich odor of sulphur that
might readily come from the fires
used to keep hot TIE caldrons in
which are thrown the bodies and souls
of the wicked.
Among men who seek for natural
causes for everything, there is diver
sity of opinion as to what produces
the geysers. Some of our best minds
hold TO the theory that the park region
was once the scene of great volcanic
activity and that the rock masses have
soliditied sufficiently to prevent further
of lava, but are still very
hot. Then they claim that there
are cracks or assures in the rocks
through which the water finds it's
way until it reaches the heated por-
tiOns where it is converted into steam.
The steam, of course, seeks liberty and
forces the water above it through the
openings and into the air. Some of
these great jets of water and steam es-
cape with roar that is terrifying, and
go up to height of several hundred
feet. These spoutings occur at usually
regular intervals, come every few
hours, and some in the course of sew
eral days. Old Faithful, which used
to relieve itself once every hour, now
makes play every 81 minutes.
My theory as to the cause of these
wonderful phenomena, is more prosaic
and robs the imagination of much of
its pleasure. [ believe they are caused
by the simple contact of water and
lime. My theory is supported by the
cones of lime formed about the great
and the acres and acres of
limestone deposited where the hot
water spreads out and runs away. L
saw hundreds of geysers, big and little,
scatt cred here and there throughout
the park, but found none where lime
was not in evidence. Limestone, not
lava, is the prevailing rock in the
park, and there is lots of it. Where
the Yellowstone river has cut acanyon
over 1000 feet deep, it is limestone
from top to bottom, and how much
farther down no man knows. From
the sides of this canyon noticed in
several places jets of steam coming
out, evidently from crevices of no great
depth where the water had gained en-
trance and got hot just as it does when
the plasterer mixes water with his
lime in a mortar box. IF water and
hot lava rocks made the geysers, there