The saucer-shaped reservoir was fifty feet across, and four feet deep.
I ought to tell you that the waters of the Geysers have a petrifying property, and hence the ground all around them is covered with what was once grass, moss, and sticks, converted into stone, of which we brought away many beautiful specimens.
It was very late in the evening when we had completed this examination, and fixed our tent where we intended to pass the night. The springs still continued quiet, and you may judge how impatient we were for something to be going on. However, as it was dark, and we were very tired, having had a great deal of fatigue during the day, we lay down in the tent and went to sleep.
About midnight we were suddenly called up by one of our party, to witness the great Geyser in its full glory. It threw up several jets, should think of at least ninety feet high, and sent off vast clouds of steam. There was only just light enough for us to distinguish the water and steam; but the effect was very grand, and such as we shall never forget, though it did not leave much behind in our minds to talk about, as everything seemed indistinct and confused.
The next morning, as soon as it was light, there was a beautiful eruption of the _New Geyser_, as it is called. The column of water was eight feet in diameter, and full sixty feet high, and the clouds of steam were prodigious. The sun was just then rising, and the effect of his rays through the water and stream, was exquisitely beautiful, producing many little rainbows. When the water had sunk down, its place was taken by a tremendous jet of spray and steam, rushing out with a deafening roar to nearly the same height as the water.
When we threw some large stones into the pipe, the steam instantly carried them up to an amazing height; and in several instances, when they went up quite perpendicularly, kept them within its influence for some minutes, throwing them upwards several times successively, in a very strange manner; the Geyser seemed to play with them as a boy plays with his ball when he throws it up and catches it again and again.
We were not yet satisfied, because we had not seen an eruption fairly from beginning to end; so we waited some time longer. At about seven o'clock in the morning, we heard low grumbling sounds near the great Geyser, and the water in the basin bubbled up a little more actively.