ROCKY MOUNTAIN GEYSERS

Extracts from an unpublished work, entitled "LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS."

I had heard in the summer of 1833, while at rendezvous, that remarkable boiling springs had been discovered on the sources of the Madison, by a party of trappers, in their spring hunt; of which the accounts they gave, were so very near astonishing, that I determined to examine them myself, before recording their description, though I had the united testimony of more than twenty men on the subject, who all declared they saw them, and what they really were as extensive and remarkable as they had been described.

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I have never before heard of a cold spring, whose waters exibit the phenomena of periodical explosive propulsion, in form of a jet. The geysers of Iceland, and the various other European springs, the waters of which are projected upwards, with violence and uniformity, as well as those seen on the head waters of the Madison, are invariably hot.