Mammoth Paint Pots. Lower Geyser Basin. Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Publication

Mammoth Paint Pots. Lower Geyser Basin. Yellowstone Nat. Park, Wyo.

Description

MAMMOTH PAINT POTS, LOWER GEYSER BASIN, YELLOWSTONE PARK. About 21 miles S. W. of the Norris Basin, by way of Madison Junction, we reach the Lower Geyser Basin which is intermediate between the Norris Basin and the Upper Basin both in location and in the magnitude of its gushers. The Lower Basin is the most extensive of any in area, covering about 12 square miles. But its attractiosn are so widely scattered that all of them cannot be readily visited. It boasts, however, what was once the greatest geyser in the world; Excelsior. It also contains the Fountain and the Great Fountain, geysers of the first importance in size and beauty, both of which in eruption throw up gracefully formed columns of water, the first to the height of 75 ft. and the second sometimes to a height of 150 ft. There are also a large number of gorgeously colored lakes and springs, Dr. F. V Hayden in his survey of the Park having cataloged not less than 693 hot springs in this basin alone. But among its most remarkable features is the immense caldron of boiling mud called the Mammoth Paint Pots. Such "paint pots" are found in many places throughout the Park, but the one across which we are looking is the largest, measuring 40 ft. by 60 ft. in size with a rim of mud uplifted around it to a height of between 4 and 5 ft. Within the rim a mass of fine, pale-colored mud resembling boiling paint is in a state of constant agitation, lifting up great globules and rings which break over the hot, steaming surface with a continuous bubbling sound. (Elev. 7,300 ft. Lat. 45° N.; Long. 111° W.)