The Excelsior--claimed to be the largest of its order, which sent water
nearly 300 feet into the air at intervals of about five hours, and of
such volume as to wash away bridges over small streams below--was not,
until comparatively recent years, known as a specially powerful geyser.
But if it had for a time waned in importance, its immense crater, 330
feet in length and 200 feet at the widest part, shows that at a still
earlier date it was a gigantic fountain. In this deep pit, when the
breeze wafted aside the clouds of steam constantly arising from its
surface, the water could be seen seething 15 or 20 feet below the
surrounding level. Yet into the cauldron of boiling water a little
stream of cold water, from the melting snow of the uplands, ran
unceasingly. Since 1888 this great geyser has been inactive.
The Castle Geyser is so named on account of the fancied resemblance
which its mound of white and grey deposit presents to the ruins of a
feudal keep, the crater itself being placed on a cone or turret, which
has a somewhat imposing appearance compared with the other geysers in
the neighborhood. It throws a column usually about fifty or sixty feet
high, at intervals of two or three hours, but sometimes the discharge
shoots up much higher.
The Giant, in the Upper Geyser Basin, has a peculiar crater, which
has been likened to the stump of a hollow sycamore tree of gigantic
proportions, whose top has been wrenched off by a storm. This curious
cup is broken down at one side, as though it had been torn away during
an eruption of more than ordinary violence, and on this side the visitor
is able to look into the crater, if he can contrive to avoid the jets
which are constantly spouted from it.
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