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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/427

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GEYSERS AND HOW THEY ARE EXPLAINED.
411

posit from the hot geyser-waters. The surface of the mound-like, chimney-like, and hive-like elevations, immediately surrounding the vents, is, in some cases, ornamented in the most exquisite manner by deposits of the same, in the form of scalloped embroidery set with pearly tubercles; in others, the siliceous deposits take the most fantastic

Fig. 5.—Beehive Geyser (from a Drawing by Holmes).

forms (Figs. 1, 2, 3). In some places the silica is deposited in large quantities, three or four inches deep, in a gelatinous condition like starch-paste. Trunks and branches of trees immersed in these waters are speedily petrified.

We can only mention a few of the grandest of these geysers:

1. The "Grand Geyser," according to Hayden, throws up a col-