over the seething uncertain ground, your blistering
feet perhaps ankle deep in mineral deposits, and lift-
ing themselves spasmodically from the heated earth,
3^ou may see pools of slaty swash exhaling a dock-
mud stench, steam whizzins; thro'uo'h fissures, and
black compounds belching from slag and clinker-
rimmed holes ; at which strange doino;s Helena ixroans
afresh, and fallen forest trees ten miles distant shudder
and turn to stone.
Here, as everywhere in dealing with the unknown, men speculate upon the causes of these phenomena, some holding that they are produced by volcanic action, others by purely chemical forces. Side by side, only a few inches apart, are hot springs and cold springs, boil- ing springs and springs whose waters are undisturbed. An iron pipe terminating in a whistle inserted in one of these steam orifices, sends forth a shrill shriek. On the Pluton is the Indian spring, whither the na- tives, who feared to enter the Devil's canon, have re- sorted from time immemorial to bathe in its healing waters. There they erected a sweating-house, and thither they carried their sick. Near the hot black sulphur bath, which they have made, flows a stream of clear cold water, into which, after their fashion, they plunge alternately. On one side of the Devil's canon is the Mountain of Fire, honey-combed with dead geysers, and stratified with sulphur, epsom salts, copperas, nitre, ammonia, tartaric acid, cinnabar, magnesia, and yellow ochre. Near by are the vent holes of a crater from which the steam whistles with great force. In early morning, before the overhang- ing vapors are dissipated by the rising sun, the gorge is filled with steam, which rolls ofl" in huge banks be- fore the wind. Above and beyond the edges of this Tartarean pool, round which struggle pale sickly trees, in the valley of the Pluton, and sometimes ap- proaching coyishly to the very verge of the heated waters, mountains, hills, and ravines are overspread with a covering of fresh verdure and wild flowers.
