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Wednesday 31 August 2011

Mud Springs (William Henry Jackson, Yellowstone, 1871)


.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Mud Springs at Crater Hills near Sulphur Spring. The contents of this spring are a fine, siliceous, pearl-colored mud, the consistency of thick, hasty pudding. The surface is covered with puffs of mud, which, as they burst, give off a thud-like noise, and then the paint-like liquid recedes from the center of the puffs in a perfect series of rings to the side. The explosion is produced by the escape of sulfurated hydrogen gas through the mud. 1871.U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (Hayden Survey).

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Mud Springs at Crater Hills near Sulphur Spring. The contents of this spring are a fine, siliceous, pearl-colored mud, the consistency of thick, hasty pudding. The surface is covered with puffs of mud, which, as they burst, give off a thud-like noise, and then the paint-like liquid recedes from the center of the puffs in a perfect series of rings to the side. The explosion is produced by the escape of sulfurated hydrogen gas through the mud: from U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 1871 (Hayden Survey)



Puffs of

mud


produced

by the escape


of sulfurated

hydrogen gas


spring

like hope


eternal

and when burst


like hope

give off


a thud

like noise


as the paint

like liquid


secreted

by realism


recedes

in a perfect


series of

rings


to the side




Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Mud Geyser in action. The only true mud geyser discovered, 8 miles below Yellowstone Lake. It has a funnel-shaped orifice in the center of a basin 150 feet in diameter and in which there are two other hot mud springs. The flow of the geyser is regularly every six hours, the eruptions lasting about fifteen minutes. The thick, muddy water rises gradually in the crater, commencing to boil when about half-way to the surface, and occasionally breaking forth with great violence. When the crater is filled, it is expelled from it in a splashing, scattered mass, 10 feet in diameter, to 40 feet in height. The mud is a dark lead-color and deposits itself all about the rim of the crater. 1871.U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (Hayden Survey).

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Mud Geyser in action. The only true mud geyser discovered, 8 miles below Yellowstone Lake. It has a funnel-shaped orifice in the center of a basin 150 feet in diameter and in which there are two other hot mud springs. The flow of the geyser is regularly every six hours, the eruptions lasting about fifteen minutes. The thick, muddy water rises gradually in the crater, commencing to boil when about half-way to the surface, and occasionally breaking forth with great violence. When the crater is filled, it is expelled from it in a splashing, scattered mass, 10 feet in diameter, to 40 feet in height. The mud is a dark lead-color and deposits itself all about the rim of the crater: from U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 1871 (Hayden Survey)

Photos by William Henry Jackson from United States Geological Surveys (U. S. Geological Survey Photographic Library)

3 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom.

". . .realism

recedes

in a perfect

series of

rings" . . . .

9.1

light coming into fog against invisible
top of ridge, still blackness of branch
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

permanence in which time is
contained, will be at

one time, which one has but
sometimes, let happen

grey white of fog against top of ridge,
2 cormorants flapping across toward it

Doiron said...

What great photos you have, Nicole. AWESOME... Wowsers! Your poetry is... I don't have the words for your talent. You will go far! x0x

TC said...

Norma, many thanks for visiting. I'm sorry to say Nicole isn't in today. In fact, Nicole has never been in.

Who's Nicole??



Hi again, Steve. And about that concentric series of rings...

Come on in, the mud's fine!