[Geysers] Biscuit Basin names

[Gordon Bower]

We've had an awful lot of suggestions on here about different ways to say Black and White in a name.

Far be it from me to say anything uncondimentary about Salt and Pepper, or suggest that Granite isn't a gneiss name. When Scott first was brainstorming black-and-white possibilities and coming up only with banded onyx, I almost posted then to suggest Gneiss. Seeing the path the discussion has taken, it's time I say why I didn't.

In the case of thermal features named after ocean products like coral and pearl, rare precious stones like emerald, topaz, and beryl that aren't found anywhere near the park, manmade metals like bronze, and nonnative trees like ebony, it is abundantly clear that the thermal feature is named after it only because of an outward resemblence. 

On the other hand, there is real black sand near Black Sand Pool, real calcium carbonate at Calcite Springs, real arsenic sulfide (even if most of it isn't really realgar) at Realgar Spring, real sulfur at Sulfur Dust Pool, real glacial moraine at Till Geyser, a real dead mouse found floating in Peromiscus Spring once upon a time...

I am opposed to seeing a thermal feature named after a mineral (rock, fossil, tree,etc) which is found in the Yellowstone area (or is non-precious and common in some other area not too far away) unless the substance is actually present in the vicinity of the thermal feature.  I think names like Granite, Garnet, Gneiss, Feldspar, Tuff, Trilobite, would all make great names for a thermal feature SOMEWHERE -- but  no granite anywhere near Biscuit Basin.

As for "Salt and Pepper" the only thing I find odd about that is having the and-bit followed by (singular) Geyser.  Come to think of it, there are both black and white peppercorns.... perhaps something like the Pepper Mill would do nicely as a name even without salt included, and allow for it to someday run out of black stuff to grind up and spit out?

I don't have Wonderland Nomenclature handy, but is there not already either a Castor or a Pollux somewhere in Yellowstone?

GRB