<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><DIV id=yiv525907638> <DIV id=yiv1134424693> <DIV>I've been reading "Robur the Conqueror," a relatively obscure novel written by Jules Verne in 1888 about a guy who invents a flying machine and takes a few unwilling passengers on a flight around the world.  (I would assume it was originally written in French, but I'm not sure who translated it; it's a "Project Gutenberg" book and no translator is credited.)  I was interested to see the following paragraphs about the portion of the flight that takes the characters over Yellowstone:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><EM>After talking over several hypotheses more or less plausible they<BR>came to the conclusion that this country encircled with mountains<BR>must be the district declared by an Act of Congress in March, 1872,<BR>to be the National Park of the United States. A strange region it<BR>was. It well merited the name of a park--a park with mountains for<BR>hills, with lakes for ponds, with rivers for streamlets, and with<BR>geysers of marvelous power instead of fountains.</EM></DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM>In a few minutes the "Albatross" glided across the Yellowstone River,<BR>leaving Mount Stevenson on the right, and coasting the large lake<BR>which bears the name of the stream. Great was the variety on the<BR>banks of this basin, ribbed as they were with obsidian and tiny<BR>crystals, reflecting the sunlight on their myriad facets. Wonderful<BR>was the arrangement of the islands on its surface; magnificent were<BR>the blue reflections of the gigantic mirror. And around the lake, one<BR>of the highest in the globe, were multitudes of pelicans, swans,<BR>gulls and geese, bernicles and divers. In places the steep banks were<BR>clothed with green trees, pines and larches, and at the foot of the<BR>escarpments there shot upwards innumerable white fumaroles, the vapor<BR>escaping from the soil as from an enormous reservoir in which the<BR>water is kept in permanent ebullition by subterranean fire.</EM></DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM>The cook might have seized the opportunity of securing an ample<BR>supply of trout, the only fish the Yellowstone Lake contains in<BR>myriads. But the "Albatross" kept on at such a height that there was<BR>no chance of indulging in a catch which assuredly would have been<BR>miraculous.</EM></DIV> <DIV><EM></EM> </DIV> <DIV><EM>In three quarters of an hour the lake was overpassed, and a little<BR>farther on the last was seen of the geyser region, which rivals the<BR>finest in Iceland. Leaning over the rail, Uncle Prudent and Phil<BR>Evans watched the liquid columns which leaped up as though to furnish<BR>the aeronef with a new element. There were the Fan, with the jets<BR>shot forth in rays, the Fortress, which seemed to be defended by<BR>waterspouts, the Faithful Friend, with her plume crowned with the<BR>rainbows, the Giant, spurting forth a vertical torrent twenty feet<BR>round and more than two hundred feet high.<BR></EM></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I especially love a Giant Geyser shout-out from 1888!  (This was pre-Waimangu and decidedly pre-Steamboat.  Was Giant the world's tallest geyser at the time?)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>--Nathan Dutzmann</DIV></DIV></DIV></td></tr></table><br>