Lithographs of Yellowstone’s Thermal Springs (1883) — The Public Domain Review

Their written descriptions fill in the missing chromatic detail. In one group of springs, “orange, lemon-yellow, and salmon colors are streaked on a milk-white ground in the utmost profusion, as though some painter had emptied pots of paint over the hard sediment from the springs.” The report describes “pulsating geyser cones of both yellow and crimson, paint springs, and rivulets of nearly every color”; it conjures up arches, jets, and explosions, eruptions and spasms, flanked by clouds, vapors, and torrents of mineral water.