"This crater is a vast seething crater, four hundred feet long and two hundred ans fifty feet wide, which pours forth into the Firehole River four thousand gallons of boiling water per minute. The geyser played with terrific force which the sides of the crater could not withstand. The side toward the river finally became so lowered that in the 1888 the overflow had increased to a rate which quenched the geyer. Geologists believe that if this side could be rebuilt sufficiently to retard the overflow that Excelsior would again play."