Each time the rumble and the crepitus caused a rush from the tent, but beyond the pleasing mobility of the vapour-clouds there was nothing to see. The cold morning air showed the puffs and sheets of steam rising from the Geysir-ground to great advantage.

St Swithin’s Day “in the morrnin’,” began with a visit from Páll, who brought an old woman to make coffee at the boiling spring, and Haukadalr cream which savoured strongly of civilising influences—Hr Sigurðr Pállsson’s family has evidently learnt “a thing or two.” Came also the spade de rigeur, which a generation has used for worrying the Strokkr; it lets for $1 per diem, and by this time it must have proved itself a small silver mine.

The day broke cold and cloudy, with a wind from north and north-west, and the air was not swept clean till the afternoon, when a strong north-wester set in. We found to the west of the Geysir a bath, lately made with turf and stone; its unconscionable heat drove us farther south. An excellent therma might easily be cut in the silex; and as for warm and cold water, they can be turned on ad libitum. The element has a slimy feel, the effect of silica (?), which reminded me of Central African frog-pools; it has no appreciable taste nor sediment, yet clothes washed in it are tainted with sulphur; and we can swear that it tinges “Schnapps” with a rich horsepond hue.

After the holystoning required for comfort, we proceeded to the serious study of the emplacement. It has been perfunctorily described by all travellers, even by Baring-Gould, and worse by the venerable Lyell. The latter makes “the Geysers” rise through lava which may have been erupted by Hekla, distant only thirty miles, which is impossible.

The site has been compared with the Vale of Siddim (the gushers?), where a certain “sad catastrophe” took place, and where general volcanic action exists only in the brain of M. de Saulcy. Nothing can be more unlike. These pocket “Campi Phlegræi” cover a few square yards, a patch probably overlying pyrites, upon the left or western plain, which gently slopes towards the Túngufljót. The “Tongue”[105] or Mesopotamian “flood” winds snake-like through the moorland of dull-yellow clay, rhubarb-coloured humus, and bog, alternating with green vegetation: here it is hid by high banks; there it shows its vertebræ in streaks and dots of silvery stream, flashing in the sun. Houses and farms unknown to the map vary the surface. The readily-flooded river-valley, of old a sea-arm, trends with almost imperceptible fall from north-north-east to south-south-west; and at this point it may be nine miles wide: in the former direction it drains the Haukadalsheiði, and ultimately the Lángjökull. Up stream the eye ranges from the azure saddleback of Bláfell, an extinct volcano, they say, to the lumpy cones and denticulated crests, rocky and snowy, known as the Hrútafell, the Hrefnubúðir, the Brekkja, and the Hreppfjall. Down stream the glance rests upon a number of little mounds dotting the various alluvial Doabs of the ancient Fjörð, especially the Hestfjall, backed by the taller Örðufell, lying south-east of Skálholt. The eastern bank is a regular line of rolling hill, separating the main artery from the Hvítá, the snow-streaked peaks of Gelldingafell: the Berghyllsfjall, and the coffin-shaped Miðfell are the principal eminences. The western flank is formed by the major range of the Laugarfjall, which is not named in the map; this line is backed by the Bjarnarfell, the Sandfell, and the lava-stream known as Uthliðshraun.

But the intricacy of the site, a valley within a valley, is not yet ended. On the west of the Túngufljót there are still two influents, badly shown in the map, which form a watershed of their own, flowing down troughs which often obscure them from sight, parallel with and eventually feeding their main stream. This secondary feature is bounded eastward by a dwarf divide, a shallow arch of ground, and westward by the Laugarfjall, an insulated node of degraded phonolite and heat-altered trachyte, which has been driven through the Palagonite.[106] This rock islet, a few hundred feet high, with its two green knobs, is divided by a stony precipice, and by a low, marshy, stream-cut valley from the western range (Laugarfjall), of which it is an outlier; and it curves with its concavity open to the rising sun.

On the eastern slope of the trachytic pile and extending round the north of the rock-wall are the Hvers and Geysirs. Nothing can be meaner than their appearance, especially to the tourist who travels as usual from Reykjavik; nothing more ridiculous than the contrast of this pin’s point, this atom of pyritic formation, with the gigantic theory which it was held to prove, earth’s central fire, the now obsolete dream of classical philosophers and “celebrated academicians;”[107] nothing more curious than the contrast between Nature and Art, between what we see in life and what we find in travellers’ illustrations. Sir John Stanley, perpetuated by Henderson, first gave consistence to popular idea of “that most wonderful fountain the Great Geysir:” such is the character given to it by the late Sir Henry Holland, a traveller who belonged to the “wunderbar” epoch of English travel, still prevalent in Germany. From them we derive the vast background of black mountain, the single white shaft of fifty feet high, domed like the popular pine-tree of Vesuvian smoke, the bouquet of water, the Prince of Wales feathers, double-plumed and triple-plumed, charged with stones; and the minor jets and side squirts of the foregrounds, where pigmies stand and extend the arm of illustration, and the hand of marvel.

In this little patch, however, we may still study the seven forms of Geysir life. First, is the baby still sleeping in the bosom of Mother Earth, the airy wreath escaping from the hot clay ground; then comes the infant breathing strongly, and at times puking in the nurse’s lap; third, is the child simmering with impatience; and fourth, is the youth whose occupation is to boil over. The full-grown man is represented by the “Great Gusher” in the plenitude of its lusty power; old age, by the tranquil, sleepy “laug;” and second childhood and death, mostly from diphtheria or quincy, in the empty red pits strewed about the dwarf plain. “Patheticum est!” as the old scholiast exclaimed.

It is hardly fair to enter deeply in the history of the Great Geysir, but a few words may be found useful. The silence of Ari Fróði (A.D. 1075), and of the Landnámabók, so copious in its details, suggests that it did not exist in the eleventh century; and the notice of Saxo Grammaticus in the preface to his History of Denmark proves that it had become known before the end of the thirteenth. Hence it is generally assumed that the volcanic movements of A.D. 1294, which caused the disappearance of many hot springs, produced those now existing.[108] Forbes cleverly proved the growth of the tube by deposition of silex on the lips,[109] a process which will end by sealing the spring: he placed its birth about 1060 years ago, which seems to be thoroughly reasonable; and thus for its manhood we have a period of about six centuries.

In 1770 the Geysir spouted eleven times a day; in 1814 it erupted every six hours; and in 1872 once between two and a week. Shepherd vainly waited six days; a French party seven; and there are legends of a wasted fortnight. The heights are thus given by travellers:

Thus the mean of the best authorities would be 80 feet, exactly equal to the Grandes Eaux of Versailles. The artificial maximum is popularly laid down at 90 feet. But torpedo experiments with 100 lbs. of picric powder have lifted a 2000-ton column 53 yards high; and we hear of pillars 50 feet thick reaching 123 yards. The Giant Geysir, a silicious spring near the head of the Firehole River, according to Dr F. V. Hayden, propels an 8-feet shaft by steady impulses from 150 to 200 feet from the orifice.

The shooting action of the Geysir, an affair of 700 horse-power, has been explained in four distinct and several ways: by a reservoir, by a straight tube, by a bent tube, and by no tube at all. Furthermore, one experimenter applies fire to the centre of the tube, another cold, whilst a third heats the angle. Mackenzie suggested the “hypothetical subterranean cave” which was adopted by all the writers of his day; by Scrope, Dufferin, the Napoleon Book, and many others. They all forget that the reservoir and the syphon would produce regular and not intermittent action.

The epoch-marking visit of Professor Bunsen proved, by soundings, the Geysir to be a regular tube, 60 to 74 feet deep, with a diameter of 10 feet 4 inches: he found the temperatures by termometres à deversement varying to a maximum of 270° (F.), or 58° above boiling point; and Mr Bryson (1864) verified these observations, making the bottom of the pipe 240°, and the centre 270°. Superheated water loses the cohesion of its particles with the expulsion of air, and, if pressure be removed, “flashes into steam;” this well-known fact at once suggested the chemist’s explanation. Thus M. Müller was able to make an artificial Geysir; M. Douay of Ghent corked a straight brass tube, and caused explosion by heating it at the bottom and at half length; and Professor Tyndall followed with his pipe of galvanised iron, 6 feet long, surmounted by a basin, and girt about the centre with burning gas. Even the detonations were imitated; those of the model were explained by steam being condensed in the saucer, whose diameter is 52 to 60 feet, and whose contents are cooled by abundant evaporation—the same phenomenon on a small scale will be observed if water be heated in a bottle. Whilst the far-famed Werner held that volcanoes were caused by the burning of coal-beds, George Stephenson, a great and original mechanical genius, more Wernerian in this point than the master himself, was so impressed by the rhythm and regularity of movements as he first sighted a volcano that he at once referred them to steam and superheated water.

But presently observers raised the valid objection that if air were liberated in large quantities, the Geysir surface would be ever boiling like that of the “Strokkr.” Hence Baring-Gould suggested that an angle in the pipe is sufficient to produce all the phenomena, and he calls the following experiment “merely an adaptation of Sir George Mackenzie’s theory.” Bend an iron tube to 110°, making one arm half the length of the other; fill with water, and place in the fire. For a minute the liquid will remain quiet; presently it begins to quiver; steam generated in the shorter section causes a slight overflow, without signs of ebullition, till the bubble turns the angle: the column of the longer arm is then suddenly forced high in the air, and a jet of eighteen feet can be produced with a tube, whose long arm measures two feet, and whose bore is three-eighths of an inch. The bending pipe is given by Forbes (p. 252), but he has drawn no conclusions from it.

Finally, Dr Hochstetter (Revue Hebdomadaire de Chimie), whose highly interesting experiments throw much light upon volcanic action, can almost dispense with a pipe. When sulphur is melted under water, with a pressure of forty-five pounds to the square inch, the mineral absorbs part of the fluid, and as the former cools, the latter is driven out as steam accompanied by explosions. When the quantity of sulphur is excessive, upheavals take place, craters are formed, and melted brimstone is ejected.

Evidently the several theories require reconciling. A friend wrote to me: “Your suggestion of emptying the Geysir can be done only by a force pump. The long arm of a syphon would require to measure upwards of a hundred yards to find a lower level than the bottom of the tube, which lies eighty-six feet below the upper basin-rim. And even if you succeed, we shall learn very little more than what we already know, or we have reason to assume.” I rejoin that the position of the spring which fills the Geysir after each explosion, and which keeps up the constant flow over its saucer, is a matter of the greatest importance.

Ólafsson produced a new “Gusher,” by simply piercing through eighteen feet of sulphur ground at Krísuvík; and in Tuscany there are artificial soffioni, one of which has been driven 168 metres into strata showing 145° (Centig.). In the present state of science we evidently need not despair of being able to create a Great Geysir upon the grandest scale: these eruptions come from earth’s skin not from her intestines; and the subterranean laboratories of metallic bases are readily opened to oxidation.

Remains now only to walk over the ground, which divides itself into four separate patches: the extinct, to the north-west, below and extending round the north of the Laugarfjall buttress; the Great Geysir; the Strokkr and the Thikku-hverar to the south.

In the first tract earth is uniformly red, oxidised by air, not as in poetical Syria by the blood of Adonis. The hot, coarse bolus, or trachytic clay, soft and unctuous, astringent, and adhering to the tongue, is deposited in horizontal layers: snowy-white, yellow-white, ruddy, light-blue, blue-grey, mauve, purple, violet, and pale-green, are the Protean tints; often mixed and mottled, the effect of alum, sulphuric acid, and the decomposition of bisulphide of iron. The saucer of the Great Geysir is lined with Geysirite (silica hydraté), beads or tubercles of grey-white silica; all the others want these fungi or coral-like ornaments. The dead and dying springs show only age-rusty moulds and broken-down piles, once chimneys and ovens, resembling those of Reykir, now degraded and deformed to couthless heaps of light and dark grey. Like most of the modern features, they drained to the cold rivulet on the east, and eventually to the south. The most interesting feature is the Blesi (pronounced Blese), which lies 160 feet north of the Great Geysir. This hot-water pond, a Grotta Azurra, where cooking is mostly done, lies on a mound, and runs in various directions. To the north it forms a dwarf river-valley flowing west of the Great Geysir; eastward it feeds a hole of bubbling water which trickles in a streak of white sinter to the eastern rivulet and a drip-hole, apparently communicating underground with an ugly little boiler of grey-brown, scum-streaked, bubbling mud, foul-looking as a drain. The “beautiful quiescent spring” measures forty feet by fifteen,[110] and is of reniform or insect shape, the waist being represented by a natural arch of stone spanning the hot blue depths below the stony ledges which edge them with scallops and corrugations. Hence the name; this bridge is the “blaze” streaking a pony’s face. Blesi was not sealed by deposition of silex; it suddenly ceased to erupt in A.D. 1784, the year after the Skaptár convulsion, a fact which suggests the origin of the Geysirs. It is Mackenzie’s “cave of blue water;” and travellers who have not enjoyed the lapis lazuli of the Capri grotto, indulge in raptures about its colouration. North-west of the Blesi, and distant 300 feet, is another ruin, situated on a much higher plane and showing the remains of a large silicious mound: it steams, but the breath of life comes feebly and irregularly. This is probably the “Roaring Geyser” or the “Old Geyser,” which maps and plans place eighty yards from the Great Geysir.

The Great Geysir was unpropitious to us, yet we worked hard to see one of its expiring efforts. An Englishman had set up a pyramid at the edge of the saucer, and we threw in several hundredweights, hoping that the silex, acted upon by the excessive heat, might take the effect of turf; the only effects were a borborygmus which sounded somewhat like B’rr’rr’t, and a shiver as if the Foul Fiend had stirred the depths. The last eruption was described to us as only a large segment of the tube, not exceeding six feet in diameter. About midnight the veteran suffered slightly from singultus. On Monday the experts mispredicted that he would exhibit between eight and nine A.M., and at one A.M. on Tuesday there was a trace of second-childhood life. After the usual eructation, a general bubble, half veiled in white vapour, rose like a gigantic glass-shade from the still surface, and the troubled water trickled down the basin sides in miniature boiling cascades. Thence it flowed eastwards by a single waste-channel which presently forms a delta of two arms, the base being the cold, rapid, and brawling rivulet: the northern fork has a dwarf “force,” used as a douche, and the southern exceeds it in length, measuring some 350 paces.

We were more fortunate with the irascible Strokkr, whose name has been generally misinterpreted. Dillon calls it the piston, or churning-staff; and Barrow the “shaker:” it is simply the “hand-churn” whose upright shaft is worked up and down—the churn-like column of water suggested the resemblance. This feature, perhaps the “New Geyser” of Sir John Stanley and Henderson, formerly erupted naturally, and had all the amiable eccentricity of youth: now it must be teased or coaxed. Stanley gave it 130 feet of jet, or 36 higher than the Great Geysir; Henderson, 50 to 80; Symington, 100 to 150 feet; Bryson, “upwards of a hundred;” and Baring-Gould, “rather higher than the Geysir.” We found it lying 275 feet (Mackenzie, 131 yards) south of the big brother, of which it is a mean replica. The outer diameter of the saucer is only 7 feet, the inner about 18; and it is too well drained by its silex-floored channel ever to remain full. A funnel or inverted cone, whereas the Great Geysir is a mound and a cylinder, it gives the popular idea of a crater: the upper bore is 8 feet 4 inches to 9 feet, the depth 44 to 49, and about half-way down it narrows to 11 inches. The surface is an ugly area of spluttering and even boiling water. A “fulminating dose” of twenty-four turfs and stones, with three by way of “bakhshísh,” brought on the usual tame display of “bouquets d’eau in sheaves, gerbes, lanceolations, and volutes,” the highest rising at most 40 feet: travellers give twelve minutes for the operation, others see it “almost instantaneously;” we had to wait more than an hour. Bryson explains (pp. 44, 45) the action of turf by its organic matter causing violent ebullition, like the mucus or albumen of eggs, which make the pot boil over, or like the vesicles in foam or custard-confining atmospheric oxygen. But a second experiment with stones only, and the want of suddenness in the outburst, made us fall back upon the homely old theory, namely, that stopping the narrow tube enables the water to overcome the pressure of the upper column. The French expedition, after duly “activising it,” fired a shotted gun at the surface of the Strokkr, which is said at once to have ceased boiling.

The most interesting part to us was the fourth or southern tract. It is known as Thikku-hverar, thick caldrons (hot springs), perhaps in the sense opposed to thin or clear water. Amongst its “eruptiones flatuum,” the traveller feels that he is walking

There are at least fifty items in operation over this big lime-kiln; some without drains, others shedding either by sinter-crusted channels eastward or westward through turf and humus to the swampy stream. It shows an immense variety, from the infantine puff to the cold turf-puddle; from Jack-in-the-box to the cave of blue-green water, surrounded by ledges of silex and opalline sinter (hydrate of silica), more or less broad: the infernal concert of flip-flopping, spluttering, welling, fizzing, grunting, rumbling, and growling never ceases. The prevalent tints are green and white, but livelier hues are not wanting. One “gusherling” discharges red water; and there is a spring which spouts, like an escape pipe, brown, high and strong. The “Little Geysir,” which Mackenzie places 106 yards south of the Strokkr, and which has been very churlish of late years, was once seen to throw up 10 to 12 feet of clean water, like the jet of a fire-plug. The “Little Strokkr” of older travellers,[111] a “wonderfully amusing formation, which darts its waters in numerous diagonal columns every quarter of an hour,” is a stufa or steam-jet in the centre of the group, but it has long ceased its “funning.”

Here we tried our final experiment. The small spring farthest to the south-west, and about 310 feet from the Strokkr; raised upon a little platform of silicious laminæ, and draining southwards, has two distinct issues, one nearly circular (1 foot by 10 inches), and the other long-oval (1 foot by 6 inches), distant 2 feet 2 inches, but apparently communicating; the depth is 11 feet, after which soundings are prevented by irregularities. We blocked up both apertures with well-tamped turf. The northern remained closed. After forty minutes, the southern began to play; it threw up gerbes some 30 feet, which showed fragments of “Geysir rainbow,” and this lasted at least an hour and a half, after which it was completely exhausted; its earths were stopped next morning, but during six hours there were no results. Simultaneously with this eruption, and reminding us of Horrebow’s sympathetic water, the Red Mouth, a dwarf basin some 440 feet to the south-east, into which we had also thrown stones, began to play. This experiment suggested considerable doubts as to the general applicability of all existing theories. Another point which still remains for inquiry is that of the Salses or cones emitting slime and hydrogen. In the United States it is supposed that these “mud-puffs” begin as clear Geysirs, or as boiling springs, and that they become thicker and thicker till the heat dies out, when the fetid matter no longer appears. As far as I know, the theory has never been applied to Iceland.

I cannot but hold the Geysirs, in their present condition, to be like Hekla, gross humbugs; and if their decline continues so rapidly, in a few years there will be nothing save a vulgar solfatara, 440 by 150 yards in extent. But, luckily for the sight-seer, facilities of travel increase in still greater proportion. A few will visit the jetting boiling water near the beautiful Lake Roto-ma in New Zealand, made known to us by the Curse of Manaia. Many will picnic to the “Grand National Park” of the Yellowstone, where, as in the new hemisphere generally, every feature, lakes and cataracts, forest and cañon, is on a scale unknown to the old.[112] Here the Mud Geysir (Firehole Basin) is a greater Strokkr; the Mud Puffs are the Thikku-hverar en grand; and the silicious mound of the “Giant Geysir” is so broken that its sinuous orifices expose the boiling water forty feet below, and its paroxysms have lasted three hours.

After this depreciatory notice of another “Wonder of the World,” it is only fair to the reader that he should be supplied with a description of it by a more enthusiastic pen.

“I was particularly fortunate,” writes a friend from Edinburgh, “in witnessing two grand eruptions of this magnificent fountain: the first from its commencement till its close.

“By the favour of the Danish Government, the 18-gun ship ‘Thor’ received six travellers on board in Leith Roads on the 18th of June 1855. My friend the late Dr Robert Chambers, in his ‘Tracings of Iceland and the Faroe Islands,’ gives an interesting account of our voyage, of a boat trip with him and a friend through the Faroe group, and of our ride to the Geysers.

“We arrived at Reykjavik on the 27th, having difficulty in getting a pilot to come on board the monster that could sail against wind and tide, the ‘Thor’ being the first steamer that had appeared in Iceland waters.

“After a ball at the Governor’s on the evening of the 28th, we started in the morning for Thingvellir, accompanied by Captain Raffenberg, three officers of the ‘Thor,’ our kind host and entertainers, and by young Count Carl Trampe, son of the Governor, with forty-one horses, and arrived on the field of the Geysers in the evening of the 30th. Shortly before, as we were descending to the ford of the river, a column like smoke was observed in the distance before us; this, as we afterwards learnt, was from Geyser—one of his great displays.

“A little tent pitched near the great Geyser was not proof against the pelting rain, but I was glad to get a friend to share it, the rest of the party taking refuge at the neighbouring farm-house.

“The night was dark, with heavy rain. Geyser (as he is emphatically called by the Icelanders) gave no sign.

“The first of July was warm and bright.

“There were several eruptions during the day, making me familiar with his operations, but there were none of them to any great height, lasting only for two or three minutes: the basin not quite emptied.

“Several eruptions of Strokkr were witnessed, two of them by giving him a dose of turf: the prescription discovered by Henderson. These were a series of violent explosions, without any warning; the first burst went up like a rocket fifty or sixty feet, followed in such quick succession lower and higher that frequently the ascending mass passed through the descending waters, falling outwards on all sides. During the ten minutes they lasted, a stream of boiling water was given off only inferior to that of the Great Geyser.

“The last shoot into the air was generally the highest.

“It is not quite safe to be near this fellow in his spasmodic pranks, but they cannot be looked upon without amazement. The action is altogether different from that of the orderly majestic movements of the great King of all the Geysers, with whom he has evidently no connection.

“In his normal state, eight feet down from his not very pretty mouth, the water in Strokkr is always in violent ebullition.

“The estimate we formed of the extreme height of the sheaves of water was above 100 feet. In order to assist in the computation, we had measured that distance to the ground where we stood. The more practised eyes of the naval officers agreed in this estimate.

“It was now eleven P.M.; the sky as clear as day.

“With the exception of my tent friend and a companion, who had gone to visit the Little Geyser, the rest of the party had left for the night.

“Standing on the edge of the basin to windward, assisted by the Hoffmeister in measuring the line I had stretched across it at different points, several heavy thumps were felt under our feet, followed by earthquake movement, and the rolling sound, so often described, coming from a distance to the south. My assistant had thrown down the lines and fled.

“The water in the basin was as smooth as glass, the slight vapour rising being carried to the south-west, when suddenly in the centre of the basin over the well or pipe (10 feet 4 inches in diameter, as afterwards measured) the water rose, through the water in the basin, to the full circumference of the pipe (31 feet), to the height of about 3 feet.

“The column appeared for an instant as if a solid body, immediately falling into the basin, and ruffling its surface with a series of waves.

“Lord Dufferin, in his charming ‘Letters from High Latitudes,’ in happy illustration of this phenomenon adds in a foot-note:

“Again, the water rose 5 or 6 feet, falling as before, creating a little storm in the basin, and rushing out at the two openings in the rim, the one on the north-east, the other on the east. By the third and fourth rise of these columns, following each other with increasing rapidity, the boiling water came tumbling like a cataract over the basin and down the mound on all sides. Compelled to retire a little distance, columns of water were now dimly seen following each other with loud noise, as they rushed through the tube into the air, each succeeding column higher than the one before it. These were now a series of explosions, giving off enormous clouds of steam, black from their density.

“My two friends then joined me and witnessed this rare sight in all its grandeur. The display lasted for about seven minutes from the commencement.

“Immediately after the last and highest explosion, the flow down the sides of the mound suddenly ceased, and running up and into the basin, we found it empty, and the water standing some ten feet down, the tube gradually filling again.

“The Hoffmeister of the ‘Thor’ had returned, and throwing some stones into the well, myriads of steam bubbles were disengaged, and rose to the surface, making him run again for his life from the wrath of the demon he had thus provoked.

“2d of July.—Fast asleep in the tent at six in the morning. I was roused by the underground thundering to the south: my friend, who was up, had looked out and thought it was only an abortive attempt; the noise continued, accompanied by the sound of rushing waters near us. Following my friend, I lost him for a minute or two in the dense mass of steam, which smelt of sulphur, but he speedily joined me in my former position; and before the explosions had attained their highest elevation, the whole party were near us. Their opinion was, that the height the explosions had attained was quite as great as that of Strokkr on the previous day. I was much too near to form any adequate opinion. Rising above the dense clouds of vapour, the water in columns was distinctly seen opening out at the top into separate shoots at varying heights, the lower curving outwards, the higher shot up perpendicular, and shattered into diamond drops, sparkling in the sun. The well opens up trumpet-shape into the basin, the diameter of the curve being about 2 feet 6 inches. To this it appears to be due that most of the water falls outside its margin.

“From one of the last columns about a third broke off, and, bending between me and the sun, left his image quite black upon the retina.

“Prepared for the close, we had reached the basin in time to see the last portion of its contents running into the well, leaving the basin burning hot, and not a drop of water in it. The well was standing about 12 feet down, the water slowly rising, and taking about 15 minutes again to fill the basin.

“During these eruptions the rush of boiling water never ceased; but uniting to the east of the mound, it flowed down to the river in a continuous stream, in some places 20 yards in breadth.

“Taking the average height of the columns of water at 45 feet, and eight shoots in a minute during a period of eruption of 7½ minutes, the discharge is 1,410,600 gallons; or take one column 80 feet by 10 feet 4 inches diameter, gives 41,797 gallons at one discharge; a shot weighing 186 tons 11 cwts. 3 qrs. 17 lbs. from this great gun, to which the Woolwich Infant is but a babe.

“To the eye, so far as could be seen, the pipe was quite cylindrical; and, plumbed all round, no irregularity was discovered, except at the bottom, which was very irregular, giving to my line a depth of 80 feet on one side, 82 on the other. My tent companion and friend, the late Robert Allan, in a paper read at the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow in 1855, and published in its Transactions, gave the depth 83 feet 2 inches. The diameter of the basin from two points—72 feet 6 inches, 68 feet 1 inch: my four measurements taken twice on the surface of the water gives the average of 66 feet.

“Assembled round the basin, which had now filled, the water smooth and bright, with a thin screen of vapour carried to the south, a curious discovery was made. Standing with his back to the sun, and looking into the basin, the spectator saw his face and head clear as in a mirror, surrounded by a halo of bright prismatic colours. The coloured rays extended round the head to the distance of 2 or 3 feet, forming two-thirds to three-fourths of a circle, the lower portion wanting. The observer could only see his own likeness, not that of his neighbour.

“The temperature of Geyser at rest varied from 180° to 188°, but no perceptible difference was noticed before or after the explosions.

“The heat of the water may be ascertained very nearly by observing the amount of steam given off.

“During eruptions the water was expelled at a temperature far above the boiling point, as the dense masses of steam clearly showed.

“There was no steam from Geyser, which was not given out from the water itself, during the explosions.

“On examining the basin, little ripple markings were found all over its surface, similar to what are left on the sands of the sea by the retiring tide.

“It was unbroken by sacrilegious chisel and hammer, then busily employed by all three in collecting specimens.

“On my visit three years after, in 1858, some of these rejected specimens were found so firmly cemented in the place they were left that my hammer could not disengage them without tearing up a portion of the rock to which they adhered.

“In the little pools on the sides of the mound films of pure silica were discovered; and on the edge of the little falls of the stream towards the river I got some good specimens of calcedony in process of formation, but they were too brittle to carry safely away.

“On my second visit to the Geysers I was congratulated by Captain Verron of the ‘Artemise’ of being sure to witness a grand eruption, seeing he had been two days there without one; but, storm-stayed for four days, and never out of sight of my tent, I was disappointed. The incessant rain had so subdued the motive powers of action that the Great Geyser seldom rose near half his former height. Strokkr growled, making some praiseworthy efforts, and the smaller Geysers did their best under such adverse circumstances.

“Among the preparations made I had for ascertaining the temperature of the well of the Geyser:

“1. A cord repeatedly shrunk in hot water, then stretched, and marked every ten feet.

“2. Another to span the basin with a ring in the centre, through which No. 1 was passed.

“The thermometer being attached to No. 1, was let down into the tube every 10 feet successively, and with the help of two assistants on opposite sides of the basin, bringing it home to note the temperature.

“Unfortunately, a Negretti by Stevenson, though in a case, and well protected, got injured during the operation; one of the screws which fastened the glass tube to its case was out, and a bit at the upper end broken off. The injury I found, after all, would not have amounted to more than a difference of 5° to 6° Fahrenheit in temperature, but I had lost confidence in it.

“So far as observed, the temperature rose very nearly in proportion to the depth of the well, from about 188° at the top to about 260° at the bottom.”

The following are the temperature measurements at the Great Geyser, taken on August 6 and 7, 1874, and given on April 29, 1875, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Robert Walker, Esq., a Fellow of the Society:

“As an example of change in these springs: on the first visit, a pool was found near the Little Geyser, from which a stream ran eastwards, the temperature on the surface was 168°; adhering to the sides thick fleshy leaves of Algæ of a greenish-brown colour were floating. The spot was marked, and three years after, the Algæ were gone, all but a little on the sides, the temperature reduced to 139°, the water had sunk down, and the stream had ceased, leaving its former course quite discernible by the grass which covered it being of a lighter green tint than that on each side of its course. To the west, steam issued out of a minute hole: a stroke of the hammer disclosed a little pool in ebullition, but the temperature was only 184°. Is this little fellow destined at some future day to rival his companions?

“Between the Geyser and the beautiful caverns often described there is an ugly hole about 8 feet diameter, most dangerous, and horrible to look at; unlike all the rest, containing the purest water, it is filled to within 4 or 5 feet of its mouth with a silicious paste of a dark-brown colour, of the consistency of porridge, alternately popling and boiling furiously.

“Visiting Reykir in 1858, we were informed by the pastor that the period of its Geyser was just six hours, so we had but an hour to wait. True to time, the water gradually rose with a continuous flow, rising higher and higher during a space of twenty minutes, until it had reached a height of 38 feet. A little instrument, designed by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, with the aid of a friend from Bo’ness, was sufficient to give this close approximation.

“The charm of the Geyser at Reykir could not be exceeded; the shafts, as they rose, curved outwards all round in perfect symmetry, a tree of live water, throwing off steam, but not sufficient to obscure its marvellous beauty, as the sun played and sparkled among its branches.

“It is difficult to account for these various phenomena.

“Place a glass tube half filled with water over a lamp or gas light. After the water is boiled, it will be ejected by successive spurts; and looking at the bottom of the tube, an air space will be seen, expanding as the water is ejected. This is the explosive material so often referred to, and it is upon this operation that the diminutive Geysers have been constructed to so far explain the action and time of these water volcanoes.

“The observations made upon these two visits led me to the following conclusions as to the phenomena accompanying the eruptions of the Great Geyser:

“The cavity of Sir George Mackenzie, or boiler, as I shall here term it, I would place from 200 to 230 yards to the south of it, not far from the little Strokkr, from which the sound of underground ‘artillery’ is heard to proceed. Here it is that the explosive force—highly superheated steam—is generated. Connected with it and the underground passage to Geyser is the reservoir of hot water.

“These underground caverns are numerous over Iceland, Surseitler being the most famous; in it the sides of the cave, a mile in length, are smooth and rounded to the ceiling, evidently formed when the lava was in a plastic state—blown out like the molten glass under the hands of the bottle-maker. From the roof large blocks had fallen, rendering the passage extremely difficult.

“It seems highly probable that the cause of the sharp rattling noise heard during eruption is due to such loose angular masses of lava rock being driven against each other with the force that propelled the rush of waters to the Geyser. The explosive force unequal at first to impel more than a portion of water up the tube, the resistance becomes less as the reservoir gets emptied by its escape up the tube, and so the water is propelled higher and higher to the last. The explosions cease by the steam in the boiler being suddenly condensed, and the vacuum thus created drawing back the water from the passage, and from the basin, and in part from the well. The premonitory thumps were probably caused by the first waves of the rushing mass of water striking against a wall of rock close to the bottom of the well.

“Numerous Geysers worthy of note are scattered all over Iceland, the joint production of water and the subterranean fires which underlie them.”

Section IV.—To Thingvellir and back to Reykjavik.

The next morning (July 16) saw our departure. The breeze had chopped round to the north, and, perhaps, this change of wind produced the general excitement which we noticed in the springs. Both yesterday and to-day several parties of Icelanders came to see the sights, the women shawled to the ears, despite the hot sun, and with bodices unpleasantly tight-laced by lines of eyelet-holes across the breast. Formerly the people “never passed the Geysir without spitting into it; or, as they say, utí Fjandans munn—into the Devil’s mouth.” We set off at eleven A.M., passing south-south-west to the Laug farm, where some travellers have slept and “lost the eruption,” and crossing the filthy swamp, where sheep graze and curlews scream, we forded the little stream which drains between the Laugarfjall and its trachytic outlier. The approach to the thermæ from the south is even meaner than the eastern, a dwarf slope of bright-coloured ground trending from the concave lump to the Túngufljót.

Most of this march is only fit for the itinerary. The path in places becomes like the hollow ways of the Brazil, whose gullies spread over a hundred yards of ground, and the “forest,” as on the Anti-Libanus, shows more root than hole, the tree hugging earth, as it were, to save itself from being blown away. The first chapel farm gives an extensive view of the coast features and of the highly picturesque formations, the Jarlhettur rampart, the twin bluffs and spines of Hagafell, and the grim, black isolated castellation of Hljóðufell, outlying the Lángjökull. At about half-past one P.M., warned by a rustling which was mistaken for that of the forest, we came “lickity, lickity, switch,” upon the planks of the Brúará or Bridgewater: in Perthshire there is also a Bruar, so called from its natural arch. Gaimard, carefully copied by later writers, shows a plank forty feet long, utterly undefended by “gardefou,” and “spanning the depths of a narrow cleft in a precipice,” where men “rush for their lives,” and where “the danger is at least a hundred feet.” Symington was reminded of the Mósi-wá-túnyá (Victoria) Falls, the Niagara of South Africa! The river, classical in Iceland story for the lynching of Jón Gerikson, the Swedish bishop, here washes over a rocky channel about 160 feet broad. There is a ferry below; higher up a gash, nearly 100 yards long, forms a wedge-shaped crevasse, opening down stream, and a drop of half-a-dozen feet in the bed combines to make a miniature horse-shoe, over which the blue water pours, foaming and mildly roaring. Over the gash is thrown a bridge of twelve planks,[113] some twelve feet broad, and well guarded by iron-cramped rails. Man must lately have suffered from “Dil. Tre.” to feel nervous in such a place, and we went our ways laughing.

Shortly after six P.M. we sighted Thingvallavatn, the “monarch of Iceland lakes,” an expanse of placid blue, ruffled by the pleasant south. Its two crater-islets are Nesjaey, small and green, near the western shore, and larger Sandey, a two-pronged lump of black stone and green turf, rising a little south of a “Lisán,” a dark foreland projected by the eastern shore. Shortly afterwards we came suddenly upon the Hrafnagjá, or Raven’s Geo,[114] whose “startling depths” extend from the snow-patched Hrafnabjörg, or Raven’s Crag, about four miles long to the Vellankatla, Bay of the Lake. This longitudinal crevasse is the facsimile of a “Ká’ah” in Hauránic Leja or the Refuge; the long parallel lines show corresponding angles, and there is little difference of level between the upper and lower lips of the barranco; in fact, it is the lateral rent to be found, in a smaller scale, upon every lava-field. The arched form is common to such streams, and where the sides find a soft and yielding foundation, and cold contracts the heated mass, it splits on both sides of the major axis, and thus forms chasms, often one or more, upon each flank. Here, at least, no “collapse theory” is wanted.

A fair causeway across the Raven’s Rift is made by the falling of many rocks. Upon the lower slopes we found “forest,” which does not exist on the sister formation. We then crossed the eastern or, as it is known in history, the “upper plain;” the surface on both sides of the path is streaked with “Geos,” mostly running parallel; we remarked one disposed obliquely to the lay, and the various names given to us were Háflagjá, Hólagjá, and Breðnigjá. At half-past nine P.M. we entered the Thingvellir church: the altar-piece, a Last Supper, is old; the pulpit dates from A.D. 1683; and the loft is not, as usual, a store-room for the farm, but a sleeping apartment for travellers, provided with pillows and mattresses, decently clean. Prófastr Bech was happily absent: his wife sent us forelles and Kaka,[115] thin rye cakes, but Icelandic modesty did not admit of our seeing the lady.

The next morning was spent in prospecting the humble wonders of Thingvellir; the Tingvold of Norway; the Dyngsted of Oldenburg;[116] the Dingwall of Ross-shire; the Tingwall of Hjaltland; and Tynwald of Dumfries and the Isle of Man. This assembly plain owes all its fame to history; its civilising influence upon the race reminds us of the annual reunions of the Greeks at Delphi, and the Hebrews at Jerusalem. Sentimentalists would restore the obsolete practice, and transfer the legislators from their comfortable hall at Reykjavik to this wild and savage spot—why not propose that the barons of England meet in parliament at Runnymede?

The lake is computed at thirty miles in circumference, and the depth in places to exceed a hundred fathoms. The aspect on a cloudless morning is that of the humble Scotch waters, wanting only gentlemen’s seats and a small steamer: here, however, we are in Snowland, and we see it. The depressed plain begins with the rugged delta of the Öxará,[117] or Axewater, and runs to the north-east about four miles each way: the limits north and south are mountains and hills, east and west run the twin “stone-streams.” Maps and plans make all the lava flow to the south-west from Skjaldbreið: this must be an error, as in parts it would flow upwards. I suspect a crater behind Hrafnabjörg, whence issued the double stream, which can be seen from Thingvellir: the two forks circled round that burnt red cone, anastomosed, and formed the Hrafnagjá and two shorter Geos in the eastern half of the same stone-torrent: the latter do not cut the road, but they are visible from every height. The fiery flood west of the plain which forms the Almannagjá (all-men or great rift),[118] is not so easily traced. A traveller might pass a satisfactory week to himself and others by journeying to Skjaldbreið, where a path leads, and by ascending the mountain high enough to map the lava-sources and the streams which form the two Geos.