drops, as the sun shone through them, considerably
added to the beauty of the spectacle.
As soon as the fourth jet was thrown
out, which was much less than the former.
Pour’d from red nostrils, with her scalding breath,
A boiling deluge o’er the the blasted heath;
And wide in air its misty volumes hurl’d
Contagious atoms o’er the alarmed world:
Nymphs, your bold myriads broke the infernal spell.
And crush’d the sorceress in her flinty cell.”
In these two last lines the Doctor alludes, as he tells
us in a note, to the eruption of a volcano, which happened
subsequently to the time of feir Joseph Banks
being there, and which extended as far as the Geysers,
and overflowed them with its lava. Whence he could
have obtained this piece of information, I am at a loss
to guess: certainly it was not from any book of good
authority, for no such circumstance has happened.—
This reminds me of a similar error in Dr. Adam’s Geography,
where it is said that Hecla is constantly spouting
out fire and hot water; and, with regard to the religion
of the Icelanders, that most of them are Lutherans,
but that there are some Pagans. The Etatsroed, who
possesses a very mild temper, which I never saw ruffled,
even in trying circumstances, was still unable to restrain
himself when he pointed out these inaccuracies to me,
and denied the veracity of them with considerable
warmth, quoting passages from English authors who
had written previously to the time of Doctor Adam,