tufts, that I could with ease take off pieces
of five or six inches in diameter. 'I he under
side of these patches had very much the appearance
of purple velvet, owing to the numerous
fibrous radicles of that color which
proceeded from the base of the stems, and
suffered themselves to be detached, without
difficulty, from the soil they had grown
upon. In water, also, of a very great degree
of heat, were, both abundant and luxurious,
Conferva Jlavescens of Roth, and a new
species allied to C. rivularis. After a day,
almost the whole of which had been showery,
with the wind in the south-west, a fine,
Sunday but cold, morning, attended with a
July 16. northerly wind, afforded me a most
interesting spectacle, the idea of which is
too strongly impressed on my mind, ever to
be obliterated but with memory itself. My
tent had been pitched at the distance of
patches were found to be floating on a hot paste, whose
temperature, at eight or ten inches below the surface,
upon which the roots o f the plants spread, was 186°.
This was the more remarkable, as the same species of
Lycopodium, or club-moss, grows with great luxuriance,
even in the winter season, on the black heaths of North
Britain.”
three or four hundred yards from the Geyser,
near a pipe or crater of considerable dimensions,
in which I had hitherto observed
nothing extraordinary. The water had been
almost constantly boiling in it, and flowing
gently over the mouth, thus forming a regular
channel, which, I believe, had never ceased
running during the whole time of my stay.
My guide, however, had informed me that
sometimes the eruptions of this spring were
very violent, and even more remarkable than
those of the Geyser, and it was on this
account that he had placed the tents so close
to it. At half past nine, whilst I was employed
in examining some plants gathered
the day before, I was surprised by a tremendously
loud and rushing noise, like that
arising from the fall of a great cascade
immediately at my feet. On putting aside
the canvass of my tent, to observe what
could have occasioned it, I saw within a
hundred yards of me a column of water rising
perpendicularly into the air, from the place
just mentioned, to a vast height; but what
this height actually was I could form no
idea; and so overpowered was I by my feelings,
that I did not, for some time, think