il
lun
I:
I -
■ i ' il* f ft
: i
! t'
1 i I ■!
he further says, that “ imagination alone can supply
the noise and motion Avhich accompany such large
bodies of water bursting from their confinement,
and must be left to paint what I have not been
able to describe—the brilliancy of colouring,—the
purity of the spray,—the quick change of effect,—
and the thousand varieties of form into which the
clouds of steam, filling the atmosphere on every
side, are rolled incessantly
If it be true, as Von Troil has stated, that it is
very common for some of the spouting springs to
close up, and others to spring up in their stead,—
if, as he is disposed to think, all the springs Avithin
the circumference of the plain, out of which they
rise, proceed from one and the same reservoir (and
as all of them are constantly emitting steam like
so many safety-valves of a steam-boiler), it is not
at all improbable, if his theory of one large cauldron
be the true one, that the strength and the
frequency of the jets of the Great Geyser should
be diminishing, each little tube and every fresh
aperture carrying off a portion of the steam. But
as far as our observation went, Ave could not dis-
coA'er any correspondence between the eruptions of
the different springs; though Ave certainly did
ohseiwe that, Avhenever one of them Avas feeble, it
pervaded the Avhole, and that, previous to the
eruptions of the Great Geyser, all the dirai-
* An Account o f the H o t Springs o f Iceland, p. 41.
A
nutive ones Avere in a state of great activity, as
if the fires had been stirred up for some grand
occasion.
If, however, Ave are to imagine that all these
Geysers and apertures, that constantly throAv out
volumes of steam, communicate with one great
reservoir of Avater from Avhich the steam is produced,
the escape of this steam through so many
apertures must cause it to act Avith less pressure on
any one of them, and probably less frequently in
propelling the jets up the pipes or shafts; and Ave
may, perhaps, consider these numerous safety-
valves to be the means of preventing a catastrophe
that the choking up of some of the larger ones
might bring on at any time— namely, a general
explosion of that perforated and tremulous crust
of earth out of which they all rise, and couA'ert
the Avhole area into one great pool of boiling Avater.
The violence of the eruption of the Strokr, Avhen
choked up Avith peat and sods, might have been
exerted on some other place, had not the force of
the steam been sufficient to clear the passages.
The Roaring Geyser of Sir John Stanley,
though it still roars, as I have said, like the bel-
loAvs of a blast furnace, has been so completely
choked by large stones and earth falling into it
from the mountain above, that it has ceased to
throw out jets of water; and if stones and earth
continue to fall into it, the violence of the steam
must make for itself a passage in some other