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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Icelandic Farm. 



the most picturesque of the Iceland rivers — the Bruaau — or, at least, 

 seen under the splendid blaze of the noonday sun, its snowy tresses 

 and leaping crested waves appeared so. Formerly the dismayed 

 tourist crossed it at a ford higher up than the present position of a 

 very reassuring bridge, and the passage could not have been always 

 easy. The water pours into a long medial crevice — splitting the ba- 

 saltic floor of the stream — from either side, and, though the fall is 

 slight, the concussion of the opposed tides is vehement enough to 

 drive it up into turbulent waves that rush down the polished slope, 

 below the crevice, in tumultuous disorder. At Geyser the visitor has 

 arrived at a silicious ridge, undermined by tortuous passages, tubes 

 and chimneys, which issue on the surface in a great number of holes, 

 and, as Kuchler remarks, make a sieve of the ground. Some of these 

 holes are gasping out a little sulphuretted steam, others are sputtering 

 hopelessly with no results, others are quite lifeless, but present warm 

 edges and yellow-stained throats ; still other large circles are full to the 

 brim of a pale green, beautifully clear, hot water, and you look down 

 into chambers veiled and curtained with creamy geyserite. Many of 



