A TRIP AROUND ICELAND 



85 



3P* r i' 



Palagonite, between Lagaxvatn and Geyser. 



these latter are most fascinating. The larger, deeper pools are near 

 the " hotel,'' and the Geyser itself is the center of a mound of sinter, 

 about a stone's throw away. It forms a large circular pool, whose 

 floor shelves off to a wide descending pipe, into which one eagerly 

 strains one's eyes for a possible glimpse at the infernal machinery 

 which works them all. It keeps its opaline eye staring wide open, 

 sheds a few tears from time to time, which pour in little cascades down 

 the slant outer sides, but never, by any chance rewards the tired spec- 

 tator with an explosion. Still Geyser is an exciting sort of place, and 

 what its bigger brother fails to do a much smaller fountain meritori- 

 ously endeavors to perform. In the morning and afternoon this in- 

 dustrious steam-pipe gets to work, and shoots up a column some fifteen 

 to twenty feet high, and what is missed in magnitude is made up in the 

 number and continuity of its emissions. It makes a very commendable 

 restitution for the patience lost on its big somnolent companion. There 

 is a very wide and profuse deposit of geyserite at this place which may 

 extend a mile or so outward to the south from the hills north of the 

 " hotel." Above the geyser plain on the hillside, about one hundred 



