AZORES. 37 



two or three feet in a constant hot fountain. Close by are sulphur 

 springs with hot water issuing in violent intermittent splashes ; 

 and there is also one deep chasm, from the depths of which 

 boiling hot blue mud is jerked out in similar splashes. The 

 mud hardens on the sides of the cavity into a crust made up of 

 successive laminae. 



The natives use the natural hot water to heat sticks or planks 

 in, in order to bend them. They also sometimes dig holes in the 

 mud and set their kettles in them to boil. As at the other 

 springs, there are cold springs issuing from the ground, close to 

 the boiling ones. One spring has its water charged with carbonic 

 acid and effervescing. All the springs empty into one small 

 stream, which then runs down to the sea, with a complex mixture 

 of mineral flavours in its water, and retains its heat for several 



miles. 



In the shores of the lake there are large extents of geyser 

 deposit, forming strata 40 or 50 feet in thickness, and evidently 

 resulting from hot springs, now worked out, but with a few small 

 discharge pipes of heated gas remaining active here and there. 

 Near the seaward end of the lake is a hole, where, as in the 

 Grotto del Cane, an animal, when put into it, becomes stupefied 

 by inhaling the carbonic acid gas discharged. 



I made an excursion from Ponta Delgada to the Caldeira 

 des Sette Cidades, or Cauldron of the Seven Cities. It is a 

 marvellous hollow of enormous size, with two lakes at its 

 bottom and a number of villages in it. One slowly climbs the 

 mountains from the sea and suddenly looks down from the 

 crater edge upon the lakes, 1,500 feet below. On the flat bottom 

 of the crater, which is covered with verdure and cultivated 

 fields, are several small secondary craters, the whole reminding 

 one of a crater in the moon. One of these small craters has 

 been so cut up by deep water-courses, that between them only a 

 series of sharp radiating ridges is left standing, and the crater 

 has thus a very fantastic appearance. 



San Miguel was suffering from a drought, at the time of our 

 visit, which had been of long duration. A grand procession 

 therefore took place in order to procure rain, in which a 

 miraculous image the " Santo Christo," the jewels presented at 



