SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 31 



of painting whatever Nature has of beautiful and 

 terrible united in one picture, by delineating this 

 surprising phenomenon. Represent to yourself a 

 large field, where you see on one side, at a great 

 distance, high mountains covered with ice? whose 

 summits are generally wrapped in clouds, so that 

 their sharp and unequal points become invisible. 

 This loss, however, is compensated by a certain 

 wind, which causes the clouds to sink, and cover 

 the mountain itself, when its summit appears as 

 it were to rest on the clouds. On the other side 

 Hecla is seen, with its three points covered with 

 ice, rising above the clouds, and with the smoke 

 which ascends from it, forming other clouds, at 

 some distance from the real ones ; and, on another 

 side is a ridge of high rocks, at the foot of which 

 boiling water, from time to time, issues forth ; 

 and farther on extends a marsh of about three 

 English miles in circumference, where are forty 

 or fifty boiling springs, fi'om which a vapour 

 ascends to a prodigious height. In the midst of 

 these is the greatest spring. Geyser, which 

 deserves a more exact and particular account. In 

 travelling to the place, about an English mile 

 and a-half from the hver, from which the ridge 

 of rock still divided us, we heard a loud roaring 

 noise, like the rushing of a torrent precipitating 

 itself from stupendous rocks. We asked our 

 guide what it meant ; he answered it was Geyser 



