14d An ACCOUNT of 
Asove the great fpring, the hill terminates in a double 
pointed rock, which Mr Barne found by meafurement to be 310 
feet higher than the courfe of the river. The rock is fplit very 
ftrangely into lamina, and at firft fight has much the appearance 
of a fchiftus or bed of thick flate. It confifts, however, of a’ 
gray coloured ftone of a very clofe grain, the feparate pieces of ~ 
which, although divided as they lay, do not break in the hand 
in any particular direGtion. I fhould fuppofe the fubftance of 
this rock to be chiefly argillaceous, and that, like every other 
{tone in the ifland, it has fuffered fome change by the action 
of fire. I do not mean to call it lava, as it bears no mark of 
having been once in a melted ftate, whatever baking or indu- 
ration it may have fuftained in the neighbourhood of fubterra- 
ous heat. It contains no heterogeneous matter, or cavities, in 
which agates, or zeolites, or vitrified fubftances of any kind, 
could have been formed. / 
Aut thefe rocks that have been either altered or created by 
fire, feem much more liable to decay and decompofition than any 
others I have ever feen. Mounds, fimilar to thofe in the valley 
of Rykum, have been formed by the ruins of the hill half 
way up its afcent between the Geyzer and the pointed rock. 
Springs boil in many places through thefe mounds, and near to 
one of them, I obferved that the coloured clay felt much more 
foapy than any I had tried before. This quality probably was 
owing to a greater proportion of the earth of magnefia in its 
compofition, as in other refpects it agreed perfectly with the 
reft. 
My attention, during the four days I remained in this place, 
was fo much engaged by the beauties and remarkable cir- 
cumftances of the two principal fprings, that I cannot (were 
I fo inclined) give you a minute account of thofe which, next 
to them, were deferving of notice. The {prings in general re- 
femble thofe at Rykum; but there are five or fix which have 
their peculiarities, and throw up their waters with violence to 
