152 An ACCOUNT of 
the portraiture of fuch extraordinary fcenes can be aflifted. 
Nature no where offers objects bearing a refemblance to them; 
and art, even in conftructing the water-works of Verfailles, has 
produced nothing that can at all illuftrate the magnificent ap- 
pearances of the Geyzer. All then that I hope for is, to have 
faid fo much as may enable you to complete in your imagina- 
tion, the picture which I have only fketched. Imagination 
alone can fupply the noife and motion which accompany fuch 
large bodies of water burfting from their confinement; and 
mutt be left to paint, what I have not been able to defcribe, the 
‘ brilliancy of colouring, the purity of the fpray, the quick 
change of effect, and the thoufand varieties of form into which 
the clouds of fteam, filling the atmofphere on every fide, are 
rolled inceflantly. 
I HAVE avoided entering into any theory of the caufe of 
thefe phenomena, that you may not fuppofe the account I give 
you has been biaffed by a favourite hypothefis. I have given 
you an accurate ftate of facts, and I leave to you the explana- 
tion of them. ‘There cannot, however, be two opinions con- 
cerning the immediate caufe which forces the water upwards. 
It is obvioufly the elafticity of fteam endeavouring to free itfelf. 
In addition to this, the form of the cylinder through which 
the water rifes, gives it that projectile force which carries it fo 
high. Beyond this, it would not become me to hazard any 
opinion. 
Or the antiquity of thefe fprings I can fay nothing, further 
than that they are mentioned as throwing up their waters to a 
great height by Saxo GRAMMATICUS, in the Preface to his 
Hiftory of Denmark, which was written in the twelfth cen- 
tury ; but from the general features of the country, it is like- 
ly, that they have exifted a great length of time. The opera- 
tions of fubterrancous heat feem indeed to be of great antiquity 
in Iceland, and the whole country probably owes its ex- 
iftence 
