260 Me. Mackinlat's Notes of 



Many little eruptions occur in the course of the day. Whether small 

 or great, they are accompanied by more or less tremor of the ground 

 near the basin, and by a series of subterranean noises, as if Vulcan was 

 wielding his sledge hammer on some refractory metal. Where my tent 

 stood — seventy yards from the basin — these noises were loud enough, 

 during a small eruption, to awake an ordinary sleeper ; but, during a 

 grand eruption, they would disturb the repose of Rip Van Winkle 

 himself. A sensible welling up of the water attends even the slightest 

 noises ; but when these are violent the water rises in a bell-shape to 

 the height of one to five or more feet. In such cases the eruption 

 resembles the effect produced by a large charge of gunpowder in deep 

 water. During my three nights' stay, there were several fine erup- 

 tions ; but the finest which I saw occurred on the afternoon of Thurs- 

 day, 24th June. On this occasion the tremor and noises were but 

 trifling, but soon became violent and frequent. Heavy bells of water 

 rose in succession to the height of three or four feet, and then sunk 

 into the basin. The earth-shocks became stronger, and the noises 

 louder and louder. The mass of upraised water now burst, and sprang 

 up, at first six or eight feet — then twelve or fifteen feet — twenty 

 feet — twenty-five feet — and so on, till it reached the height of seventy 

 to eighty feet. It was a most magnificent spectacle. And now the 

 eruption seemed dying away ; but before the column had lost a third 

 of its height, it shot up again as high as before, and then all was still. 

 The duration of the eruption was four minutes. The column of water 

 was partly hidden below by dense volumes of steam, which rolled 

 grandly across ; but it seemed to expand as it ascended, for probably two- 

 thirds of its height ; the upper part had an arborescent form, tapering 

 towards the top. The water did not form a solid column, but, as Lord 

 Duft'erin happily expresses it, " a sheaf of columns," the height of which 

 vai-ied according to the violence of the earth-shocks. In less than a 

 minute after the last great jet, I descended into the basin, which was 

 now quite empty. The water stood ten feet, or more, below the top of 

 the pipe, but was gradually rising ; in an hour it filled the pipe, and 

 every now and then boiled furiously. Three hours after, when the basin 

 was about two-thirds full, a second eruption took place, the height of 

 which did not exceed twenty feet. Most observers agree in stating 

 that the Geyser eruptions do not rise higher than 100 feet ; but 

 it is probable that on rare occasions they attain a much greater height. 

 The Governor of Iceland, who has visited the Gcj'sers four or five times, 

 and has seen several fine eruptions, told me, on my return to Eeykiavik, 

 that the last eruption he witnessed was nearly 200 feet high, and that, 

 at the close, the pipe was emptied to a much greater depth than he 

 had ever seen before. 



