498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fighting hand to hand with a hatchet, he determined to eat her. So 

 he had her cooked with the sixteen men, and made a great feast, and 

 then to spite the people, before leaving the district, he attempted to 

 choke up all of the springs, in which amiable effort he partially suc- 

 ceeded. These springs were also a favorite place for depositing all super- 

 fluous babes, especially girls, who never got much of a welcome. They 

 were popped in alive, like so many lobsters, and treated with quite as 

 little ceremony." Next to the Iceland geysers, which we rank below 

 those of New Zealand and the Yellowstone Park, the most important 

 are probably those of Thibet, although our knowledge of them is very 

 meager. They are in Great Thibet, in the province of Chamnamring, 

 called Chang, near Lake Namcho, or Tengri Nur, and were discovered 

 by T. G. Montgomerie, who described them in the " Journal of the 

 Geographical Society of London." There are six localities in the re- 

 gion, of which the most important are Chutang Chaka, Peting Chuja, 

 and Naisum Chuja. At the latter, the highest temperature recorded 

 was 183° Fahr., and the boiling-point of water was 183|° Fahr. The 

 first locality had fifteen hot springs, whose waters had a temperature 

 of 106° Fahr., the boiling-point here being 186° Fahr. Peting Chuja 

 is the principal geyser area, and a dozen columns of hot water are de- 

 scribed as issuing from a large stony plateau and rising to a height 

 of forty or fifty feet, producing so much steam that the sky was dark- 

 ened, and so much noise that the travelers could not hear one another 

 speaking. Similar jets were also noticed, rising to about the same 

 height from the middle of the adjacent river, Lakii chu. The stony 

 plateau or platform spoken of is undoubtedly a platform or mound of 

 siliceous sinter, so common to geyser areas. 



The Azores mark one of the volcanic centers of the Atlantic Ocean 

 ridge, on which also Iceland lies. The Island of San Miguel, or St. 

 Michael's, has hot springs in all parts, but especially in two places at 

 the West End, in the valley of Furnas. This valley is almost circular, 

 about twelve miles in circumference, and surrounded by volcanic mount- 

 ains. Through it flows the Ribeira Quinta, or Warm River. The springs 

 are of high temperature, and include some that spout to a height of 

 twelve feet. They are at one end of the valley, surrounded by de- 

 posits of siliceous sinter, which forms rims eight to ten inches in 

 height around the individual springs. The " Great Caldeira," or Boil- 

 ing Fountain, is the principal geyser. 



The very name, geyser, testifies to Iceland's historical precedence 

 as the land of geysers. The earliest writings in relation to the island 

 are silent in regard to them, the first mention made being by Saxo 

 Grammaticus, who wrote in the twelfth century. Are Frode does not 

 refer to them in the " Icelandic Annals," a. d. 1070-75, although he 

 lived near their present locality. If they broke forth subsequent to 

 that period, it is surprising that not the least notice should be taken 

 of their appearance. It must be remembered, however, that, in all but 



