T34 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES', 



although it loses its first delicacy, it still remains exceedingly beatf~ 

 tiful. 



These incrustations are of a light brown colour, and extend a 



O f 



great way in various directions, from the borders of the bason To 

 the northward, they reach to a distance of 82 feet; to the east of 

 S6 ; to the south of 1 18 ; and of 124 to the west. They are very 

 hard, and do not appear, in any part, decaying or mouldering into 

 soil *.. 



When our guides first led us to the Geyzer, the bason was filled 

 to within a few feet of its edge. The water was transparent as 

 crystal ; af slight steam only arose from it, and the surface was 

 ruffled but by a few bubbles, which now and then came from the 

 bottom of the pipe. We waited with anxiety for several minutes* 

 expecting at every instant some interruption to this tranquillity. On 

 a sudderc, another spring, immediately in front of the place on which 

 we were standing, darted Us waters above an hundred feet into 

 the air with the veJocify of an arrow, and the jets succeeding this 

 first eruption we5e still higher. This was the spring already men- 

 tioned under the name of the New Geyzer. 



While gazing in silence and wonder at this unexpected and 

 beautiful display, we were alarmed by a sudden shock of theground 

 under our feet, accompanied with a hollow noise, uot unlike the 

 distant firing of cannon. Another shock soon followed, and we 

 observed the water in the bason to be much agitated. The Iceland- 

 ers hastily laid hold of us, and forced us to retreat some yards. The 

 water in the mean time boiled violently, and heaved as if some 

 expansive power were labouring beneath its weight, and some of it 

 was thrown up a few feet above the bason. Again there were two or 

 three shocks of the ground, and a repetition of the same noise. In 

 an instant, the surrounding atmosphere was filled with volumes of 



* The substance of these incrustations has been analysed by Professor Berg- 

 man, and he gives a lung and particular account of it, in a letter to the Arch- 

 bishop of Upsal, published with the Archbishop's Letters on Iceland. He say-, 

 " The strongest acids, the fluor acid not exccpted, are not sufficient with a 

 ci boiling heat to dissolve this substance: It isdissolved very little (if at all) by 

 * the blow-pipe with the fusible salt of urine, a little more with borax, and 

 c makes a strong effervescence with sal soda. These effects are peculiar only 

 " to a siliceous earth or flint. There cannot tewaiii therefor e a doubt concern- 

 '* in the nature ofj^ia crustated stoae," 



