152 An ACCOUNT of 



the portraiture of fuch extraordinary fcenes can be affifted. 

 Nature no where offers objects bearing a refemblance to them ; 

 and art, even in conflrucling 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 

 mud 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 fleam, filling the atmofphere on every fide, are 

 rolled incefTantly. 



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 biafTed 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 elaflicity of fleam 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. 



Of 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 

 Hiflory 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 fubterraneous heat feem indeed to be of great antiquity 

 in Iceland, and the whole country probably owes its ex- 



iftence 



