VAUX — VOLCANIC ROCKS OF ICELAND. 
177 
The chief object which Lord DufFeria and his party had ia going so 
far inland was to see an eruption of the " Great Geysir." As this only 
takes place at intervals, they were detained some days on the spot, 
eagerly watching for some premonitory symptom of an approaching 
crisis. On one occasion a sudden roar, as of subterranean cannon 
beneath their feet, caused a general rush to the gi'eat basin ; the noise, 
however, ceased as suddenly, and there was nothing to see save a 
slight rippling of the water : — 
" Irritated at this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves 
by going and tormenting Strokr. Strokr, or the churn, you may know, 
is au unfortunate Geysir, with so little command over his temper and 
his stomach that you can get a rise out of him whenever you like. A.11 
that is necessaiy is to collect a quantity of sods, and throw them down 
his funnel. As he has no basin to protect him from these liberties, 
you can approach to the very edge of the pipe, about five feet in 
diameter, and look down at the boiling water, which is perpetually 
seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf you have 
just administered begins to disagree with him ; he works himself up 
into an awful passion ; tormented by the qualms of incipient sickness, 
he groans, and hisses, and boils up, and spits at you with malicious 
vehemence, until at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he 
throws up into the air a column of water forty feet high, which carries 
with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and scatters them 
scalded and half-digested at your feet. So irritated has the poor thing's 
stomach become by the discipline it has undergone, that even long 
after all foreign matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching and 
sputtering until, at last, nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and 
sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den." 
On the fourth day of their anxious watch over the Great Geysir, a 
sudden cry is raised, and with one common impulse they rush towards 
the basin : — 
" The usual subterranean thunders had already commenced. A 
violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a 
dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten feet, then 
burst and fell ; immediately after which a shining liquid column, or 
rather a sheaf of columns wreathed in robes of vapour, sprung into the 
air, and, in a .succession of jumping leaps each higher than the last, 
flung their silver crests against the sky. For a few minutes the foun- 
