THE GEYSERS. 
133 
diameter. The under side of these patches had 
very much the appearance of purple velvet, owing 
to the numerous fibrous radicles of that color 
which proceeded from the base of the stems, and 
suffered themselves to he detached, without diffi¬ 
culty, from the soil they had grown upon. In 
water, also, of a very great degree of heat, were, 
both abundant and luxurious. Conferva flaves- 
cens of Roth , and a new species allied to C. ri- 
vularis. After a day, almost the whole of which 
had been showery, with the wind in the south- 
Sunday, we st? a fine, but cold, morning, attended 
July 16, with a northerly wind, afforded me a 
most interesting spectacle, the idea of which is 
too strongly impressed on my mind, ever to be 
obliterated but with memory itself. My tent 
had been pitched at the distance of three or 
four hundred yards from the Geyser, near a pipe 
or crater of considerable dimensions, in which 
I had hitherto observed nothing extraordinary. 
The water had been almost constantly boiling in 
it, and flowing gently over the mouth, thus form¬ 
ing a regular channel, which, I believe, had never 
“ floating on a hot paste, whose temperature, at eight or 
ten inches below the surface, upon which the roots of the 
“ plant spread, was 186‘ a . This was the more remarkable, 
as the same species of Lycopodium, or club-moss, grows 
“ with great luxuriance, even in the winter season, on the 
u black heaths of North Britain.” 
