“It makes my blood boil like the springs of Hekla.”
BYRON.
MONDAY, July 26th, 1852, I spent at the Geysers. They rise out of the
ground near the base of a hill some three hundred feet in height. Most
of the hot springs I have seen in Iceland are at the base of hills. The
Geysers are on ground that is nearly level, sloping a little from the
hill, and cover fifty acres or more. The springs are over one hundred in
number, and of every size and form, some very large, others small,
scarcely discharging any water at all. The Great Geyser—“_the_ Geyser”
par excellence—attracts by far the most attention, as from its great
size, the quantity of water it discharges, and the magnitude and
splendor of its eruptions, it stands unequaled in the world. It is on a
little eminence that it has made for itself, a hollow rock or petrified
mass that has been formed by a siliceous deposit from the water. On
approaching the place, you readily see where the Great Geyser is, by its
large quantity of steam. I walked up the margin of it, and there it was,
perfectly quiescent, like a sleeping infant. It is shaped exactly like a
tea-saucer, in appearance circular, though it is a little elliptical. By
measurement, the larger diameter is fifty-six feet, and the smaller
diameter forty-six feet. When I arrived I found this saucer or basin
full of hot water, as clear as crystal. The temperature, by Fahrenheit’s
thermometer, was 209° above zero, only three degrees below the boiling
point. The basin itself is four feet deep, and in the centre there is a
round hole or “pipe,” as it is called, running down into the earth like
a well. At the top where it opens into the basin, this pipe is sixteen
feet across, but a little below the surface it is said to be but ten
feet in diameter. This pipe is round, smooth, and straight, and is said
by Sir George Mackenzie and others who have measured it, to extend
perpendicularly to a depth of 65 feet. The rocky bottom and sides of the
basin and pipe are smooth and of a light color, nearly white. The
quantity of steam that escaped from the surface was considerable, but
not nearly so great as I should suppose would come from such a body of
hot water. Such is the appearance of this most remarkable fountain while
still, and certainly it does not look like a violent or dangerous pool.
Without wishing to augur ill of it, certainly it is a great bore. When
in an active state, the Geyser is altogether a different thing. When I
arrived in the evening, the basin was not over half full of water, but
the next morning it was full and running over, though the quantity of
water that flows from it is not very great. A slight rising of the
water, as if boiling, is seen in the middle of the basin directly over
the pipe when in a quiescent state. Now arrived at the Geyser, we must
wait its motion, for the eruptions occur at very irregular intervals,
sometimes several times a day, and sometimes but once in two or three
days. Knowing that it gave a warning—by firing signal-guns—before each
eruption, I took the time to go about the grounds and see what there was
to be seen. I gathered some fine mineralogical specimens, some beautiful
samples of petrified peat, or turf, all roots and vegetable matter
turned to stone. Fifteen or twenty yards west of the Geyser is a gully
or ravine, with nearly perpendicular sides, and thirty or forty feet
deep. I went down into this, and found a little rivulet of warm water in
it, the banks being composed of volcanic matter and red earth. I heard a
gurgling noise in the bank, and went up to it, and there was a little
mud spring of blubbering clay, hot and steaming. While in this ravine, I
heard a sudden noise of explosions like cannon two or three miles away,
and yet it seemed to be near me, and under the Great Geyser. It was the
subterranean explosions that always precede an eruption. I ran up to the
Geyser, and saw the water in a violent state of agitation and boiling,
with considerable air coming up out of the pipe to the surface. This was
all; only a false alarm, and not an eruption. Off I went, on another
exploring expedition about the grounds. I heard a violent gurgling up
towards the foot of the hill to the west, and went to see the cause of
it. About 150 yards from the Great Geyser I found a jet of steam coming
out of a hole in the ground, and down out of sight I could hear mud
boiling and sputtering violently. I noticed here what I had heard was a
characteristic of the hot springs of Iceland, deposits of clay of
different colors and of great beauty. It was moist, in a state somewhat
like putty, and lying in layers, in several distinct colors. Red, blue,
and white were the prevailing tints. It was most fine-grained and
beautiful, and I could not help thinking would be of considerable value
as paints, if it were collected. I gathered some of it, but in the
absence of proper things to carry it in, and the long journey before me,
I reluctantly left the samples behind. About 140 yards southwest of the
Great Geyser I came upon two deep springs or pools of clear water,
hissing hot and steaming. These pools appeared two springs of irregular
outline, each from 10 to 15 feet across, and nearly or quite 30 feet
deep. The water was so clear I could see directly to the bottom. A
narrow, rocky boundary separated the two. This boundary, or rather
partition, as well as the sides of the spring, was apparently a
silicious deposit or petrifaction caused by the water itself. On going
up near the margin, and walking round on every side, I noticed that the
earth or rock overhung the springs on all sides, so I could see directly
under, and the crust near the margin was very thin, giving it a most
awful appearance. If one should approach too near the margin, and it
should break off, down he would go to inevitable death in the seething
cauldron. It is said, if a man is born to be hanged he can never be
drowned. Of course a like immunity attends such a man if he is in danger
of being boiled! I should rather meet the fate of Empedocles, and save
my boots! A person might very easily run splash into these springs, or
rather this double spring, for it is just even full of water, and on
level ground. I did not see it till I was just on the margin. Some late
traveler here said his guide repeatedly ran across the narrow rocky
partition that separated the two. Had he fallen in, whatever might be
the temperature of the future world that he would be destined to go to,
he would never require another hot bath in this. The guide now showed me
the Strokr, or what Sir John Stanley calls the New Geyser. It is a mere
hole in the ground, like a well, without a basin or raised margin. It is
nine feet in diameter at the top, and gradually grows smaller to about
five feet in diameter. The Strokr—a word signifying agitator—is a most
singular spring. I looked down into it, and saw the water boiling
violently about twenty feet below the surface of the ground. It is
situated 131 yards south of the Great Geyser. While looking at this, I
heard a noise, and looking up saw a burst of water and steam a little
way off, that the guide said was the Little Geyser. It is 106 yards
south of the Strokr. I went to it, and found an irregular but voluminous
burst of water, rising with considerable noise, eight or ten feet high.
It played about five minutes, and stopped. I found that it played in a
similar way at pretty regular intervals of about half an hour,
throughout the day. About noon, some two hours after the first alarm, I
heard again the signal-guns of the big Geyser. The discharges were near
a dozen, following one another in quick succession, sounding like the
firing of artillery at sea, at the distance of two or three miles. I ran
up to the Geyser, and saw the water in a state of violent agitation, and
soon it rose six or eight feet, in a column or mass, directly over the
pipe. It, however, soon subsided, and the water in the basin, from being
full and running over, sank down the pipe till the basin became nearly
empty. I was doomed to disappointment this time, there being no more
eruption than this. It was two or three hours before the basin got full
of water again. About four o’clock I heard the reports again, and louder
than before; the guide hallooed to me, and we ran up near the margin of
the basin. The explosions continued, perhaps, two minutes, the water
becoming greatly agitated, filling the basin to overflowing, and then,
as if the earth was opening, the fountain burst forth with a shock that
nearly threw me over. The water shot in one immense column from the
whole size of the pipe, and rose perpendicularly, separating a little
into different streams as it ascended. Such a spectacle no words can
describe. Its height, as near as I could judge, was about 70 or 75 feet.
The awful noise, as a renewal of the forces kept the water in play,
seemed as if a thousand engines were discharging their steam-pipes up
through a pool of boiling water. Great quantities of steam accompanied
it, but not enough to hide the column of water. We stood in perfect
safety within forty feet of the fountain all the time it was playing,
which was about six or eight minutes. Well was it said that, had Louis
XIV. of France seen the Geysers of Iceland, he never would have made the
fountains of Versailles. Compare the work of man, when he makes a
spurting jet from a pipe with a two inch bore, to a column of boiling
water ten feet in diameter, and near a hundred feet high, and rushing up
with the noise and actual force of a volcano! Fiddle-de-dee! As well put
a boy’s pop-gun beside of one of Paixhan’s sixty-four pounders. I had
thought that Niagara Falls was the greatest curiosity, and Fingal’s
Cave, at Staffa, the most pleasing one that I had ever seen; but—though
not at all alike—the great Geyser of Iceland, as a marvellous work of
nature, eclipses them both. Give a Barnum the power of a Prospero, and
let him gather together, in one place, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky,
Niagara Falls, the Natural Bridge in Virginia, Fingal’s Cave, and the
Great Geyser, and get a fence built round them. Fury! What a show-shop
he could open! Well, after all, it is a happy thing that the great
curiosities of the world are pretty well distributed over the earth’s
surface. The Geyser played lower and lower, and in the course of two or
three minutes after it began to recede, had all sunk down into the pipe,
leaving the basin quite empty, and the pipe also down for about ten
feet. This was the first time I had an opportunity of looking into the
pipe. The water was scarcely agitated at all, but slowly rising. In the
course of two and a half hours the basin was again full and overflowing.
According to the most reliable estimates, the maximum height of the
eruptions of the Great Geyser is from 90 to 100 feet. Olafsen and
Povelsen, two Icelandic writers who flourished near a hundred years ago,
estimated the height to be 360 feet; evidently a great exaggeration.
Some have attempted to prove by mathematics and the law of projectiles
that water cannot by any force or power be thrown in a stream over 95 or
96 feet high. Fire-engines disprove this, but at any rate that seems to
be about the height of the highest jets of the Great Geyser. Sir John
Stanley, in 1789, calculated the height by a quadrant, of the highest
eruption that he saw, at 96 feet. Dr. Hooker estimated it at 100, and
Sir George Mackenzie at 90 feet. The first account of these remarkable
fountains dates back about 600 years. To me, one of the most remarkable
circumstances connected with Iceland is, the constant and regular supply
of fire that keeps springs of water at a boiling heat, and sends forth
fountains with a force beyond all human power, and with a constant and
unceasing regularity, for hundreds, and, for aught we know to the
contrary, for thousands of years. Whence is the supply of fuel? Why does
it not all get consumed? But a child can ask a question that a man
cannot answer. Some have attempted by drawings and illustrations to
figure out a theory of pipes, cavities, and conduits under the earth,
that, supplied with a constant stream of hot water, would produce the
eruptions that we see. The great irregularity in time and in force seems
to set at naught the wisest calculations. We can see the effect
produced, and can look on and admire, but the springs of action are hid
by the Almighty in the wonderful laboratory of nature.
When the poet spoke of his blood boiling like “the springs of Hekla,” he
undoubtedly meant the Geysers. A man’s blood would be in a state of
violent commotion if it equalled the activity displayed by the _Strokr_,
or his brother the Great Geyser. The _Strokr_ is little less remarkable
or interesting than the Great Geyser. Though of less magnitude, it
throws its stream of water higher, and wider too, and more varied, in
consequence of its rather irregular bore. This bore, or pipe, is
somewhat rough and a little crooked, like the Irishman’s gun, made for
“shooting round a corner.” One rule seems to pervade all the Geysers or
shooting springs of Iceland. The larger they are, the more seldom their
eruptions. The Great Geyser, from what I can learn, does not give one of
its highest eruptions oftener than once in one or two days, the _Strokr_
once or twice a day generally, and the Little Geyser every thirty or
forty minutes. The _Strokr_ can be made to erupt by throwing in stones
or turf. The former sometimes choke it up, but turf and sods do not; and
moreover they produce a fine effect by giving a black, inky appearance
to the water. I had my guide cut up a quantity of turf with a spade,
and, piling them up on the margin, we threw them—several bushels at a
time—down the well of the _Strokr_. They splashed in the water, which
was boiling furiously, as usual, about twenty feet below the top. The
ebullition nearly ceased, and we watched it with great interest for some
little time, but no eruption seemed to come at the call we had made. We
walked away a few steps, thinking that this method of producing an
eruption was not infallible, when suddenly it shot forth with a
tremendous explosion, throwing its column of dirty water an immense
height. As near as I could judge, the water ascended just about one
hundred and thirty feet. The explosive, or, rather, eruptive force was
not quite as regular as in the Great Geyser, but would momentarily
slacken, and be renewed, the height of the column sometimes not being
over seventy or eighty feet high. How black and inky the water looked!
and occasionally pieces of turf were seen flying high in the air. I know
not how it was, but after the first surprise was over, I had a most
irresistible propensity to laugh; and, considering it a very innocent
exercise, I indulged it. After playing about fifteen minutes, it began
to slacken, and gradually settled down. It took some time, however, to
get over its “black vomit,” caused by the turf and earth that we
administered. After dropping below the surface, and sinking down into
the pipe, up ’twould come again; and, as the water would reach the
surface of the ground, it would seem to burst and shoot not only high
but wide. The falling water wet the earth for some twenty or thirty feet
from the pipe. I picked up some small fragments of the grass turf that
we had thrown in, and found them literally cooked.
Some twenty years ago a horse fell into one of the mud springs here at
the Geysers, and never was seen afterwards. Poor pony! to be boiled in
seething mud was a worse punishment than Falstaff met with when he was
pitched into Datchett mead. In the northern part of Iceland, an ox fell
into a Geyser, and after he was fairly cooked he was blown out by an
eruption. Whether he was served up at a banquet afterwards, I have not
been able to learn. The pieces of turf that were thrown out of the
_Strokr_ looked more like pieces of seal-skin than they did like turf.
It was enough to alter the appearance of anything, a boiling of ten
minutes in this infernal cauldron. There is a singular cave, about a
mile in extent, a day’s journey north of Thingvalla, that the Icelanders
call _Surtshellir_, or Cave of Surtar (Satan)—in English, the Devil’s
Cave. No Icelandic guide will ever go into it. When travelers explore it
they must go alone. They believe it is the habitation of his satanic
majesty; and that when he comes above ground to set the world on fire,
he will come up out of this cave. I wonder if he don’t come to the
Geysers sometimes to cook his dinner. He might indulge in what Pope
calls a feast of “infernal venison.” In that case he probably catches a
wild reindeer—of which there are plenty in the island—and bakes him on
Mount Hekla, instead of taking the witty poet’s bill of fare, “a roasted
tiger, stuffed with tenpenny nails”!
Though the _Strokr_ plays once or twice every day, of its own accord,
yet I took a malicious pleasure in provoking it to a “blow out;” and a
few hours after the first, I asked the guide to give it another dose of
turf. He looked into it, and seeing the boiling rather feeble, said it
was no use; it had not yet received strength for another effort. Still
he tried it, and we waited to see it “go on a bu’st”! It would not; but
about two hours afterwards it exploded, and we saw another grand
eruption, similar to the first. Our sensations are altogether different
in looking at these works of nature, from what they are at seeing an
artificial fountain, however brilliant. In the latter case we know the
power that propels the water, but here we look on and wonder at the
unseen power that for hundreds of years keeps these marvellous fountains
in operation. It would be a problem worth solving to see how far a shaft
or excavation in the vicinity of those springs could be carried in a
perpendicular direction, before finding water or earth that should be so
hot as to stop the progress of the works. Hot springs are scattered all
over Iceland, to the number of thousands, and at nearly every step you
see lava, volcanoes, or extinct craters. Seeing the constant proofs of
subterranean heat, as developed in the hot springs, it cannot be doubted
that heat, if not actual fire, would be found at a short distance below
the surface, in most any part of the country. A truce to speculation. I
hope the day is not far distant, when experiments and investigations of
a scientific character shall be made by men of learning, in different
parts of this extraordinary country.
There are two or three farm-houses in the vicinity, and near one of
them, in a hot spring, I saw a large iron kettle placed, and in it were
clothes boiling. Indeed, if these hot springs were movable property,
would they not be worth something attached to a large hotel or bathing
establishment? I boiled a piece of meat for my dinner in one of the
springs, and while the culinary operation was going on, I went to a
pool in the brook that flows from the Great Geyser, and had a most
delicious warm bath. ’Twas all gratis—no charge for heating the water.
The brooks that flow from the Geysers all retain their heat more or
less for several hundred yards, until they are swallowed up in the
icy cold river into which they empty. Some travelers have spoken of a
sulphury taste to meat boiled in the Geysers, but I did not observe
it. A good many birds were all day flying about the Geysers. They were
the _tern_ or sea-swallow, a bird very common in Iceland, both on the
seashore and inland. The Icelanders call them the _cree_. This bird is
common in England, but I never remember to have seen them in America.
What light, elegant, and graceful creatures they are on the wing!
Their flight is as light and easy as that of the butterfly; in motion,
as swift as a swallow, and as graceful as a seagull. They are about the
size of the pigeon, with very long wings and a forked tail, like the
barn swallow. They are nearly white, with a slight blue shade, like
the clear sky; just like that delicate cerulean tinge that the ladies
like to give their white handkerchiefs. They kept up a constant cry or
scream that was not unpleasant, and often flew so near us that I could
see their eyes. I climbed to the top of the hill that is just west of
the Geysers, and found it higher than I had anticipated. It looks low
in comparison with the high mountain, the _Bjarnarfell_, that is back
of it. It is composed of lava, slags, scoriæ, volcanic sand, &c. The
back side of it is very precipitous; about perpendicular. This hill
is called Laugarfjall (pronounced _La-gar-fe-at-l_), or hot spring
mountain. Between this and the Bjarnarfell is a small river flowing
through green meadows. I should have been glad to have ascended the
larger mountain, but had not time without running the risk of missing
an eruption of the Great Geyser. I gathered some fine specimens of
the petrifactions formed by the water, by breaking them up from the
bottom of the brook a short distance from the basin. In appearance
they much resemble the heads of cauliflower; in color, nearly white.
The incrustations are far more beautiful a little way from the
fountain head than in the basin itself, as the silicious deposit is
made principally as the water cools. I noticed that grass grew over a
portion of the ground among the numerous hot springs; but near the
sources of them there is evidently too much heat, there being nothing
but bare earth around them. There are no springs of cold water in the
vicinity.
But night has arrived, and I must depart. Though I had seen all of these
remarkable fountains in active play, I was reluctant to leave them. I
turned my steps towards the humble cottage of the peasant of Haukadalr,
for another night’s rest before starting south to see Mount Hekla.