The tube in the centre, from which the water spouts is about 10 feet across, and I read somewhere that on measuring down about 70 feet,[p. 130] the tube took a sudden turn which prevented further soundings. The water is ejected at a heat of 180° or 190° Fahr., and rises over 100 feet into the air.
These Geysers are nearly 400 feet above sea level.
The formation of the 'Stroker' differs from that of the Great Geyser in not having any basin round its well, the latter being in shape like a rough test-tube, about 8 feet in diameter and 36 feet deep, with two pipe-mouths. After the eruption witnessed by 'Burton,' he noticed that 'the level of the water in the tube was at a depth of 25 feet, where might be seen, partly submerged, the mouths of two pipes entering at different angles, close together on the side nearest the Great Geyser. From these pipes steam belched forth at intervals with considerable force, churning the water in the well round rapidly.'
It is strange that the eruptions of the 'Stroker' do not affect the water in the well of the Great Geyser, though it is not 100 yards off, while on the other hand, when the Geyser is in eruption, the water of the 'Stroker' subsides.
It really was very tantalising to have come so far, and be within a few hours' distance of Hecla, and yet have to return without having visited it. Besides, from what we gathered, we could well have exhausted another week in expeditions in the neighbourhood, but snow-capped Hecla, the ice-clad heights of the Jöklar, and the[p. 131] Red Crater, with innumerable other interesting excursions of Icelandic note, had to be left for a future visit, if ever we should make it, to the Island.
The name of Hecla means a mantle: its last eruption occurred in 1845. Where is Hecla? Who has not been asked that question at school? and little did I think, when learning geography, that I should ever see it, even at a distance. Alas! time would not allow us a nearer acquaintance. Visiting it meant either seventeen days round the Island in a Danish boat, or waiting six weeks for the Camoens, circumstances over which we had no control made both impossible, and we had reluctantly to give up the excursion. While these volcanoes and their adjuncts must ever remain, from their uncertain eruptions, a cause of terror to the inhabitants—boiling and bubbling for years, and then suddenly bursting forth, to the entire destruction of all around—they have, we know also, a beneficial effect in the world's domestic economy. What, for instance, would happen to Britain were it not for the Gulf Stream? It would be as cold as Labrador. The streams in the Gulf of Mexico are fed from equatorial currents and boiling springs, and rush on to the North Atlantic 25° or 30° warmer than the sea through which it passes, warming the air of Western Europe.
Again, hot springs (caused by subterranean fires), which, from their curative celebrity, attract[p. 132] visitors and invalids, mean business, and business means money to the inhabitants of the locality.
Taking our last farewell of these seething pools, which bubbled and boiled around us, I could not help wondering what kind of commotion could be going on beneath the earth's surface. A power that could thus eject 100 feet of boiling water into the air, and not burst asunder the surrounding ground, was indeed a marvellous phenomenon. The Iceland Geysers, which were the first discovered, as well as those of New Zealand (so soon to be destroyed), and those of the Yellowstone Park, must ever be of enormous interest to the traveller and geologist, and with regret we turned our backs upon them, having reached the turning-point of our journey and the limit of our time. Time waits on no man, so we tore ourselves away, feeling, however, we had seen in the Iceland Geysers one of the greatest marvels of Nature.
Various explanations of Geysers have been attempted by scientific men, and as some of my readers may take sufficient interest in these wonderful phenomena to wish to know something regarding the causes which originate them, I have got my father to write a short chapter on what he saw and thought of the great Geysers in the volcanic district of the Yellowstone Park, which I have appended at the end of my narrative.
