“Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight,
Nature’s volcanic amphitheater
* * * * * *
Beneath a living valley seems to stir;
* * * * * *
Pluto! If this be hell I look upon,
Close shamed Elysium’s gates, my shade shall seek for none.”
Here was sulphur, bred in heat, coming up out of “the bowels of the harmless earth,” like saltpeter, that was so abhorred by Hotspur’s dandy. The earth itself here was principally a fine pink or flesh-colored clay; and all over this I could see holes communicating with the mighty laboratory of nature below; and as the steam and smoke came out of these holes, the fine particles of sulphur seemed to be brought up to the surface. The clayey ground where the sulphur lay, was in most places soft, and could not be walked over without the greatest danger of sinking down through it, perhaps into the fiery depths, in the bowels of the mountain. Indeed, it possesses a kind of horrible and fascinating interest. Around the edges, and in certain places, the soil is hard, and some stones are seen where one can go in safety. By having a couple of boards, a man might walk all over the ground. In some places, the sulphur was a foot thick; and as it gathered, it seemed to consolidate, and I found I could break up large pieces, beautifully crystallized. This sulphur appeared about as pure as the sulphur sold in the shops, but not as dense. It had not half that strong odor that sulphur and brimstone have, in a prepared state. These mines showed signs that they had been worked, as some bits of boards and planks lay about, and there were some paths to be seen. The sulphur is taken off the surface, and then the ground is left for two or three years for it to collect again. Sulphur is so cheap, and these mines being so far from a seaport—Havnefiord, some twenty miles north, being the nearest—and roads and means of transport being so scanty, gathering it is not very profitable, nor carried on to a great extent. There are other sulphur mines in the north; some productive ones near Kravla mountain, on the shores of Lake Myvatn. How did Shakspeare get his knowledge of sulphur mines? He was never in a volcanic country. I think he got it, as he did every thing else, by inspiration. He knew that sulphur was generated in heat. In Othello, he says:
“Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons,
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,