THE GEYSIRS.

THE following day, we came upon a wide flat valley, along which we skirted till we began to see, at the distance of two or three miles, on a piece of sloping ground, under a small hill, a strange assemblage of masses of steam waving in the evening breeze...Our eyes became fixed, of course, on this object, which every minute had a different aspect. Presently, there shot up amongst the waving masses a column of steam, spreading at the top like a tree; and I then felt sure that we were at length approaching the object of our journey Crossing the flooded meadow-ground, and passing a farm-house on the hill-face, we came, about ten o'clock at night, to the field which contains these wonderful springs...It was still clear daylight. The ground seemed like a place where some work is going on that calls for extensive boilings of caldrons. Were 5000 washerwomen to work in the open air together, the general effect at a little distance might be somewhat similar.

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As the baggage horses, with our tents and beds, had not yet arrived, we sat quietly down to coffee, brewed in Geysir water; when suddenly it seemed as if beneath our very feet a quantity of cannon were going off underground. The whole earth shook ... We set off at full speed toward the Great Geysir, expecting to see the grand water explosion. By the time we reached its brim, however, the noise had ceased, and all we could see was a slight trembling movement in the centre.

Irritated at this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves by going and tormenting the Strokr. Strokr, or the churn, you must know, is an unfortunate Geysir, with so little command over his temper and his stomach, that you can get a rise out of him whenever you like... All that is necessary 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 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. This carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and scatters them scalded and halfdigested 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. Then, sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den.

As the Great Geysir explodes only once in forty hours or more, it was, of course, necessary that we should wait his pleasure; in fact, our movements entirely depended on his...For the next two or three days, therefore, like pilgrims round an ancient shrine, we patiently kept watch; but he scarcely deigned to favor us with the slightest manifestation of his latent energies... Two or three times the cannonading we had heard immediately after our arrival recommenced; and once, an eruption, to the height of about ten feet, occurred. But so brief was its duration, that by the time we were on the spot, although the tent was not eighty yards distant, all was over...At length, after three days' watching in languid expectation of the eruption, our desire was gratified. A cry from the guides made us start to our feet and rush towards the basin. The usual underground thunders had already commenced; a violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool.

Suddenly a dome of water lifted itself 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 vapor, sprang about seventy feet into the air; and, in a succession of jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung their silvery crests against the sky For a few minutes the fountain held its own; then all at once appeared to lose its ascending energy. unstable waters faltered, drooped, fell, "like a broken purpose," back upon themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the recesses from which they had sprung.

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The

The spectacle was certainly magnificent; but no description can give any idea of its most striking features... The enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power, the immeasurable breadth of sun-lit vapor rolling in exhaustless abundance, all combined to make one feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movements.*

Dufferin.

ADVENTURERS IN SPITZBERGEN.

In the year 1743, a Russian merchant, named Okladmkof, sent out a vessel, with fourteen men, for whale or sealfishing on the coast of Spitzbergen. For the first few days they had fair wind; but its change presently drove them to the east of the island instead of the west, which was the usual fishing station; and when within two miles of the shore they found themselves in extreme danger, owing to their being suddenly surrounded with ice... In this perilous position the mate, Alexis Himkof, recollected having heard that some of his countrymen, intending to winter there, had built a wooden hut at some distance

* With regard to the internal machinery by which these waterworks are set in motion, I will only say that the most received theory seems to be that which supposes the existence of a chamber in the heated earth. This is almost, but not quite, filled with water, and communicating with the upper air by means of a natural funnel, whose orifice, instead of being in the roof, is at the side of the cavern, and below the surface of the subterranean pond. The water, kept by the surrounding heat at boiling point, generates, of course, a continuous supply of steam, for which some vent must be obtained. As it cannot escape by the funnel, the lower mouth of which is under water, it squeezes itself up within the arching roof, until at last, compressed beyond all endurance, it strains against the rock. Pushing down the intervening waters with its broad strong back, it forces them below the level of the funnel, and, dispersing a portion, and driving part before it, rushes forth in triumph to the upper air. The fountains, therefore, that we see mounting to the sky during an eruption, are nothing but the superincumbent mass of waters in the funnel, driven up in confusion before the steam at the moment it obtains its liberation.

from the shore; and perceiving that if they remained in the ship they must all be lost, they at once determined to seek this place of shelter...Four of the crew Alexis, Ivan Himkof, his godson, Stephen Scharapof, and Feodor Weregin set out on this dangerous journey, over loose and rugged ice, tossed hither and thither by the winds and the waves... Some provisions were needful, as they were about to explore an uninhabited coast, but they took as little as possible for fear of adding to the difficulties of the way...A musket, powder-horn, twelve charges of powder, twelve musket-balls, an axe, small kettle, a twenty-pounds bag of flour, tinder-box, tobacco, and a wooden pipe apiece, formed the whole of their store; and with it they reached the land in safety.

They soon found the hut of which they were in search. It was about a mile and a half from the shore, and consisted of two rooms, an inner and outer one; the former being the larger of the two. The whole building was thirty-six feet long, eighteen high, and eighteen broad... In the inner room was a Russian stove, which may be described as a kind of oven, without chimney, serving both for cooking and warming the apartment, and, with Russian peasants, for a sleeping place... The hut was much the worse for age and weather; but they were well pleased to spend the night in it. Early in the morning they hastened to carry the good news to their companions, and to procure more provisions-powder and shot, clothing, and other requisites for their plan of passing the winter there. But it may be imagined what horror seized these poor men, when, on reaching the shore, no vessel was to be seen, and the sea, as far as the eye could reach, was entirely free from the ice, which only the day before had covered it... Whether the ship had been dashed to pieces by the ice in the storm, or whether it had been driven out to sea, they knew not...But it was gone, and they were destitute on that miserable, uninhabited coast, whence they had no hope of ever escaping, as the whalers sailed only to the western side of the island.

To procure food, and render the hut habitable, were their first cares in this dreadful condition. Their twelve

musket-balls killed them as many reindeer: and the hut was the more easily repaired as the beams were sound wood does not soon decay in that intense cold; and they had their axe, in the use of which Russian peasants, who are all good carpenters, are very skilful...Moss abounds in the island; and with this they filled up the crevices between the boards of their house, so as to keep out the biting air... The great difficulty, where neither tree nor even shrub grew, was how to get fire, without which it was impossible to exist. Fortunately this pressing want was supplied, first by timber from wrecks thrown upon the beach, and afterwards by trees, roots and all, which drifted on shore they knew not whence...One day, just when they were fearing they must perish of hunger, as all their powder was gone, and they had nearly eaten up the reindeer which they had killed, they found upon the beach, among the drift wood, some boards with a long iron hook, some nails five or six inches long, and other bits of iron fixed in them; and out of these simple materials they most ingeniously contrived to make a couple of lances... The large hook was ccaverted into a hammer, by heating it, and then, with a large nail, widening a hole in the middle of it. In this hole the handle was fixed, while a button at one end of the hook formed the face of the hammer... Their anvil was a large pebble; a couple of reindeer horns served for tongs; and with these rude tools they fashioned two spear-heads. These were sharpened and polished on stones, and then bound with thongs of reindeer skin to some branches of trees, as thick as the arm, cast up by the waves...Armed with these spears, they attacked a white bear, and, after a desperate fight, succeeded in killing it. Here was more food; and they exceedingly liked the meat, which tasted like beef, while to their joy, they found that the tendons of the bear might easily be separated into threads fine enough to string a bow which they had made out of the curved root of a drift fir-tree... They then forged some pieces of iron of a similar shape to the spear-heads, "but smaller: and these, sharpened as before on the stones, were firmly tied with bear sinews to pieces of fir to form the head of their arrows... Sea-fowl feathers were by the same means