United States or Kyrgyzstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Naturally enough, our first impulse on dismounting was to scamper off at once to the Great Geysir. As it lay at the furthest end of the congeries of hot springs, in order to reach it we had to run the gauntlet of all the pools of boiling water and scalding quagmires of soft clay that intervened, and consequently arrived on the spot with our ankles nicely poulticed.
The Geysirs lie within a comparatively limited area, and consist of various specimens, differing considerably in magnitude. The basin of the Great Geysir lies on a gentle elevation, about ten feet above the plain; it measures about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, while that of the seething caldron is ten feet.
Now, the water at the bottom of the well of the Great Geysir is found to be of constantly increasing temperature up to the moment of an eruption, when on one occasion it was as high as 261 degrees. Fahrenheit. The accompanying sketch may perhaps help you to understand my meaning. The last gulp of water had disappeared down the funnel.
About one hundred and forty yards distant is the Strokkr, or "churn," with a basin about seven feet wide in its outer, and eighteen feet in its inner diameter. A funnel or inverted cone in shape, whereas the Great Geysir is a mound and a cylinder, it gives the popular idea of a crater. Its surface is "an ugly area of spluttering and ever boiling water."
My old friend Count Trampe, who had accompanied the expedition, at once presented me to the Prince, who was engaged in sounding the depth of the pipe of the Great Geysir, and encouraged by the gracious reception which His Imperial Highness accorded me, I ventured to inform him that "there was a poor banquet toward," of which I trusted he and as many of his officers as the table could hold would condescend to partake.
Word Of The Day