Page:Awful phenomena of nature (1).pdf/14

This page has been validated.

14

succeeded by jets of water and spray, rising in a perpendicular column to the height of sixty feet. As the sun happened to be behind a cloud, we had no expectation of witnessing any thing more sublime than we had already seen; but Strockr had not been in action above twenty minutes, when the Great Geyser, apparently jealous of her reputation, and indignant at our bestowing so much of our time and applause on her rival, began to thunder tremendously, and emitted such quantities of water and steam, that we could not be satisfied with a distant view, but hastened to the mound with as much curiosity as if it had been the first eruption we had beheld. However, if she was more interesting in point of magnitude, she gave the less satisfaction in point of duration, having again become tranquil in the course of five minutes; whereas, her less gaudy, but more steady companion, continued to play till within four minutes of six o’clock.

On my return this way from the north, about the middle of August, 1815, I discovered a key to Strockr, by the application of which, I could make that beautiful spring play when I had a mind, and throw its water to nearly double the height observable in its natural eruptions. The morning after my arrival, I was awakened by its explosion about twenty minutes past four o’clock; and hastening to the crater, stood nearly half an hour contemplating its jet, and the steady and uninterrupted emission of the column of spray which followed, and which was projected at least an hundred feet into the air