quently arrived on the spot with our ankles nicely poulticed. But the occasion justified our eagerness.

A smooth silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diameter and four feet deep, wide at the bottom as in washing-basins on board a steamer, stood before us brimful of water just upon the simmer; while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapour, looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground above the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica, like the outside of an oystershell, sloping gently down on all sides from the edge of the basin.

Having satisfied our curiosity with this cursory inspection of what we had come far to see, hunger compelled us to look about with great anxiety for the cook; and you may fancy our delight at seeing that functionary in the very act of dishing up dinner on a neighbouring hillock. Sent forward at an early hour under the chaperonage of a guide, he had arrived about two hours before us, and seizing with a general's eye the key of the position, at once turned an idle babbling little Geyser into a camp kettle, dug a bakehouse in the hot soft clay, and improvising a kitchen range at a neighbouring vent, had made himself completely master of the situation. It was about one o'clock in the morning when we sat down to dinner, and as light as day.

As the baggage train with our tents and beds had not yet arrived, we fully appreciated our luck in being treated to so dry a night; and having eaten everything we could lay hands on, were set quietly down to chess, and coffee brewed in Geysir water; when suddenly it seemed as if beneath our very feet, a quantity of subterranean cannon were going off; the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr, starting to his feet, upset the chess-board, (I was just beginning to get the best of the game,) and fleeing off at full speed towards the great basin. By the time we reached its brim, however, the noise had ceased, and all we could see was a slight movement in the centre, as if an angel had passed by and troubled the water. 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 Geyser, 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 incipient 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, which carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and scatters them scalded and half digested 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 spluttering until at last nature is exhausted, when sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den.

Put into the highest spirits by the success of this performance, we turned away to examine the remaining springs. I do not know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of particular mention. They all resemble in character the two I have described, the only difference being that they are infinitely smaller, and of much less power and importance.

One other remarkable formation in the neighbourhood must not be passed unnoticed. Imagine a large irregular opening in the surface of the soft white clay, filled to the very brim with scalding water, perfectly still, and of as bright a blue as that of the Grotto Azzuro at Capre, through whose transparent depths you can see down into the mouth of a vast subaqueous cavern, which runs Heaven knows how far in a horizontal direction beneath your feet. Its walls and varied cavities really look as if they were built of the purest lapis lazuliand so thin seemed the crust that roofed it in, we almost fancied it might break through, and tumble us all into the fearful beautiful bath.

Having by this time taken a pretty good look at the principal features of our new domain, I wrapped myself up in a cloak and went to sleep; leaving orders that I should not be called until after the tent had arrived and our beds were ready. Sigurdr followed my example, but the doctor went out shooting.

As our principal object in coming so far was to see an eruption of the great Geysir, it was of course necessary we should wait his pleasure; in fact, our movements entirely depended upon his. For the next two or three days, therefore, like pilgrims round some ancient shrine, we patiently kept watch; but he scarcely deigned to vouchsafe us 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. As after every effort of the fountain, the water in the basin mysteriously ebbs back into the funnel. This performance though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down into its scalded gullet. In an hour afterwards the basin was brimful as ever.

Tethered down by our curiosity to a particular spot for an indefinite period, we had to while away the hours as best we could. We played chess, collected specimens, photographed the encampment, the guides, the ponies, and one or two astonished natives. Every now and then we went out shooting over the neighbouring flats, and once I ventured on a longer expedition among the mountains to our left. The views I got were beautiful-ridge rising beyond ridge in eternal silence, like gigantic ocean waves, whose tumult has been suddenly frozen into stone; but the dread of the Geysir going off during my absence, made me almost too fidgetty to enjoy them. The weather luckily remained

beautiful, with the exception of one little spell of rain, which came to make us all the more grateful for the sunshine,-and we fed like princes. Independently of the game, duck, plover, ptarmagan and bittern, with which our own guns supplied us, a young lamb was always in the larder,—not to mention reindeer tongues, skier,—a kind of sour curds, excellent when well made,-milk, cheese whose taste and nature baffle description, biscuit and bread, sent us as a free gift by the lady of a neighbouring farm. In fact, so noble is Icelandic hospitality that I really believe there was nothing within fifty miles round, we might not have obtained for the asking had we desired it.

As for Fitz, he became quite the enfant gâté of a neighbouring family.

Having unluckily caught cold, instead of sleeping in the tent, he determined to seek shelter under a solid roof-tree, and conducted by our guide Olaf, set off on his pony at bed-time in search of an habitation. The next morning he reappeared so unusually radiant, that I could not help inquiring what good fortune had in the meantime befallen him; upon which he gave me such an account of his last night's reception at the farm, that I was almost tempted to bundle tent and beds down the throat of our irritable friend Strokr, and throw myself for the future upon the hospitality of the inhabitants. It is true I had read in Van Troil of something of the kind, but, until now, I never fully believed it. The Doctor shall tell his own history.

"No sooner," said he, "had I presented myself at the door, and made known my errand, than I was immediately welcomed by the whole family, and triumphantly inducted into the guest quarters: everything the house could produce was set before me, and the whole society stood by to see that I enjoyed myself. As I had but just dined, an additional repast was no longer essential to my happiness; but all explanation was useless, and I did my best to give them satisfaction. Immediately on rising from the table, the young lady of the house-(old Van Troil says it is either the mother or the daughter of the house if she be grown up, who performs this office)-proposed by signs to conduct me to my apartment; taking in one hand a large plate of skier, and in the other a bottle of brandy, she led the way through a passage built of turf and stones to the place where I was to sleep. Having watched her deposit-not without misgivings, for I knew it was expected both should be disposed of before morning-the skier by my bedside, and the brandy bottle under the pillow, I was preparing to make her a polite bow, and to wish her a very good night, when she advanced towards me and with a winning grace difficult to resist, insisted on helping me off with my coat and then-proceeding to extremities, with my shoes and stockings. At this most critical part of the proceedings, I naturally imagined her share of the performance would conclude, and that I should at last be restored to that privacy which at such seasons is generally considered appropriate. Not a bit of it. Before I knew where I was I found myself sitting on a chair in my shirt, trouserless, while my fair tirewoman was engaged in neatly folding up the ravished garments on a neighbouring

chair. She then, in the most simple manner in the world, helped me into bed, tucked me up, and having said a quantity of pretty things in Icelandic, gave me a hearty kiss and departed. If," he added, "you see anything remarkable in my appearance, it is probably because,→ 'This very morn I've felt the sweet surprise Of unexpected lips on sealed

eyes;'

by which he poetically intimated the pleasing ceremony which had awaked him to the duties of the day. I think it needless to subjoin that the Doctor's cold did not get better as long as we remained in the neighbourhood, and that had it not been for the daily increasing fire of his looks, I should have begun to be alarmed at so protracted an indisposition.

We had now been keeping watch for three days over the Geysir in languid expectation of the eruption which was to set us free. All the morning of the fourth day I had been playing chess with Sigurdr. Fitzgerald was photographing. Wilson was in the act of announcing luncheon, when a cry from the guides made us start to our feet, and with one common impulse rush towards the basin. The usual subterranean thunders had already commenced. A violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a dome of water lifted itself up 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 vapour, sprung into the air, and in a succession of jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung their silver crests against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain held its own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending energy. The unstable waters faltered, drooped,-fell, "like a broken purpose," back upon themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the recesses of their pipe.

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 illimitable breadth of sunlit vapour, rolling out in exhaustless profusion,-all combined to make one feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movements.

And yet I do not believe the exhibition was so fine as some that have been seen: from the first burst upwards to the moment the last jet rtereated into the pipe, was no more than a space of seven or eight minutes, and at no moment did the crown of the column reach higher than sixty or seventy feet above the surface of the basin. Now, early travellers talk of 300 feet, which must of course be fabulous; but many trustworthy persons have judged the eruptions at 200 feet, while well authenticated accounts-when the elevation of the jet has been actually measured-make it to have attained a height of upwards of 100 feet.

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 NO. 12.-VOL. XXX. 4 Q

earth, almost but not quite filled with water, and communicating with the upper air by means of a pipe, whose lower 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 furnaces 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, and pushing down the intervening waters with its broad strong back, forces them below the level of the funnel, and dispersing part, 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 water in the pipe driven up in confusion before the steam at the moment it obtains its liberation.

IRON-CASED SHIPS OF THE BRITISH NAVY.-By E. J. Reed, Esq.

The following remarks on the important subject of Iron-cased Ships of war in our navy, read at the meeting of the British Association last summer at Manchester, are on a subject of so much interest that they will be acceptable to our readers, especially since one of the vessels alluded to has proved so successful as the Warrior.

With the view of best fulfilling the intentious with which the gen