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." It
frequently "erupts," and throws a spout into the air, sometimes as high
as forty or fifty feet, the outbursts lasting from ten to thirty minutes.
Madame Pfeiffer had not the luck to see it in its grandest moods; the
highest eruption she saw did not rise above thirty feet, nor last more
than fifteen minutes. An eruption can be produced by throwing into the
caldron a sufficient quantity of turf or stones.
Two remarkable springs lie directly above the Geysirs, in openings
separated by a barrier of rock--which, however, rise nowhere above the
level of the ground. Their waters boil very gently, with an equable and
almost rhythmic flow. The charm of these springs lies in their wonderful
transparency and clearness. All the prominent points and corners, the
varied outlines of the cavities, and the different recesses, can be
distinguished far within the depths, until the eye is lost in the
darkness of the abyss; and the luminous effects upon the rocks lend an
additional beauty to the scene, which has all the magic of the poet's
fairy-land. It is illumined by a radiance of a soft pale blue and green,
which reaches only a few inches from the rocky barrier, leaving the
waters beyond in colourless transparency.
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