Letters from high latitudes : being some account of a voyage, in 1856, in the schooner yacht "Foam", to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen . magnificent; but no descrip-tion can give any idea of its most striking features. Theenormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power,—the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapour, rolling out in ex-haustless profusion,—all combined to make one feel thestupendous energy of natures slightest movements. And yet I do not believe the exhibition was so fine assome that have been seen : from the first burst upwards, tothe moment the last jet retreated into
Letters from high latitudes : being some account of a voyage, in 1856, in the schooner yacht "Foam", to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen . magnificent; but no descrip-tion can give any idea of its most striking features. Theenormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power,—the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapour, rolling out in ex-haustless profusion,—all combined to make one feel thestupendous energy of natures slightest movements. And yet I do not believe the exhibition was so fine assome that have been seen : from the first burst upwards, tothe moment the last jet retreated into the pipe, was no morethan a space of seven or eight minutes, and at no moment VII.] THE BOUQUET OF WATERWORKS. 91 did the crown of the column reach higher than sixty orseventy feet above the surface of the basin. Now, earlytravellers talk of three hundred feet, which must, of course,be fabulous ; but many trustworthy persons have judged theeruptions at two hundred feet, while well-authenticatedaccounts—when the elevation of the jet has been actuallymeasured—make it to have attained a height of upwards ofone hundred feet. W^^ir. With regard to the internal machinery by which thesewaterworks are set in motion, I will only say that the mostreceived theory seems to be that which supposes the exist-ence of a chamber in the heated earth, almost, but notquite, filled with water, and communicating with the upperair by means of a pipe, whose lower orifice, instead of beingin the roof, is at the side of the cavern, and below thesurface of the subterranean pond. The water kept by thesurrounding furnaces at boiling point, generates of course acontinuous supply of steam, for which some vent must beobtained; as it cannot escape by the funnel,—the lowermouth of which is under water,—it squeezes itself upwithin the arching roof,—until at last, compressed beyond 92 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. all endurance, it strains against the rock, and pushing downthe intervening wate
Size: 1761px × 1418px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., booka, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookpublisherlondonmurray
