Chapter V: Part I (3)

As to the name of geyser being applied to the Californian phenomena, we protest against it. A true geyser is a natural hydraulic machine of magnificent power; it is a spring, to be sure, but a mineral spring is not necessarily a geyser, and there is as much difference between the 'Geysers of California' and the Strokr or the 'Great Geyser,' as there is between a squib and a musket-shot. Call the springs AUSOLES, if you please, like their counterparts of Ahuachapan, or 'give the devil his due,' and call the place as it was called by its discoverer.

THE DEVIL'S CANON is not a bad name for such a diabolical, sulphurous, hot, and altogether infernal den.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Said the pleader to the judge, 'If there is any one thing which, more than any other thing, proves the thing, this thing is that thing!' 'Which thing?' said the judge to the pleader.

[7] White Island is in the Bay of Plenty, not far from Auckland, the government seat of New Zealand, on the more northerly of the two islands forming the group. According to Mr. George French Angas, whose Travels in New Zealand are quoted In Dicken's _Household Words_ for October 19, 1850, the neighboring mainland (if the word may be applied to the principal inland) abounds in hot springs of volcanic origin.

Mr. Angas says:

'I visited the boiling springs which issue from the side of a steep mountain, called Te Rapa. There were nearly one hundred of them; they burst out, bubbling from little orifices in the ground, which are not more than a few inches in diameter, the steam rushes out in clouds with considerable force: the hillside is covered with them, and a river of hot water runs down into the lake. The soil around is a red-and-white clay, strongly impregnated with sulphur and hydrogen gas; pyrites also occur. Several women were busy cooking baskets of potatoes over some of the smaller orifices: leaves and ferns were laid over the holes, upon which the food was placed. They were capitally done.

'About two miles from this place, on the edge of a great swampy flat, I met with a number of boiling ponds; some of them of very large dimensions. We forded a river flowing swiftly toward the lake, which is fed by the snows melting in the valleys of the Tongariro. In many places, in the bed of this river, the water boils up from the subterranean springs below, suddenly changing the temperature of the stream, to the imminent risk of the individual who may be crossing. Along whole tracts of land I heard the water boiling violently beneath the crust over which I was treading. It is very dangerous travelling, for, if the crust should break, scalding to death must ensue. I am told that the Rotuma natives, who build their houses over the hot springs in that district, for the sake of constant warmth at night, frequently meet with accidents of this kind: it has happened that when a party has been dancing on the floor, the crust has given way, and the convivial assembly has been suddenly swallowed up in the boiling caldron beneath! Some of the ponds are ninety feet in circumference, filled with a transparent pale-blue boiling water, sending up columns of steam. Channels of boiling water run along the ground in every direction, and the surface of this calcareous flat around the margin of the boiling ponds covered with beautiful incrustations of lime and alum, in some parts forming flat saucer-like figures. Husk of maize, moss, and branches of vegetable substances were incrusted in the same manner. I also observed small deep holes, or wells, here and there among the grass and rushes, from two inches to as many feet in diameter, filled with boiling mud, that rises in large bubbles as thick as hasty pudding; these mud pits sent up a strong sulphureous smell. Although the ponds boiled violently, I noticed small flies walking swiftly, or rather running on their surface.

The steam that rises from these boiling springs is visible for many miles, appearing like the jets of a number of steam engines.'--Vol. ii., pp. 113, 114, 115.

FLY LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER.