Wonders of Creation

nd-Mount Hecla-Ear

ptàr Y?kul-Terrible

Nyo?-Katlugaia-The Ge

eysers-Iceland

nexed woodcut will give you an idea of its appearance. You will observe the column of volcanic vapour ascendi

. After a violent storm on the night of the 2nd of September in that year, the surface of the ground in the Orkney Islands was found strown with volcanic dust. There was thus conveyed to the inhabitants of Great Britain an intimation that Hecla had been again at work. Accordingly, tidings soon after arrived of a great eruption of the mountain. On the night of the 1st of September, the dwellers in its neighbourhood were terrified by a fearful underground groani

iles, killing many cattle and destroying a large tract of pasturage. Twelve miles from the crater, the lava-stream was between forty and fifty feet deep and nearly a mile in width. On the 12th of October a fresh torrent of lava bur

a poisonous taint. The cattle that ate of it were attacked by a murrain, of which great numbers died. The ice and snow, which had gathered about the mountain f

tion: Mou

large currents, which flowed onwards to the sea. In their progress, these burning torrents filled up the beds of two considerable rivers. The greater of the two streams, after it had ceased to flow and had become a solid mass of rock, measured fifty miles in length, and between twelve and fifteen miles in breadth. Its average depth on the plains was about a hundred feet; but in the bed of the river, which it had filled, it was not less than six hundred feet. The snow and ice, which

distance of a hundred and fifty miles, forming a crust which obstructed the progress of ships. Portions of this crust floated as far as the Shetland and Orkney islands. The King of Denmark named this fiery apparition "Nyo?," or "New Island," and doubtless pr

ones, and broken fragments of rock, which they hurry along with them in their wild career, that the waters, so suddenly freed, produce the greatest amount of damage. During an eruption of Katlugaia, one of the southern Icelandic volcanoes, in 1756, the mass of material thus carried down by the melted snows and glaciers was so great, that, adva

ittent springs of boiling water. The chief of these is the Great Geyser. A jet rises to

he mouth of a circular well, between seventy and eighty feet in depth. It is down this well that the jet retires on its disappearance; and it drags along with it all the water out of the basin, leaving both basin and well quite empty, without even a puff of steam coming out of the hole. In this state of emptiness the basin and well remain for several hours. Suddenly the water begins to rise in the well, overflowing till it fills the basin. Loud explosions are heard from below, and the ground trembl

ity, though not quite regular, generally recur at intervals of six or seven hours. But they may be hastened by throwing big stones down the well. This not only hurries the eruption

ompensate this deficiency, they are more frequent in their ascent; so that travellers who are too im

r house, to keep us comfortable in winter; and we might have nice hot baths in our dressing-rooms, arid even a little steam-engine to r

Hecla. The only precaution needful to be observed, is first to plunge the hand into cold water, and then dry it gently with a soft towel, but so as to leave it still a little moist. This discovery was made by a French philosopher, M. Boutigny, and has been practically proved both by him and M. Houdin, the celebrated conjuror, by thrusting their hands into molten iron, as it flowed from the furnace. The latter describes th

s Autobiogr

ds of a hundred and fifty feet into the air. The boiling water issues from conical mounds, with great noise. The whole ground around them is a mere crust, and when it is penetrated the boiling water is seen underneath. The Californian geysers, however, are impregnated, not

iety of carbonate of lime named Iceland-spar. Transparent and colourless, like glass, this mineral possesses the property of double refraction-any sma

is in the island of Jan Mayen, off the coast of Greenland, and has