Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/190

120 ceased, and it has not performed worthily since. But how could a horse start a geyser? With its own fat! "I have a theory," my guide explained, "that the fat of the horse had the same effect on the hot water as soap would have had."

In a clump of tea-trees was the Eagle's Nest Geyser. No eagle ever sat on it, but it looked much like an eagle's nest just the same. It was surrounded by a pile of sticks coated with sinter. Originally there were only a few sticks around the geyser's mouth; the others were placed there by one of the owners of the valley. Through its two openings the Eagle's Nest played briefly every twenty minutes to a height of ten feet. Below the Eagle's Nest was the Prince of Wales Feathers, which we forced to play by damming a rivulet and at the same time removing a dam from an adjoining stream. For twenty-five minutes its two plumes, leaping from small openings in the side of a terrace, played from twenty-five to thirty feet high. Below it was an indicating splasher which always erupted a few minutes before the Feathers began throwing. One of the most remarkable geysers of the valley was the Twins, two gushers that played from the same pool. The stronger one burst up with an explosive sound every four and one-half minutes; the other played every fifteen minutes with a sound like a paddle-wheel.

Another astonishing geyser was the Steam Hammer, a boiling marvel in a large cold-water basin. Rods before we reached it, we heard it pounding beneath its