Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/512

498 fighting hand to hand with a hatchet, he determined to eat her. So he had her cooked with the sixteen men, and made a great feast, and then to spite the people, before leaving the district, he attempted to choke up all of the springs, in which amiable effort he partially succeeded. These springs were also a favorite place for depositing all superfluous babes, especially girls, who never got much of a welcome. They were popped in alive, like so many lobsters, and treated with quite as little ceremony." Next to the Iceland geysers, which we rank below those of New Zealand and the Yellowstone Park, the most important are probably those of Thibet, although our knowledge of them is very meager. They are in Great Thibet, in the province of Chamnamring, called Chang, near Lake Namcho, or Tengri Nur, and were discovered by T. G. Montgomerie, who described them in the "Journal of the Geographical Society of London." There are six localities in the region, of which the most important are Chutang Chaka, Peting Chuja, and Naisum Chuja. At the latter, the highest temperature recorded was 183° Fahr., and the boiling-point of water was 183° Fahr. The first locality had fifteen hot springs, whose waters had a temperature of 166° Fahr., the boiling-point here being 186° Fahr. Peting Chuja is the principal geyser area, and a dozen columns of hot water are described as issuing from a large stony plateau and rising to a height of forty or fifty feet, producing so much steam that the sky was darkened, and so much noise that the travelers could not hear one another speaking. Similar jets were also noticed, rising to about the same height from the middle of the adjacent river, Lakú chu. The stony plateau or platform spoken of is undoubtedly a platform or mound of siliceous sinter, so common to geyser areas.

The Azores mark one of the volcanic centers of the Atlantic Ocean ridge, on which also Iceland lies. The Island of San Miguel, or St. Michael's, has hot springs in all parts, but especially in two places at the West End, in the valley of Furnas. This valley is almost circular, about twelve miles in circumference, and surrounded by volcanic mountains. Through it flows the Ribeira Quinta, or Warm River. The springs are of high temperature, and include some that spout to a height of twelve feet. They are at one end of the valley, surrounded by deposits of siliceous sinter, which forms rims eight to ten inches in height around the individual springs. The "Great Caldeira," or Boiling Fountain, is the principal geyser.

The very name, geyser, testifies to Iceland's historical precedence as the land of geysers. The earliest writings in relation to the island are silent in regard to them, the first mention made being by Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote in the twelfth century. Are Frode does not refer to them in the "Icelandic Annals," A.D. 1070-75, although he lived near their present locality. If they broke forth subsequent to that period, it is surprising that not the least notice should be taken of their appearance. It must be remembered, however, that, in all but