Read "The Great Geysir of Iceland" by Esther Singleton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
On the eastern slope of the Frachytic pile and extending round the / north of the rock-wall are the Hvers and Geysirs. Nothing can be meaner / than their appearance, especially to the tourist who travels as usual / from Reykjavik; nothing more ridiculous than the contrast of this / pin's point, this atom of pyritic formation, with the gigantic theory / which it was held to prove, earth's central fire, the now obsolete / dream of classical philosophers and "celebrated academicians"; nothing / more curious than the contrast between Nature and Art, between what / we see in life and what we find in travellers' illustrations. Sir / John Stanley, perpetuated by Henderson, first gave consistence to the / popular idea of "that most wonderful fountain, the Great Geysir; " / such is the character given to it by the late Sir Henry Holland, a / traveller who belonged to the "wunderbar" epoch of English travel, / still prevalent in Germany. From them we derive the vast background / of black mountain, the single white shaft of fifty feet high, domed / like the popular pine-tree of Vesuvian smoke, the bouquet of water, / the Prince of Wales feathers, double-plumed and triple-plumed, charged / with stones; and the minor jets and side squirts of the foreground, / where pigmies stand and extend the arm of illustration and the hand of / marvel.