oment the
last jet retreated into the pipe, was no more than a space of seven
or eight minutes, and at no moment did the crown of the column
reach higher than sixty or seventy feet above the surface of the
basin. Now early travellers talk of three hundred feet, which must,
of course, be fabulous; but many trustworthy persons have judged
the eruptions at two hundred feet, while well-authenticated
accounts--when the elevation of the jet has been actually
measured--make it to have attained a height of upward of one
hundred feet.'

Such are the peculiar characteristics of the Geysers of Iceland,
differing in almost every essential point from the hot springs, so
called, in California. We propose to show that the phenomena of the
Devil's Canon appear in other parts of the world in connection with some
known volcano, which has at some period in history been in active
operation, and that there is strong reason to believe that they can be
explained by the sinking of cold water into the earth, in a country rich
in salts and minerals, and encountering a volcanic focus, from which the
water is discharged hot and strongly impregnated with the salts through
which it has passed. It was Humboldt's opinion that hot springs
generally originated thus, for he says in 'Kosmos':

'A very striking proof of the origin of hot springs by the sinking
of cold meteoric water into the earth, and by its contact with a
volcanic focus, is afforded by the volcano of Jorullo. When, in
September, 1759, Jorullo was suddenly elevated into a mountain
eleven hundred and eighty-three feet above the surrounding plain,
two small rivers, the Rio de Cuitimba and the Rio de San Pedro,
disappeared, and some time afterward burst forth again during
violent shocks of an earthquake, as hot springs, whose temperature
I found, in 1803, to be 186.4 deg. Fahr.'

The most marked characteristics of the springs of the Devil's Canon are,
the small space in which they are all contained; the profusion and
variety of mineral salts, and the proximity of different minerals,
almost flowing into each other, but never mingling; the number and
different forces of the steam jets on every side; and the remarkable
appearance of the soil.

The approach to the Devil's Canon is through a section of country
bearing evident traces of volcanic action, and rich in mineral springs,
of which the most impo