On the other side hangs another painting which I prefer, partly perhaps because even in my castle I was for a time at a loss how to procure it. The subject was recommended to me by Hans Christian Andersen. It is the story of a beautiful princess. Are not Danish princesses always beautiful?
Her numerous brothers were so unfortunate as to be laid, by a witch, under a spell of a most inconvenient sort. Every morning they were turned into wild swans. Every day they were obliged to fly over many a league of gray ocean to the mainland and back to their home, an island in the midst of the sea. At every sunset they resumed their natural shape, and were princes all night. One day they met their sister on the shore. They undertook to carry her back with them. Her Weight made them slower than usual. A storm came up in the after noon. There was a sad probability of the swans being turned into princes again before they could possibly 'see her home.'
In my picture, half of the swans are a plumy raft for her, and row her through the air with their sweeping wings. Another relay, more tired, perhaps, make a canopy over her, and fan her as they fly. Their outstretched gaze sees only the island. But the princess, as she lies facing backward, sees the danger. In despairing, motionless silence, she looks at the sinking sun, with no color in her cheeks but that which he casts upon her. The red, warning sun looks awfully back, face to face with her, in the narrowing strip of blue sky between two horizontal bars of thundering clouds, which the lightning is beginning to chain together, that the night may come before its time, and the enchanted princes and their sister may drown in darkness.
Church did the water very well, and Paul Weber the island. Rosa Bonheur was so kind as to paint the swans—I need not say how. But the rest of the picture was such a perplexity to me that I could think of nothing better than to send for Mr. Laroy Sunderland to call one day when I was out, and knock up Raphael to draw the princess, and Salvator Rosa, the clouds, and Titian to see to the sky and light. When I came in again, the completed whole met me as a pleasant surprise.
Not far off are Landseer's 'Challenge,' and a few other Arctic pieces of his, which I look at in July to keep myself cool. But the chief of my pictures are in the picture gallery, at the top of my castle, lighted from above. Connoisseurs assure me, with rare candor, that the 'Transfiguration,' 'Last Judgment,' 'Assumption of the Virgin,' and so forth, there, are duplicates rather than copies of the originals.
In my library there is scarcely a single picture to be found, nor a statue, nor a bust even, except of the duskiest, self-hiding bronze overhead—only some dim, dark engraving, or brown, antiquated autograph, fading in a little black frame, or a signet ring hanging against the book written by the crumbled hand that once wore it—only relics having the power to excite thought without distracting attention—- unobtrusive memorials of the dead with whom I am soon to live. Rich, black, old bookcases, carved all over in high relief, hold their immortal works or the records of their undying deeds. Even the writings of the living are sparingly admitted here. I stand on my guard constantly, lest I be enslaved by their influence. It is less by obsequiousness to the Present than by listening to the admonitions of the Past, that we may hope to gain a hearing from the Future.
Saints and seraphs, such as they appeared to Fra Angelico, look in upon me through the stained-glass windows, that I may always read and study as if under their holy eyes. Ivy runs thickly over their deep arched recesses, and over the stags' heads which surmount them. In winter, little but painted beams and glow come through them. In summer, the oriel opens of an evening to show me the phantom ships that haunt the misty, dreamy harbor; and the lattices that look westerly over the lake-like mouth of the Charles, are seldom shut against the sun or moon.
The floor is smoothly paved with broad, square slabs of freestone, on which is here or there engraved one or another illustrious name, like a 'footprint on the sands of time,' with a date of birth and death. Tables that match the bookcases support portfolios containing allegorical designs by Relszch, Blake, and Albrecht Durer. On a writing desk, that was once Vittoria Colonna's, a little Parian angel holds my ink for me, kneeling as if to ask a blessing upon it, and to entreat me to blot no pages with it in the souls whereon I write,
Before the reading chairs, plenty of tiger and leopard skins lie in wait to cherish the cool feet of students, but there is nothing to trip up my own, along the long diameter of the long oval room, if sometimes the fancy seizes me to walk up and down there for hours alone, listening to the 'voices' that are not 'from without.'
At the end opposite to the oriel, I have just had placed an organ, the twin of the new one at the Music Hall, except that the faces on the pipes are beautiful, and do not look as if it hurt them to pipe. The world may be too small; but the organ cannot possibly be too large. Malibran, Jenny Lind, or Mrs. Mott usually sings to it of an evening, accompanied by Franz, Schubert, or Mendelssohn; or Beethoven drops in to play one of his symphonies. Sunday nights, Handel performs upon it regularly for a choir composed of Vaughan, Herbert, the minister who chants 'Calm on the listening ear of night,' Madame Guyon, and Sarah Adams. Between their hymns, Robertson preaches a sermon and reads from the liturgy of King's Chapel. This service is designed as a special easement to the consciences and stomachs alike of those oppressed Christians, whom modern customs and physical laws impel, of an afternoon, to be dining and digesting precisely at the hours during which their pastors are unaccountably and unjustifiably in the habit of preaching.
The books upon the shelves, last not least, are less numerous than choice. Among them still are to be found the most masterly writings of the most masterly minds in the three learned professions, and the noblest treatises on the nobler of the arts and sciences. There are many 'chronicles of eld,' which, if not true, as the Frenchman said, at any rate 'méritent bien de l'être.' There are such few fictions as bear the stamp of much individual thought, character, and observation. Especially there is a great deal of biography; for biography is the great, all-embracing epic of humanity.
Two suits of armor stand on guard, one on each side, by each well-assorted bookcase. I always think it prudent to warn my incautious visitors that these are automata, wound up and set to deal a box with their gauntleted hands on each ear of each disorderly wight who puts a book where it does not belong.
Below my library, and beyond my courtyard, is a boat in which I row myself out in warm weather to visit my friends along the coast. When I ply the oar, the crab-fishery is unproductive, droughts prevail, and I am not often upset or drowned.
In my stable are sometimes to be found, eating unmingled oats, two tame ponies, Mattapony and Poniatowski. They take my invalid acquaintance out on airings in the daytime, and my lingering guests home at a reasonable hour in the evening. The coachman thinks it is good for the horses to be out in bad weather. He loves to wash the coach. For my own use, I keep a large dapple-gray, an ex-charger of the purest blood. He has the smoothest canter and the finest mouth that I ever felt; but, with decent regard to appearances, and my private preferences, expressed or understood, he never fails to prance in a manner to strike awe and terror into all beholders, for full five minutes every time I mount him.
In the common world, I myself am, I trust, often amiable—always in some respects exemplary. In my castle, I am always all that I ought to be—all that I wish to be. I am as stately as Juno, as beautiful as Adonis, as elegant as Chesterfield, as edifying as Mrs. Chapone, as eloquent as Burke, as noble as Miss Nightingale, as perennial as the Countess of Desmond, and as robust as Dr. Windship. I also understand everything but entomology and numismatology; and if I do not understand them, the only reason is that, as the dear little boys say, 'I doe want to.'
The blossom-end of the day I keep to myself in my castle. I spend all the mornings alone in the library writing—calamo currente, like one of the heroines of the author of 'Ohone'—the most admirable romances and poems of the age. People very seldom call to see me. When they do, they go away again directly on hearing that I am engaged, without as much as sending in a message. My porter has Fortunatus's purse, and is giving discreet largesses, in collusion with the agent of the Provident Association, to the less opulent of the beggars who apply for my pecuniary aid, while I am providing above for the wants of those who crave my higher wealth. So that really the only drawback to the pleasure enjoyed by me at such times, is the idea of the frightful quarrels which must arise, as soon as I put anything to the press, between the booksellers, who stand ready to contend with one another for the honor of publishing it. The very first novel I ever completed led to a duel between the Montague and Capulet of the trade, in which each party must have lost his life but for the strenuous interposition of Noah Worcester. The fear of a repetition of that scene is all which withholds me from more frequently answering the importunate calls of the public to appear before them. Matters were simultaneously almost as bad between Birket Foster and Darley. But I made a compromise there, by promising that, the next time I got out an edition, I would get out another, and that of the two each artist should illustrate one. Each eagerly agreed to this arrangement, naturally feeling sure that such a comparison would forever establish his own superiority.
Did I say there was but one drawback to my pleasure? There is one more. It is the idea of the monotonous uniformity with which the Reviews will eulogize me. They cannot say a word of commendation beyond what is strictly true, I am fully aware; and I am not obliged to read any more of it than I please. Still it may appear extravagant to the very few yet unacquainted with the merits of my works.
Of an evening I am usually at home to visitors; and three times every winter I give the young people a ball. It breaks up at twelve. I provide none but the lightest wines. Nor do I encourage the 'round dances.' I really cannot. Those who do not think it right to join in them would either do so against their consciences, or feel left out and forlorn; pretty girls would get overheated, tumbled, and torn, and carry about the marks of black arms on their delicate waists; and youths, unsurpassed in the natural nobleness of their port and presence, would make ridiculous faces in their well-founded anxiety lest they should lose the time or meet with collisions. But I give them, to make such amends as I can, plenty of room, pure air, neither hot nor cold, and flowers in abundance. Soyer furnishes their supper; Strauss and Labitzky play for them; and they are in a measure consoled for their privations by seeing and hearing how uncommonly handsome they look to the end of the evening. The only qualifications I require for admission to the entertainment are, that the candidates shall be generally acquainted with one another, respectable in character, tasteful in dress, happy and kind in their looks, and well-mannered enough to show that they have assembled to give and receive as much innocent pleasure as they can.
Good talkers and good listeners only are invited to my dinner parties. I give one every Wednesday. It is a pleasant thing to look forward to through the first half of the week, and to look back upon through the last.
My cook likes it. She is the complement to the unhappy gentleman who had 'the temperament of genius without genius.' She has the genius without the temperament.
Part of my waiters are the attendant hands formerly engaged in the service of the White Cat. They are always gloved, and never spill nor break anything. Others, who are dumb, carry everything needed safely to and fro between table and kitchen.
The walls of my dining room are hung with portraits of all of my presentable ancestors, from the time of Apelles down to that of Copley. There are not too many of them to leave room for some Dutch paintings of fruit, game, and green-grocers' shops, for whets to the hunger.
My responsibility, with regard to the banquet, begins and ends with seeing, as I never fail to do, that each of the banqueters has a generally agreeable and peculiarly congenial companion. As for myself, I maintain that a host has his privileges; and I always place the Reverend Sydney Smith very near my right hand. On my left, I enjoy a variety. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table is sometimes so kind as to grace that corner of my dinner table. So is a gentleman who was once two years before the mast as an uncommon sailor; and so is Sir Lainful, and a child from a neighboring college town, whose society is better than that of most men.
Nothing is more promotive of digestion than laughter. I regret that my experience does not enable me to speak quite so favorably of choking. By means of the latter, my bright career was, on the very first of this series of festivities, nearly brought to a premature close. But as upon that occasion it was impossible for me to stop laughing, so likewise was it impossible for me to stop living. Some sort of action of the lungs was kept up, and complete asphyxia prevented; and, having smiled myself nearly to death, I smiled myself back to life again. Ever since, my convives, apprised of this mortal frailty of mine, time their remarks more prudently, and allow me to take alternately a joke and a morsel.
Sir Walter Scott always sits at the farther end of the table. He is the best talker that I ever heard, but not so good for dinner as he is for luncheon, because what he says is too interesting, and takes away one's appetite; nor for supper either, because he makes one dream. I always contrive that the more plethoric of my guests shall take their seats near him.
I could never be tired of Macaulay; but he contradicts people, and once made two ladies cry. They were introduced to me by an author to whom I owe much enjoyment, Miss Wetherell, of the State of New York. One was the bride of the Reverend John Humphreys, and the other Mrs. Guy Carleton. To be sure, I did not see why they should cry—unless from habit; but still, he ought not to have made them.
After dinner, those who show no signs of having talked themselves out, are rewarded and encouraged by being privately invited to prolong their stay, and meet a few other guests in the library.
Shakspeare always appears there among the first, collected and calm, but whether happy or not, his manner does not show. With regard both to his past and present life, his reserve is impenetrable. Like a mocking bird, he utters himself in so many different strains, that I can seldom make out which is most his own, except when he will sing one of his little lyrics; when, I must say, I never heard so sweet and rich a voice but that of Milton on such occasions, or those of Shelley's skylark and cloud. But yet, whether this voice of his own says that the heart out of which it comes is most glad or sad, I never can distinguish.
Dante comes with him, as tall, and, I think, as strong a man; but 'Pace' is still upon his lips and not upon his brow. He complains that heaven is a melancholy place to him. He has become better acquainted with Beatrice, and finds her not more beautiful than the rest of the angels, and otherwise rather a commonplace spirit.
To Goethe I usually have myself excused. To borrow a little slang from the critics, he 'draws' uncommonly well, especially when he draws portraits. But I do not care to have my eye trained much by an artist who has such an infirmity of color that he does not know black from white.
Schiller meets with many a welcome, and rarely a heartier one than when he brings his Wilhelm Tell or Jungfrau. I should be glad to ask some of those who are more intimate with him than I am, whether he is not a good deal like three wise men, whose plays Socrates and I used to go to see performed at Athens, two or three thousand years ago, when I was there. Further, I should be glad to ask whether it would not be better if, in one respect, he were more like them still. As he at least has seemed to me to do, they threw the strength of their invention into two or three impersonations; but as he sometimes does, they always—to steal a term from the nearest grocery—lumped all the merely necessary and accessary people, and called them simply 'Chorus.' Thus the wise men's ingenuities and our memories were spared the trouble of assigning and remembering a host of insignificant names; and there was no looking back to the dramatis personæ, or dramatos prosopa, as we called them then, to find out who was who.
A Government officer sometimes reports himself at my gates from Rydal, with a washing tub of ink on castors, which he pushes about with him wherever he goes, and in which, as in a Claude-Lorraine mirror, he contemplates everything that he can both on earth and above. He is constantly employed in fishing in it with a quill for ideas; and as often as he catches one, even if it is half drowned, my door-keeper opens to him.
Lady Geraldine was one of my most constant guests of an evening. But after her courtship and marriage, she was too apt to bring in her husband. I received him cordially enough two or three times, particularly when he came with 'the good news from Ghent.' But on other occasions his conversation was so far from agreeable, so unintelligible, or, 'not to put too fine a point upon it,' unedifying, that at last my porter was obliged to hand him out for immediate chastisement.[5] He never came again. I do not quite see why not; for, if others are willing to take pains for his good, he certainly should be no less so.
Mrs. Stowe does honor to one of the most honorable places in the assembly—her head crowned with an everlasting glory by the spirit of Uncle Tom.
Poor Charlotte Bronté is always present. She looks happy at last, with a happiness that is not of this world; and if her laurels are but earthly laurels, I often fancy that in the hand which smoothed her sisters' deathbeds, I can discern a heavenly palm. There are not many secular writers whom I would not turn away, if need were, to make room for her. If I do not always admire her characters, I do her mind. I do not altogether like her stories; but I want words to express my appreciation of the way in which she tells them.
I may state in this place, as well as in any, that—an enlightened conservative in all things—I always hold myself in readiness to receive, with marked distinction, intellectual women, who 'keep to their sphere,' such as Miss Mitchell, whose sphere is the celestial globe, Miss Austin, whose sphere is the beau monde, and Miss Blackwell, whose sphere is the pill.
Cromwell, or Frederick the Great either, would have secured a standing invitation for Carlyle, I dare say; but it is impossible for me to overlook his present state of politics. I have little doubt that it fell upon him as a Nemesis, in the first place for writing bad English, and secondly for daring to 'damn with faint praise' the loyal, generous, joyous, chivalrous, religious soldier, Frederick, Baron de la Motte-Fouqué, and prince of romance. When the latter presents himself for admission my castle needs short siege. The drawbridge falls before the summons; and when I see him cross my threshold with his lovely and noble children, Ondine and Sintram, I should be almost too happy, if I were not afraid of his being affronted by the mischievous humor of Cervantes.
For Cervantes will make his way in now and then. It is impossible utterly to banish so much originality, elegance, and grace as his, even if the fun which accompanies them is sometimes too broad; and, when he comes to see me, he is always on his very best behavior. Sir Thomas Browne came once; but I thought he talked too much about himself; and scarcely anybody seemed to know him.
Hazlitt brought me a letter of introduction from the Emperor Napoleon. I was not inclined to think much of either of them; but I knew Hazlitt was a friend of Lamb's; and I have a regard for Lamb, on account of his regard for his sister. So my porter asked Mr. Hazlitt to walk in; and so Mr. Hazlitt did. Presently I heard him say, in an aside to Mrs. Jameson, that women were usually very stupid; if not by nature, by education and principle. The next time he called I happened to be rather particularly engaged in writing a review of him. Nobody ever heard him say anything afterward.
Of course, I single out merely a few even of the 'representative men and women' among my guests, and conveniences and luxuries in my establishment. If I told over the tithe of them, I should become diffuse; but if there is any one thing for which, more than for any other thing, my writings are remarkable, that one thing[6] is a thrice-condensed conciseness—in my castle in the air.
This wonderful ravine is more generally known under the name of the Geysers of California, an ambitious misnomer, which associates it with the grand Geysers of Iceland, and has given rise to erroneous ideas in regard to the nature and action of the springs it contains.
The prevalent idea of a geyser is a hot fountain, sometimes quiescent, but at others rising in turbulent eruption. The mere existence of a hot spring does not imply a 'geyser,' for, if such were the case, their number would be very great, hot springs in many parts of the world being frequent if not general accompaniments of volcanic action. Unquestionably, the Geysers of Iceland, the 'Strokr,' and the spring of the Devil's Cañon, the 'Witches' Caldron', are the results of volcanic action; but that action differs essentially in its operation. The 'Strokr' and the 'Great Geyser' are intermittent, and are accounted for by the siphon theory: the 'Witches' Caldron' is always full and boiling, and no difference is seen in it from one year's end to another.
It is not, moreover, a fountain, but a basin in the hillside, in which a black and muddy spring is always bubbling without overflowing.
The great eruptions of the Icelandic Geysers are, it has been observed, accounted for by the siphon theory; in other words, this theory supposes the existence of a chamber in the heated earth, not quite full of water, and communicating with the upper air by means of a pipe, whose lower orifice is at the side of the cavern and below the surface of the water. The water, being kept boiling by the intense heat, generates steam, which soon accumulates such force as to discharge the contents of the pond into the air through the narrow vent, or, at least enough to allow of the escape of the superfluous steam. In the Great Geyser of Iceland this eruption occurs with tremendous power, lasting only a few moments, when, all the volume of water falling back into the pool, it sinks much below its ordinary level, and remains quiescent for several days, until a fresh creation of steam repeats the phenomenon.
'The Witches' Caldron,' which is the 'Great Geyser' of California, on the contrary, never rises into the air; the subterranean pond of which it is the safety valve, may be considered to rise in it, as in a pipe, to the surface. It is not necessary to suppose a siphon; a straight pipe, communicating with the air, will account for all that is peculiar to this hot spring.
Before attempting to describe the wonders of the 'Devil's Cañon,' it may be well to give some account of the Geysers of Iceland, to render this essential difference in character the more striking, especially as numerous theories, professing to account for the Californian phenomena, have been propounded by the people of that State, none of which are thoroughly satisfactory to any one who has examined them attentively.
The following is taken from 'Letters from High Latitudes,' which appeared in 1861, and is only one of many accounts by Iceland travellers. Those interested in these matters will derive much information from the sketches of Mr. J. Ross Browne, which have had many readers through Harper's Magazine. We quote:
'I do not know that I can give you a better notion of the appearance of the place than by saying that it looked as if for about a quarter of a mile the ground had been honey-combed by disease into numerous sores and orifices; not a blade of grass grew on its hot, inflamed surface, which consisted of unwholesome-looking, red, livid clay, or crumbled shreds and shards of slough-like incrustations. Naturally enough, our first impulse on dismounting was to scamper off to the Great Geyser. As it lay at the farthest end of the congeries of hot springs, in order to reach it we had to run the gauntlet of all the pools of boiling water and scalding quagmires of soft clay that intervened, and consequently arrived on the spot with our ankles nicely poulticed. But the occasion justified our eagerness.
'A smooth, silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diameter and four feet deep, wide at the bottom, as in washing basins on board a steamer, stood before us, brimful of water just upon the simmer; while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapor, looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground above the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica like the outside of an oyster shell, sloping gently down on all sides from the edge of the basin.
'As the baggage train with our tents and beds had not yet arrived, we fully appreciated our luck in being treated to so dry a night; and having eaten everything we could lay hands on, we sat quietly down to chess, and coffee brewed in geyser water; when suddenly it seemed as if beneath our very feet a quantity of subterranean cannon were going off: the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr, starting to his feet, upset the chess board (I was just beginning to get the best of the game), and started off at full speed toward the great basin. By the time we reached its brim, however, the noise had ceased, and all we could see was a slight movement in the centre, as if an angel had passed by and troubled the water. Irritated by this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves by going and tormenting the Strokr.
'The Strokr—or the Churn—you must know, is an unfortunate geyser, with so little command over his temper and his stomach that you can get a rise out of him whenever you like. All that is necessary is to collect a quantity of sods, and throw them down his funnel. As he has no basin to protect him from these liberties, you can approach to the very edge of the pipe, about five feet in diameter, and look down at the boiling water, which is perpetually seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf you have administered begins to disagree with him; he works himself up into an awful passion—tormented by the qualms of incipient sickness; he groans and hisses, and boils up and spits at you with malicious vehemence, until at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he throws up into the air a column of water forty feet high, which carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and scatters them scalded and half digested at your feet. So irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the discipline it has undergone, that long after all foreign matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching and spluttering, until, at last, nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den. Put into the highest spirits by the success of this performance, we turned to examine the remaining springs. I do not know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of any particular mention. They all resemble in character the two I have described, the only difference being that they are infinitely smaller, and of much less power and importance.
'As our principal object in coming so far was to see an eruption of the Great Geyser, it was of course necessary to wait his pleasure; in fact, our movements entirely depended upon his. For the next two or three days, therefore, like pilgrims round some ancient shrine, we patiently kept watch, but he scarcely deigned to vouchsafe us the slightest manifestation of his latent energies. Two or three times the cannonading we heard immediately after our arrival recommenced—and once an eruption to the height of about ten feet occurred; but so brief was its duration, that by the time we were on the spot, although the tent was not eighty yards distant, all was over; as after every effort of the fountain, the water in the basin mysteriously ebbed back into the funnel. This performance, though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down its scalded gullet. In an hour afterward the basin was brimful as ever.
'On the morning of the fourth day a cry from the guides made us start to our feet, and with one common impulse rush toward the basin. The usual subterranean thunders had already commenced. A violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten feet—then burst and fell; immediately after which a shining liquid column, or rather sheaf of columns, wreathed in robes of vapor, sprang into the air, and in a succession of jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung their silver crests against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain held its own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending energy. The unstable waters faltered—drooped—fell, 'like a broken purpose,' back upon themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the recesses of their pipe.
'The spectacle was certainly magnificent; but no description can give an idea of its most striking features. The enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power, the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapor, rolling out in exhaustless profusion—all combined to make one feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movement.
'And yet I do not believe that the exhibition was so fine as some that have been seen: from the first burst upward to the moment 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 Cañon 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° Fahr.'
The most marked characteristics of the springs of the Devil's Cañon 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 Cañon is through a section of country bearing evident traces of volcanic action, and rich in mineral springs, of which the most important are those of the Napa Valley. First among these, at the greatest distance from the volcano (if we may be allowed to call it so), is the soda spring of Napa, a cold spring, greatly resembling in flavor the water of the Congress Spring at Saratoga. Passing up the Napa Valley, we find a tepid sulphur spring near St. Hellon's, known as the 'White Sulphur Spring,' being strongly impregnated with that mineral, and tasting much like the famous 'White Sulphur' of Virginia. Its waters, however, are slightly warm, and, although stronger than those of the 'Warm Springs' of the Blue Ridge, a basin as clear and buoyant as that could easily be made.
This spring is owned by Mr. Alstrom, of the Lick House, at San Francisco, and, being in a charming valley, is fast becoming the most popular watering place on the Pacific coast. About twelve miles beyond the Sulphur Springs are the 'Hot Springs,' which resemble the description just given of the Icelandic Geysers—the little geysera—there being the same quaking bog around them, which emits steam to the tread, and the surface being scabby, like an old salt meadow under a midsummer sun. These waters are scalding hot, but are pure, excepting a trace of iron. If they have been analyzed, the writer has not seen the results.
The Devil's Cañon lies about fifteen miles beyond the Hot Springs, and in the heart of a wild, mountainous country, difficult of access, and barren of vegetation, except of the most hardy character, such as the manzanita and Californian oak. Molten mercury, pure and rich, is found in the crevices of the rocks. Quartz and basalt are freely met with, and on Geyser Peak disintegrating lava.
Here the road attains an elevation of three thousand feet, and on either hand are broad and fertile valleys, with rivers winding through them, the Russian River valley and the Napa being the most beautiful beneath, while before us are gorges and barren hills, that rise above each other in picturesque confusion.
The first view of the Devil's Cañon is obtained from one of these desolate hills. At our very feet, fully two thousand feet below, seemingly a sheer descent, rises a little column of smoke or vapor, and the opposing hills, which rise abruptly to the height of a thousand feet, seem cleft by a narrow chasm, the sides of which and the neighboring hillside seem to have been burnt over by fire, and baked of many colors, like the neighborhood of an old brick kiln. Any one who has seen the island of St. Helena will at once recognize it as the same phenomenon which is famous in the 'Hangings,' the blasted precipice by the side of Longwood Farm, overhanging the valley which Napoleon chose for his last resting place. This striking similarity is all the more worthy of note from its occurring there in a purely volcanic island, every inch of which is decomposed or crumbling lava or lava rock. At the 'Hangings' the soil has the appearance of having been slowly roasted, long after the central fires which produced the island had lost their energy.
Descending the mountain we find ourselves on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a turbulent stream about two hundred feet below, and facing the ravine or cañon, which contains these wonders, and which is smoking incessantly throughout its entire length.
Just at this commanding point a hotel has been erected, from the portico of which in the early morning we can watch the grand columns of vapor opposite, before they are shorn of a portion of their splendor by the rising sun.
It is possible to walk the entire length of the ravine, surrounded by jets of steam, and little bubbling springs of mineral water; some hissing, some sputtering, others roaring, and others shrieking; the ground being soft and hot, your stick sinking into the clayey ooze, and a puff of spiteful steam following it as withdrawn; your shoes white or yellow, as you tread the chalk or the sulphur banks, and your feet burning with the hot breath of the sulphur blasts below.
If you are not stifled by the sulphur fumes above, be thankful; and when at last you reach the 'Mountain of Fire' at the head of the ravine, and look back upon the perils of your upward journey, you think of poor Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Bunyan in his dreams never imagined a more horrible place.
It is a vale of wonders—Nature's laboratory, where chemistry is to be studied. The name and number of the springs is 'legion,' Hot Sulphur, Warm Sulphur, Blue Sulphur, White Sulphur, Alum, Salt, and nobody knows all the mineral compounds. You may stand with one foot in a cold bath and another in a hot one—if you can. With one hand you may dip up alum water, as bitter and pure as chemistry can compound it, and with the other sulphur water, that shall sicken your very soul. If you have rheumatism, bathe in the splendid sulphur baths or the Indian Spring; if your eyes are weak, use the eye-water, which beats any ever charmed by magical incantations.
In the midst of this ravine, into which so many springs are emptying themselves, is a little stream, which, starting from the head of the cañon quite cool and pure, receives all their mingled waters, and gradually increases in heat and abominable taste, until at last it defies description.
Its stones and the rocks that line its banks, owing probably to the protection of the cooler water, are tolerably firm in texture, all other parts of the ravine being burned to a powder which crumbles in the hand, or, when mixed with water, forms an ooze or clay. Many of these stones by the sides of this little stream are banded with colors like the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior (to compare great things with small), and probably from the same cause. These beautiful cliffs, the Schwee-archibi-kung of the Indians, are colored by percolations of surface-water, by which the coloring matter of various minerals and acids is brought to the face of the precipice, and it is reasonable to suppose that the drainage of the mountains behind the Devil's Cañon, sinking to similar beds of minerals, is thrown out by the volcano below in the shape of steam or mineral springs. It is impossible to drill a hole two feet deep in the side of the ravine without provoking a little jet of steam. Now, Daubeny, who is the highest authority on volcanoes, states that the greater part of their ascending vapor is mere steam, and that in 'Pantellaria (a volcanic island near Sicily) steam issues from many parts of this insular mountain, and hot springs gush forth from it which form together a lake six thousand feet in circumference.'
Similar jets of steam and hot water are observed at St. Lucia, near the crater Oalibou, where also there is a continual formation of sulphur from the condensation of the vapors, a phenomenon which is lavishly displayed in the Devil's Cañon, and in fact around most known volcanoes. The writer observed it fully two miles from the active volcano of Kilawea, forming a fine sulphur bed, and a body of steam so dense that rheumatic natives of Hawaii were in the habit of using it as a vapor bath.
The jets of steam in the cañon are of the most curious variety. One, honored by the name of the 'Devil's Steamboat,' is quite a formidable affair, high up on the hillside, and puffing uninterruptedly, and so powerfully that the steam is invisible for at least five feet from the vent. The ground about it is too soft to permit approach, and the heat too great to tempt it. On a frosty morning, just before sunrise, it is a fine sight. This, however, is only one of hundreds. It would be imagined that if they all came from the same source, they would puff in some sort of unison—that the beatings of the mighty heart below would be felt simultaneously in every pulse; but the fact is quite the reverse. No tune or concord is preserved by any two in the cañon; one moves with the quiet regularity of respiration, while the next is puffing with the nervous anxiety of a little high-pressure tug boat. It affords endless amusement to listen to their endless variety of complaint; some are restless, some spiteful, and some angry, while others sound as merrily as a teakettle, or beat a jolly 'rub-a-dub,' 'rataplan,' that makes a man's soul merry to hear. In fact, there is a little retreat just out of the cañon, styled the Devil's Kitchen, where the pot and the saucepan, the gridiron and the teakettle are visible to men gifted with imaginations strong enough to grasp the unseen.
The great feature of the cañon, which has given it the unmerited name of 'Geyser,' is the Witches' Caldron, a small cavity in the hillside, seemingly running back into the hill at an angle of forty-five degrees, filled with villanous black mud in unceasing commotion.
How different from the pellucid basin of the Great Geyser! Lord Dufferin tells us that he 'brewed his coffee in the Geyser water.'
The mud boils like the angry lava-waves of a volcano; it is always of a very high temperature, and occasionally runs over the rim of the basin, but never rises violently into the air. It looks like black sulphur (bitumen), and has a brimstone smell. Certainly it is a diabolical pit, and worth coming far to see, but it shows none of the phenomena which tempt travellers to Iceland.
It more closely resembles the salses or mud volcanoes of Central and South America, and is a phenomenon very common on the sides of volcanoes. As far back as the time of Pliny it was observed that 'in Sicily eruptions of wet mud precede the glowing (lava) stream.'
Humboldt recognizes in the 'salses, or small mud volcanoes, a transition from the changing phenomena presented by the eruptions of vapor and thermal springs, to the more powerful and awful activity of the streams of lava that flow from volcanic mountains.'
Although the recent discovery of the Devil's Cañon in California makes it impossible to say at what time, if ever, this smothered volcano may have been more active, we have accounts of analogous phenomena in Central America and San Salvador, in the Ausoles of Ahuachapan, near the volcano of Izalco, which were described in 1576 by Licenciado Palacio, and also in what was called the 'Infernillo,' on the side of the volcano of San Vicente, which was mentioned by the Spanish Conquistadores. We also know something of the subsequent history of these volcanoes; for M. Arago has remarked that
'The volcano of Izalco is extremely active. Among its eruptions may be cited those of 1798, 1805, 1807, and 1825. On the occasion of the last eruption the course of the river Tequisquillo was altered to the extent of several kilomètres.'
Also:
'The volcano of San Vicente, called also Sacatecoluca, was distinguished in 1643 by a very violent eruption which covered all the surrounding country with ashes and sulphur. In January, 1835, a new eruption of this volcano destroyed many towns and villages.'
Now let us see what old Palacio says of the springs on the side of this fearful volcano of Izalco:
'The springs, which the Indians call 'Hell,' are all within the space of a gunshot across, and each makes a different noise. One imitates the sound of a fuller's mill; another that of a forge, and a third a man snoring. The water in some is turbid; in some clear; in others red, yellow, and various colors. They all leave deposits of corresponding colors. Collectively the springs form the Rio Caliente, running underground for a quarter of a league, and so hot on reaching the surface as to take the skin off a man's feet. Double the range of a musket shot from these springs are others, which flow from a rock fifteen feet long by nine feet broad, split in the centre, sending out with water columns of smoke and steam, with a fearful sound, distinguishable for half a league.'
A later visitor has given an account of the same springs, which may be thus condensed:
'Not far from Apaneca and in the vicinity of the town of Ahuachapan, are some remarkable thermal springs, called Ausoles. They emit a dense white steam from a semi-fluid mass of mud and water in a state of ebullition, which continually throws off large and heavy bubbles. [The mud bubbles of the Witches' Caldron are quite as extraordinary.] They occupy a considerable space, the largest not less than one hundred yards in circumference. In this one the water is exceedingly turbid, of a light brown color, and boils furiously. The waters in the other caldrons vary in color, and form deposits of the finest clay of every shade. Steam ascends in a dense white cloud, shutting out the sun; the ground is all hot, soon becoming insupportable. In places a little jet of steam and smoke rises fiercely from a hole in the hills, while in others boiling water rushes out as if forced from a steam engine. The water possesses varying mineral qualities.
'All these springs are on the side of the volcano Apaneca, one of a cluster of which Izalco is the most active, and Santa Anna the mother volcano.'
These accounts would be equally correct if applied to the Devil's Cañon; but the following appears to surpass it in the power of the volcano below. It is condensed from a description by the same traveller, whose name cannot be ascertained: