3-070-533 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Tourist in Iceland: feeding the Strökr, or Churn Geysir, 1881. 'It is a journey of seventy miles...to the principal exhibition of Geysirs, at a place called Haukadalr...the Great Strökrmeans in Icelandic speech "the Great Churn." This is a hole in the ground, of less regular shape, which contains hot water, as in a well...There is an eruption of the Strökr, by its natural action, at intervals of about half a day...But it has been observed that this process can be invited, or rather provoked, by throwing a quantity of turf, or earth or stones, down into the well; and the effect is ludicrous, as though the subterranean monster were choked or sickened, and had to vomit from mere disgust. There is a Little Strökr as well as a Great Strökr; and so there are a Great Geysir and a Little Geysir. But these active springs will probably become exhausted in the course of time, and their force is already much less than it formerly was. The upper part of the vale and hill, by the great accumulation of silicious matter, shows that immense streams of subterranean hot water, forming large pools and cascades, like those of Rotomahana in New Zealand, were at one time poured forth at a higher level, and with far greater pressure'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.