In Looking Down Into The Fissure
On The Right Of The Island, One Sees Nothing But A Dense White Cloud,
Which, at the time we visited the spot, had two bright rainbows on it.
(The sun was on the meridian,
And the declination about equal
to the latitude of the place.) From this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapor
exactly like steam, and it mounted 200 or 300 feet high; there condensing,
it changed its hue to that of dark smoke, and came back in a constant shower,
which soon wetted us to the skin. This shower falls chiefly
on the opposite side of the fissure, and a few yards back from the lip there
stands a straight hedge of evergreen trees, whose leaves are always wet.
From their roots a number of little rills run back into the gulf,
but, as they flow down the steep wall there, the column of vapor,
in its ascent, licks them up clean off the rock, and away they mount again.
They are constantly running down, but never reach the bottom.
On the left of the island we see the water at the bottom,
a white rolling mass moving away to the prolongation of the fissure,
which branches off near the left bank of the river. A piece of the rock
has fallen off a spot on the left of the island, and juts out
from the water below, and from it I judged the distance which the water falls
to be about 100 feet.
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