Cauldron

“ The whole region boils like an immense cauldron hung over subterranean fires. The ground vibrates from the agitation of the central furnace. Hot springs filter out everywhere. The crust of the earth cracks in great rifts like a cake, too quickly baked. ”

“ Standing in a bath of vapors one looks backward over the track whence he came and notes tiny columns of steam marking the trail along which he so recently advanced. Every place in the crust that was punctured with the staff is slowly changing into a cauldron like the one at his feet and the traveller experiences a sensation of uneasiness, knowing, as he does, that in a brief time a new line of cauldrons will be in operation and for the first time he fully realizes the insecurity of his position and he longs for the solidity of the lava ridge where he left the hobbled ponies. ”

“ The cauldron, filled with a mess of kid stewed in a multitude of onions, is fetched from the fire, and, being set upon a smooth board, is slid down the table to our host, who, after picking out some titbits for us, serves himself, and so slides it back, each man in turn picking out a morsel on the end of his knife. ”

“ The [78] women lifted a great cauldron on to the fire, that glowed like some sprites’ cauldron of black-art; it held fowls and green things floating in the midst, the gravy sizzling at the sides. Then the old woman who had lit the fire went to the doorway and took down a great sea-shell that hung there and she blew a hateful blast that broke the very air, and all the men came trooping to their meat.
That morn was the holy morn of Easter, and Cefron came to share our meat, his elbow sideways over Heinrick’s shoulder. ”

“ It is said that when a sheep's carcase is brought down, and the river is not high, it will swirl round in the cauldrons till a spate comes strong enough to carry it over the edge. At the top the round lips of the upper cauldron nearly meet, so that a man of nerve could leap across. The distance is probably not over a yard, but so dizzying is the incessant whirl of the water, that so far from leaping across, a timid visitor may not even look over the edge, unless prone on the earth he puts his face over, conscious that six-sevenths of his body are safe on terra firma! ”

“ An arm of the storm reached over to us, the cauldron sank from sight in a white sea, and the hail cut my face so{154} I bowed it down. Mixed with the hail fell softer flakes, which, as they touched the earth, glowed for a moment like tiny bulbs, and went out. On the ground I saw what looked like a tangle of old, human footprints in the hard-crusted mud. ”

“ Altogether eight or nine of us squatted in front of the fire and watched the hungry flames licking round the big cauldron in which the larger joints were jumping and kicking as if still possessed of life. The thinner portions, impaled on spits, were skilfully roasted in red cavernous hollows below the great sputtering pine logs. The leaping flames lit up the faces of the bearded followers of the Prophet, while our porter gave them a graphic account of the precipitous cliffs and towering séracs amongst which the strange foreigners seemed to delight in wandering. ”

“ It was a wild little fellow, extremely agile, and could kill a dog much larger than itself with comparative ease.
We circled the eastern and northern part of the great cauldron, always remaining on the summit of the plateau at elevations varying from 2,250 to 2,300 ft. We came upon patches of violet-coloured and then tobacco-coloured sand, and also upon quantities of dark brown sand, generally consolidated into easily friable rock. There were the usual deposits of grey ashes over the underlying volcanic rock which peeped through here and there. ”

“ From the centre of the vault rose a great chimney, and under the chimney was a huge fire, and on the fire stood a mighty golden cauldron, up to which, through a large pipe, came the water of the well, and went pouring in with a great rushing, and hissing, and bubbling. From the other side of the cauldron, the water rushed away through another pipe into the trough that ran through all the chambers, and made the rivers that flowed the beds of the sleeping patients. ”

“ The High Force is a truly grand waterfall, where the whole river tosses over a huge precipice in the black basaltic cliff. We left the gig at a little inn at Langdon Beck, whence we set out on a weary foot-pilgrimage—a most fatiguing walk of ten miles, over broken edges of scars, along the torrent-bed, through rushes and bogs and heather, and across loose slippery shale—all this too in ceaseless rain and wind, and with the burden of a thick Scotch cloak. But Cauldron Snout is a very curious waterfall, quite out in the desolate moorlands, with the Westmorland Fells looming behind it. ”

“ After thou hast returned home, cause the island to be measured in its length and breadth, and in the place where thou dost find the exact central point, there cause a pit to be dug, and cause a cauldron full of the best mead that can be made to be put in the pit, with a covering of satin over the face of the cauldron. And then, in thine own person do thou remain there watching, and thou wilt see the dragon fighting in the form of terrific animals. ”

“ And they put fish in a cauldron and lighted a fire to boil it, and no sooner was the fire hot and the fish beginning to boil, than the island began to quake and to move like a living thing, and there was great fear on the brothers and they went back into the ship leaving the food and the cauldron after them, and they saw what they took to be an island going fast through the sea, and they could notice the fire burning a long way off, that they were astonished. ”

“ By the side of a murmuring rivulet, whose passage into the sea we facilitated, a long range of casks, which had been prepared by our coopers for that purpose, stood ready to be filled with water. Here ascended the steam of a large cauldron, in which we brewed, from neglected indigenous plants, a salutary and palatable potion, for the use of our labourers. In the offing, some of our crew appeared providing a meal of delicious fish for the refreshment of their fellows. ”

“ It is a region on the earth's surface or {368} an over-or under-sea world, in which some of the characteristics of the Irish Elysium are found—a cauldron, a well of drink sweeter than wine, and animals greatly desired by mortals, while it is of great beauty and its people are not subject to death or disease. ”

“ From the ceiling hangs a small iron oil-lamp covered with cobwebs and giving too dismal and dim a light to illuminate the whole room. Over the fire hangs a cauldron in which a warm mess is stewing for the brethren and for any one they may bring with them on their return, half-frozen, from the desert outside ”

“ We drink the honey dew
Until we all get mellow,
Until we all get mellow. [795]
In the neighbourhood of Fair Head, Antrim, there is a whirlpool known as Brecan’s Cauldron in connection with which one of St. Columba’s miracles is recorded. That the Pure King or Paragon was also deemed to be “that brewer” or the Brew King of the mystic cauldron, is evident from the magic recipe of Taliesin, which includes among its alloy of ingredients “to be mixed when there is a calm dew falling,” the liquor that bees have collected, and resin (amber?) ”

“ Placing a cauldron full of pitch upon burning coals, when it boils up, (though) laying their hands down upon it, they are not burned; nay, even while walking on coals of fire with naked feet, they are not scorched. ”

“ The huge masses of broken rock on each side of the fall are, here and there, ornamented with branches of trees sprouting from every crevice, and timidly bending their light boughs to the loud roaring and foaming water. The sky that gleams through the chasm, between the almost kissing black rocks which hang over the Cauldrons, is extremely curious; and the little ash-tree on the right trembles, as it were, with affright at its perilous station. The vigorous birch, small oak, and ash-trees, on the left, add much to the beauty of the whole. The river does not fall in one plain sheet ”

“ From thence they are shipped to all parts of the world, principally to England. We went over one of these large timber-mills and Eddy's match manufactory, both immensely interesting, with the perfection of machinery, entirely superseding any manual dexterity, and driven by the neighbouring water-power.
The La Chaudière Falls, so called from the cauldron into which they seethe and boil, though not of a great height, have been sounded to 300 feet without touching the bottom. They contain a very angry, copper-coloured element. ”

“ Huge earthen cauldrons, set upon blocks of stone, were ranged across one end, and these were filled with a thick liquid of a dark brown color. Bundles of dried herbs were suspended from the walls and ceiling; the plants seemed to be of many species, but were all strange and unknown to me. A large block of stone standing in the center of the room served as a table, and upon this were a number of piles of bark and small lumps of a thick resinous gum ”

“ The great couloir was seamed across with a gigantic crevasse, the angle of the slope being so sharp that the upper half overhung, and we had only crossed in the morning by standing on the lower lip, cutting hand-holes in the upper, and shoving up the leader from the shoulder of the second man: hence, in descending, our position was similar to that of a man on the mantel-shelf who should wish to climb down into the fire itself. We chose the obvious alternative of a jump to the curb, which was, I suppose, about 15 feet below us and made of steep ice with a deep and deceptive covering of snow. ”

“ The water is intensely agitated all the time, boiling like a caldron, from which a vast column of steam is ever rising, filling the orifice. As the passing breeze sweeps it away for a moment, one looks down into this terrible seething pit with terror. All around the sides are large masses of the silicious crust that have fallen from the rim. An immense column of water flows out of this caldron into the river. ”

“ Couloirs and gullies are obvious funnels upon which wandering stones concentrate. In a snow or ice-backed couloir we must study the difference between the ominous furrows made by stones or those made by water. In a rock gully we have to look out not only for stones that may use it as a channel, but for all that its weathering walls may contribute on their own account, or that the changes of temperature, or even the disturbance of our own passage, may dislodge from the balanced accumulations. ”

“ It was cold in the Callow—a spinney of silver birches and larches that topped a round hill. A purple mist hinted of buds in the tree-tops, and a fainter purple haunted the vistas between the silver and brown boles.
Only the crudeness of youth was here as yet, and not its triumph—only the sharp calyx-point, the pricking tip of the bud, like spears, and not the paten of the leaf, the chalice of the flower. ”

“ Let it settle about ten minutes, and pour off the dissolved clay into another vessel. Let it settle, pour off the water, and dry it. I will observe here, that care ought to be taken about the water used in washing off both the Petunse and Caulin. It ought to be pure, without any metallic or calcareous mixture. Our rivers in the west afford excellent water for this purpose, as they arise, the most of them, and run through a granite country. The Caulin of Tregonnin Hill is very unvitrifiable, and exceedingly apt to take stains from the fire. ”

“ Their heaviest masses are away over yonder on our left, where that thick wood, with scarped, quarried slopes below, terminates the ridge whereon we stand; and over to the right, where a marshy brook, its stunted willows still shrouded in mist, breaks through the ridge to join the river, we can see shadowy columns moving in the far distance. ”

“ The rocks of Calvin Coolidge State Forest Park can be divided into four distinct units or formations [4] . The geologic map shows these formations as distinct bands, each band representing a different formation and its intersection with the ground surface. Each formation is, so to speak, stacked upon the next older with the oldest forming the western band and the youngest on the east. Remember that these metamorphic rock formations were originally sedimentary in nature and were deposited in a nearly horizontal position on the floor on an ancient sea. ”

“ Most of those which fall from the rocks of a couloir, sooner or later spin down the snow which fills the trough; and, as their course and pace are more clearly apparent when falling over snow than when jumping from ledge to ledge, persons with lively imaginations are readily impressed by them. The grooves which are usually seen wandering down the length of snow couloirs are deepened (and, perhaps, occasionally originated) by falling stones, and they are sometimes pointed out by cautious men as reasons why couloirs should not be followed. ”

“ But while I lay listening, a stone trickled from the cliff overhead and plumped softly upon the seaweed at the mouth of my cave. It was followed by a rush of small gravel (had the Major not, at the moment, been declaiming at his loudest, his men must surely have heard it) : and this again by the plumb fall of a heavy body which still lay for a full five seconds after alighting, and then emitted a groan so eloquent that it raised the roots of my hair. ”

“ In order to avoid getting stranded on the huge slabs of which the face of the mountain here consists, we kept to the left on a sort of shelf of the couloir; further to our left was a still lower groove filled with ice and evidently the main channel for falling stones. Happily the slabs forming our shelf were separated from the great wall of rock closing in the couloir on our right by a narrow and almost continuous crack, just wide enough to admit the fingers. ”