Plants that Thrive on Boiling Water.

These waters welling up through the rocks are heavily mineralised, the most common of the ingredients which they contain being silica in various forms. The beautiful coralline formations about the mouth of a geyser are due to the deposition of these silicates. This material is known as siliceous sinter or geyserite, and was once thought to be deposited by the cooling of the waters, but it is now believed that the actual deposition takes place through the agency of living algae—minute living plants of a low order—which have the power of extracting the mineral from the scalding waters in which they live.

Dr. A. S. Herbert, for many years Government Balneologist at Rotorua, sums up the situation thus in his interesting volume “The Hot Springs of New Zealand”: “….the geysers of New Zealand….are fumaroles whose steam has condensed into boiling water in the geyser tubes; and….this water is from time to time superheated by the excess of fresh bursts of steam to a temperature above its boiling point. In some cases, at any rate, the geyser is modified by the cold surface water which exerts a restraining or valve action, and which is in its turn superheated by the steam.”

“Men may fight and lose the battle, and yet that which they fought for may come to pass.”