SECTION II. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF ICELAND.

§ 1. Genesis and Geology.

“Iceland owns its existence wholly to submarine volcanic agency”—such is the statement generally made by travellers and accepted by readers. The genesis of this “Realm of Frost and Fire;” this “fragment of earth white with snow, black with lava, and yellow with brimstone;” this “strange trachytic island, resting on an ocean of fire in the lone North Sea,” where the “primary powers of nature are ever at war with one another,” is compared with the efforts, vastly magnified, which in 1811 threw up from the waters Azorean Sabrina to a height of 480 feet above sea-level. And many have assumed as its exemplar the three-coned Nyöe (Nýey) that rose during the Skaptár eruption (1783), some thirty miles south-west of Reykjanes, and sank into a subaqueous reef before the end of the same year.[52]

This is true, but not the whole truth. The basis of Iceland was recognised by Baron Sartorius Von Waltershausen to be the Palagonite[53] which forms the foundation of volcanic tufas on Etna, the Azores, Tenerife, the Cape Verds, and other Plutonic regions. It is known to the people as “Mó-berg,” the saxum terrestre-arenosum of Eggert Olafsson, translated by the dictionaries Clay-soil, but generally used in contradistinction to Stuðlaberg,[54] hard stone, the basalts, basaltites, dolerites, and others of their kind. By the older travellers, as Henderson, it is termed sandstone, and conglomérat-basaltique, while not a few have confounded it with trachyte. In Iceland this mineral substance, rather than mineral, is a far more important feature than even in Sicily.

By virtue of its composite character and different colour, this hydrosilicate of alumina is a Proteus; massive and amorphous; crystalline, muddy, sandy, and ashy; friable, porous, and spongy like lava and pumice; granular, silicious, and arenaceous; heavy and compact like slatey clays; vitreous and semi-vitreous with the lustre of pitch-stone. It is as various in tint as in texture; usually ferruginous brown, dark brown or dun yellow; grey and slate-coloured; dark with hornblendic particles; pure white where it is converted into gypsum, clay marl, and limonite with the aspect of chalk, by exposure to the action of sulphurous acid; green tinged with olivine; garnetic-red; ochreous, the effect of iron; and at times showing a ferreous coat of pavonine lustre. Palagonite lava is often “of so deep a brick-red colour that it resembles an iron slag, were it not for its superior lightness.”

Here, this Palagonite degrades to the yellow sand which contrasts so remarkably with the black Plutonian shore; there, in the lowlands it shows fissile strata horizontal like sandstone, and at times marly couches. It paves the soles of valleys and the floors of rivers; and it rises on the surface of the loftiest Heiðar (highland heaths), where earth is worn down to the very bone by rains, snows, and winds. Now it towers in huge cliffs and scaurs, irregular masses of rock overlying or underlying the traps; then it bulges into high belts of country, sierras and detached mountains, like Herðubreið and others which will afterwards be mentioned. Consolidated and in places crystallised by heat and high pressure, this produce of submarine volcanoes was elevated by the long continued action of quietly working forces, but it still displays its subaqueous origin. Firstly, it is a hydrate containing 17 to 25 per cent. of water; secondly, it is stratified as if formed of hardened ashes and modified lavas; and, thirdly, it contains broken mollusks[55] of marine types still existing, and the silicious skeletons of infusoria: a negative proof is that we never meet with it among volcanic tuffs subaërially deposited. In places it becomes an acute-angled breccia, enclosing basalts and lavas varying from the size of a pin’s head to that of a man, or rounded conglomerates suggesting that the foreign matter was deposited in a shallow sea. The fresh appearance of the shells and the presence of infusoria also tend to prove that it was deposited in a heated, at least not in a gelid sea.

Professor Tyndall finds in Palagonite the first stage of the fumarole: “If a piece be heated with an excess of aqueous sulphuric acid, it dissolves in the cold to a fluid, coloured yellow-brown by the presence of peroxide of iron. On heating the fluid, the peroxide is converted into protoxide; a portion of its oxygen goes to the sulphurous acid, forming sulphuric acid, which combines with the basis of the rock and holds them in solution.” But the resultant springs show no trace of oxide of iron which has been dissolved and has disappeared. “The very rock from which it was originally extracted, possesses the power of re-precipitating it, when by further contact with the rock, the solution which contains it has its excess of acid absorbed, and has thus become neutral. In this way, the aqueous sulphurous acid acts as carrier to the iron, taking up its burden here, and laying it down there; and this process of transference can be clearly traced to the rocks themselves.”

Upon this Palagonite floor, the “Protogæa,” or oldest formation, were laid immense tracts of sand and stratified ejections of “trap.” According to Macculloch, “the word is a cloak for ignorance which saves the trouble of investigation.” But it is still a general term for the older, lighter, less earthly and basic, and more crystalline forms than the basalts, containing intercalated pumice-tuffs deficient in shells, whilst the cavities abound in zeolites and amygdaloids.[56] Concerning the strike and dip of the trap-strata, which rise sheer from the sea, in grades and layers, steep, angular, and bare, and which outline the mural copings and stepped cones of the old coast and the jaws of the river-gorges, there are many conflicting opinions. Some hold that the strata all incline gradually and quaquaversally, more or less, towards the centre of the island; whilst others find that as a rule, they are horizontal. The expedition led by Prince Napoleon (1857) recognised convergence, and often a slope of 15° towards the grand foci of eruption that form the respective systems; for instance, the inclinaison rayonnante towards Snæfellsjökull. The author could lay down no rule, except that the steps, viewed in profile, especially from the gashes and torrent-beds, appear to recede rather than to project, to dip inland rather than seawards. The strata vary in number to a maximum of fifty; they are perpendicular courses separated by débris, and sometimes footed by déblai and humus, disposed at the natural angle—this regularity again suggests submarine deposition, and everywhere attracts the stranger’s eye.

Professor Bunsen divides the rocks of Iceland, and probably those of most other volcanic systems, into two great groups: (1.) Normal Pyroxenic, the basalts and dolerites, whence silica is almost absent; and (2.) Normal Trachytic, abounding in that mineral. The basalts[57] are of two kinds, the true, rich in, and the basaltite, which notably wants, olivine. Both are either honey-combed with drusic cavities, or perfectly compact and fine-grained; the water-rolled pieces are soft, and smooth as marble. The basalts pass by almost imperceptible degrees into dolerites (green-stones) coloured by admixture of chlorite, and often containing iron pyrites. Of less importance as a geological feature, are the masses, veins, and crests of trachyte which pierce the Palagonites, the traps, and the basalts. The rock which is compared with the chain of the Puys (Auvergne), occurs, however, in an altered form at many places unsuspected by old travellers, and every explorer adds to its importance. From Reykjavik appear two gold-yellow and white-streaked peaks, associated with jasper and other forms of quartz. The Snæfellsjökull peninsula is also for the most part trachytic. The celebrated Baula (the cow), a cone rising 3000 feet high, contrasts the mechanic neatness of its whitey-grey pillars[58] with its red neighbour, Little Baula, and with the surrounding chaos of darkness; and heat-altered trachytes are found about Hekla and the Geysir. The green trachyte of Viðey, apparently tinted by chlorite, was found to contain silica, alumina, iron, and traces of magnesia. Daubeny, and a host of writers, assumed that a trachytic band, disposed upon a rectilinear fissure 200 kilometres long, bisects the island from south-west (Reykjanes) to north-east (Langanes), and represents the original Iceland, as the Longmynd and Stiper Stones are the nucleus of England. Moreover, the great centres of eruption, igneous and aqueous, were disposed upon this diagonal, flanked by the earlier Plutonic masses. Lastly, the modern volcanic chimneys were all theoretically opened in the old and new trachytic domes. M. Robert (1835) especially sought and failed to find the “trachytic band,” and, since Von Waltershausen’s visit, it has been determined that the material is the Palagonite floor traversed by the Geysir and by most of the active volcanoes.

The peculiar contrasts of the island are thus noticed by an old writer: “The king of Denmark is still master of Iceland, which is supposed to be the Ultima Thule of the ancients. The surface, though it is covered with snow, nevertheless contains burning mountains, whence issue fire and flames, to which the Iceland poets compare the breasts of their mistresses. It has also smoking lakes, which turn everything thrown into them to stone, and many other wonders which render this island famous.” Iceland, like Tenerife, owes its present general contour to subaërial volcanic action of the post-Tertiary period, the secular growth of the detached regions overlying the pockets and foci of eruption, as explained by Von Buch, together with the gradual accretion, the gift of exit-chimneys and dejections from the Plutonic cauldrons. The normal pyroxenic was followed by the felspathic formations, trachytic, acid and pumiceous, which, though comparatively modern, still date from immense antiquity. The distribution into fire-vents (true volcanoes) and sand-vents (pseudo-volcanoes), will be noticed in a future page.

The lava is composed of trachytic (silicious) and doleritic (basic) ejections, varying in weight;[59] the stone averages about half the specific gravity of granite, and in a molten state it flows at the rate of 50 to 100 yards per diem. When first cooled, the ejections are lamp-black; they are then tarnished by oxygen to brown; they become grey with lichens; and finally, the lapse of ages converts them into humus. To the latter process, Brydone, on Etna, assigned 14,000 years, and greatly scandalised our grandsires, who held sound opinions upon the date (B.C. 4004) empirically assigned to creation. We can hardly forget poor Cowper’s poor verse, and poorer sense:

The following is a list of the principal orographic features, Jökulls,[61] Fells (mountains), volcanoes, masses of Palagonite, snow-peaks, and true glaciers, which are rare. Gunnlaugsson’s astronomical positions are given in Danish feet, and the former are reduced to the meridian of Greenwich by assuming Copenhagen to lie east 12° 34´ (Rafn, 12° 34´·7). The Danish foot is calculated at 12·356 inches English, or about 67:69.

The north-eastern quarter numbers fifteen points, ranging from 1000 to 3000 Danish feet, and the following ten exceed the latter:

Dan. feet= Eng. feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)= Greenwich.

Lambafell, 3459 3562 64° 58´ 28´´ 26° 39´ 19´´ 14° 5´

Herðubreið, 5290 5447 65° 10´ 39´´ 28° 58´ 55´´ 16° 25´

Gagnheiðarhnúkr, 3009 3098 65° 13´ 35´´ 26° 53´ 42´´ 14° 20´

Beinageitarfjall, 3517 3621 65° 27´ 37´´ 26° 42´ 2´´ 14° 8´

Dyrfjöll, 3606 3713 65° 31´ 20´´ 26° 35´ 17´´ 14° 1´

Smjörfjall, 3859 3973 65° 36´ 40´´ 27° 24´ 6´´ 14° 50´

Heljarfjall, 3991 4109 65° 48´ 26´´ 31° 31´ 56´´ 18° 58´

Rimar, 4020 4139 65° 52´ 45´´ 31° 7´ 33´´ 18° 33´

Ólafsfjarðarfjall, 3272 3369 65° 58´ 34´´ 31° 31´ 8´´ 18° 57´

Kaldbakr, 3699 3810 66° 0´ 24´´ 30° 48´ 58´´ 18° 15´

In the south-eastern quarter, nine heights range from 1000 to 3000 Danish feet, and eleven rise higher, viz.:

Dan. feet= Eng. feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)= Greenwich.

Stórhöfði, 4509 4643 63° 55´ 34´´ 29° 17´ 7´´ 16° 43´

Staðarfjall, 3782 3894 63° 57´ 55´´ 29° 12´ 51´´ 16° 39´

Öræfajökull, [62] 6241 6426 64° 0´ 48´´ 20° 20´ 16´´ 16° 46´

Thverártindsegg, 3668 3776 64° 11´ 14´´ 28° 46´ 12´´ 16° 12´

Birnudalstindr, 4300 4428 64° 14´ 54´´ 28° 34´ 1´´ 16° 0´

Bakkatindr, 3316 3414 64° 20´ 50´´ 28° 50´ 22´´ 15° 47´

Afrèttartindr, 3842 3956 64° 31´ 4´´ 27° 33´ 54´´ 15° 0´

Búlandstindr, 3388 3488 64° 41´ 54´´ 27° 3´ 4´´ 14° 31´

Snæfell,[63] 5808 5964 64° 48´ 1´´ 28° 11´ 43´´ 15° 38´

Kistufell, 3499 3602 64° 51´ 18´´ 27° 11´ 16´´ 14° 47´

Lambafell, 3459 3561 64° 58´ 28´´ 26° 39´ 19´´ 14° 5´

In the north-eastern quarter, twenty points range from 1000 to 3000 Danish feet, and only three rise higher, viz.:

Dan. feet= Eng. feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)= Greenwich.

Illviðrahnúkr, 3476 3579 66° 8´ 14´´ 31° 37´ 4´´ 19° 4´

Hvammsfell, 3785 3897 65° 39´ 18´´ 31° 48´ 21´´ 19° 14´

Mælifellshnúkr, 3476 3579 65° 23´ 30´´ 31° 59´ 10´´ 19° 25´

In the south-western quarter, thirteen points range from 1000 to 3000 Danish feet, and again only three rise higher, viz.:

Dan. feet= Eng. feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)= Greenwich.

Snæfellsjökull, 4577 4713 64° 48´ 4´´ 36° 25´ 8´´ 23° 51´

Hekla, [64] 4961 5108 63° 59´ 2´´ 32° 19´ 2´´ 19° 45´

Eyjafjallajökull,[65] 5432 5593 63° 37´ 2´´ 32° 16´ 18´´ 19° 42´

From these tables we see that the north-eastern and south-eastern quarters contain not only the greatest number of heights, respectively twenty-five and twenty, exceeding 1000 Danish feet, but also the apex of Iceland. The north-western, though generally a high level, has only three master peaks, and the traveller’s eye soon determines the south-western to be the lowest of all. It may here be remarked that the islanders have names for the mountains, peaks, and even blocks, as well as for the valleys, whereas the Arabs, as a rule, name only their wadys.

Upon the points above named,

The snow-line above the tableland (1500 to 2000 feet) varies according to position and formation of ground from 2000 to 3500[66] feet over sea-level. The mean has been laid down at 2830 feet. Iceland, as far as it is known, contains few true glaciers. The best known of the Skriðjöklar, glaciers mouvants, the “vacillating jökuls” of Henderson (i., pp. 237, 265), protruded by the thrust from behind and above, are the southern offshoots of the great Klofajökull. Two have been often described—the Skeiðarárjökull and the Breiðamerkrjökull. Concerning these ice masses, which are confined, as far as is known, to the southern and the south-eastern shores, and which slope gently to the sea, it is generally believed in Iceland that the congealed tracts are diminishing. Professor Tyndall observed the same in the Mer de Glace, and Mr Freshfield on the Caucasus, where the excess of consumption over supply threatens to make the “gletchers” mere spectres of their former selves.

We now approach the modern formations, the volcanic tracts which overlie the plateaux of Palagonite, trap, and trachyte, and the valleys of elevation and erosion which cleave their masses. As usual throughout the world, the fire-vents are confined to the neighbourhood of the sea and lakes: the centre of Iceland is the Sprengisandur (bursting sand),[67] a black “Ruba’ el Kháli.” In many places the trap terraces have become a wall, over which great gushes of modern lavas have poured down towards the ocean—stone models of the waters which stream down the valleys, and which spring in cataracts from step to step.

Again, it is asserted, with premature generalisation, that the volcanic vents trend, as a rule, from north-east to south-west—a corollary of the “trachytic-band” theorem. The principal systems, which are the following, do not bear out this disposition, and it is probably true only of the south-western part of the island, which was first examined by travellers. Beginning from the north-west, we have the following list of eight great systems.

1. The Dranga[68]-Glámu system in the great palmated projection, the former lying north-east of the latter.

2. The Leirhnúkr, Krafla, and Heiðarfjall, near the Mý-vatn Lake. They anastomose, by the Ódáða-hraun, with the Vatnajökull and the Skaptár—the direction being north to south.

3. The Snæfellsjökull (Western Jökull) runs distinctly from west to east, ending at the sea-shore.

4. The Hofsjökull, including the Arnarfells branch to the east, and the Blágnýpujökull to the south-west. Occupying the centre of the island, it approaches the Túngnafellsjökull, an outlier of the Vatnajökull system to the south-east; and westward, it almost touches the north-eastern extremity of the long Reykjanes line.

5. The Hekla system, which the old theory of fissures connected with Etna. It lies on a parallel, a Palagonite ridge about 2000 feet high, extending from west to east through the Torfajökull, to the banks of the Skaptá.

6. The Vatnajökull, whose apex is Öræfa, the whole measuring some 330 miles in circumference, and occupying an area of 3000 to 4000 square geographical miles: stretches upon a parallel, and is connected by a meridian of lava-run with No. 2.

7. The Katla, or Kötlu-gjá system, again, is not linear, but disposed in a group at the southern extremity of Iceland. The principal items are the Mýrdals, Eyjafjalla, Merkr, Goðalands, and Tindfjalla Jökulls. This great mass is generally known as the Eastern Jökull, opposed to the Western or Snæfells.

8. The Reykjanes system is apparently the only diagonal which extends from the Fire Islands north-eastwards to Skjaldbreið, and to the snow mountains, whose northernmost point is Eyriksjökull. Its items are the Láng, the Ball, the Bláfells, the Geitlands, and the Ok.

Mr Keith Johnston, sen., and other authorities, give the following list of volcanic eruptions which have occurred during the present century.[69]

1. Aust-Jökull (an indefinite term for the great Eyjafjalla system), in December 1820 to June 1822, and January to June 1823.

2. Mýrdals Jökull (or rather Kötlu-gjá) in 1823, from 26th June, covered about a hundred square miles with sand and ashes.

3. Skeiðar Jökull began to erupt February 13, 1827, and did considerable damage. No record of this outbreak is to be found.

4. The submarine eruption off Cape Reykjanes took place in 1831.[70]

5. Hekla, in September 2, 1845 (-46), broke out the twenty-sixth time, according to popular writers, throwing up ashes, which fell in the Orkneys, and which gave the first intelligence of the event.

6. Kötlu-gjá again was slightly active, vomiting ashes and water in May 1860, its thirteenth eruption.

7. It has been generally assumed that on March 23, 1861, the Öræfajökull broke its long rest, and the smoke is said to have tarnished silver at the distance of fifty miles. But Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín, who was in Iceland during that year, denies having heard of any convulsion, nor was it mentioned by the island papers. He adds, “What is spoken of in Metcalfe’s book was a ‘Jökul-hlaup.’”

An ash-eruption from Trölladýngjur is recorded in 1862, but accounts of it greatly vary. Mr Keith Johnston chronicles nine eruptions extending through nearly five centuries and a half—namely, the submarine volcano in the middle of Breiði Fjörð (A.D. 1345), Trölladýngjur (1510), Herðubreið (1716-17), “Krabla” (1724-25), Leirhnúkr (1730), Síðu Jökull (1753), Öræfajökull (1755), Hnappafellsjökull (1772), and Skaptárjökull (1783). And he further informs us that two great groups are active—Leirhnúkr, “Krabla,” Trölladýngjur, and Herðubreið,[71]—all nearly on a parallel of latitude to the north-east; and Hekla, Aust Jökull, Mýrdals, and Öræfa, placed in a right-angled triangle to the south.

Concerning the unvisited volcano in the snows of the Vatnajökull, all procurable details will be found in the Journal. The author was surprised to find that not one of the known centres was in a state of activity, although every preconceived idea suggested that the summer of 1872 would be one of unusual perturbation.[72] Two days before the outbreak of Vesuvius (January 1, 1872), shocks began in the north-east of Iceland. On the afternoons of 16th and 17th April, Húsavík, a small comptoir to the east of Skjálfandi Fljót, suffered severely, as will appear in a future page. This immediately followed the fearful cyclone at Zanzibar (April 15), a phenomenon unknown in former times, which destroyed part of the town, and which sank most of the foreign and native craft,[73] doing damage estimated at £2,000,000. The earthquake at Húsavík also took place only thirteen days after the earthquake at Antioch (morning of April 3), which shook down two-thirds of the houses, and killed nearly one-third of the people. Moreover, shocks were reported at Accra on the Gold Coast, a town which had been almost destroyed some ten years before.[74] Followed (May 1) by the cyclone at Madras, which breached the pier, severely injured the city and suburbs, and wrecked eleven merchantmen, drowning many of the crew. Lastly came the report that the unseen crater in the untrodden snows of the Vatnajökull, whose smoke was first seen in August 1867, had again begun to “vomit flames.”

Meanwhile the eruptions of Vesuvius continued till April 26, when a new crater built a hill in the Atrio del Cavallo, where only a fissure before appeared. Professor Palmieri, who stuck staunchly and gallantly to his observatory on the banks of the new Styx, reported that the mountain was sweating fire at every pore, and that after the showers of ashes and red-hot stones, and the discharges of lava and “boiling smoke,” storms not less dangerous had begun to rage. These meteors, as a rule, occasion great floods, which, sweeping down the ashes and rapilli that cover the slopes, complete the ruins of the lands spared by the lava. During this eruption, a report was spread that the crater of Vesuvius had become an electric pile; that strong currents, generated by the violent ejections of the crater, showed themselves in lightnings, flashing with a dry and hissing sound from the great trunk of smoke and ashes; and, finally, that an earthquake might at any moment shake Naples to its foundation. This abnormal electricity may explain the meteorological peculiarities of the spring of 1872, even in England, where May behaved itself with the leonine violence of March. The great Pacific earthquake (August 1867) and the tremendous and unusual storm which simultaneously visited the eastern coast of South America, to quote no other instances, showed that, whilst similar effects usually are of limited extent upon solid ground, they stretch to great distances at sea, and they may influence the atmosphere in the furthest regions of the world. Though we may accept only as provisional the geological theory which places volcanoes upon fissures or solutions of continuity in the earth’s surface,[75] we must remember that on October 17, 1755, a fortnight before the earthquake which shook down Lisbon, the Kötlu-gjá fissure began the terrible eruptions that lasted for a year: at the same time the waters of Loch Ness were agitated; the British Isles were rocked by repeated oscillations, and shocks extended to Asia and to America. Again, in 1783, the Upper Calabrian earthquake (February 5 and 7, and March 28) was closely followed by the fearful phenomena of the Skaptárjökull.[76] Thus Nature appeared to have made in the summer of 1872 every possible arrangement for a grand pyrotechnic display; yet the author can positively assert that during the whole of his stay in Iceland not one of the twenty-seven to thirty great vents showed a symptom of activity. Indeed, only one was ever reported to be in existence, and that one has never been visited.

Professor Bunsen has shown that active volcanoes whose temperature is high, discharge sulphurous acid, whilst the dormant give forth sulphuretted hydrogen; hence the irregular and simultaneous appearance of these two gases which play a most important part in Iceland. “Let a piece of one of the igneous rocks be heated to redness, and permit the vapour of sulphur to pass over it. The oxide of iron is decomposed; a portion of sulphur unites with the iron which remains as sulphuret; the liberated oxygen unites with the remaining sulphur, and forms sulphurous acid. Let the temperature of the heated mass sink just below a red heat, and then let the vapour of water be passed over it: a decomposition of the sulphuret before formed is the consequence; the iron is reoxydised, and the liberated sulphur unites with the free hydrogen to form sulphuretted hydrogen. Thus the presence of two of the most important agents in volcanic phenomena is accounted for. These are experimental facts capable of being repeated in the laboratory, and the chronological order of the gases thus produced is exactly the same as that observed in nature.”

The most remarkable features of the island, after the volcanic, are the Fjörðs,[77] or firths proper, conducting streams and admitting the sea; opposed to Víks and Vágrs, bights and bays, mere indentations of the coast. Though of igneous origin, they are compared with the granitic features of Norway, where a volcano is unknown, and yet where the shape becomes that of an arête, a fish’s dorsal bone with regular ribs on both sides: this flat snow-capped ridge is “the keel” of the maritime population. The popular theory (Students’ Manual of Geology, Jukes and Geikie, Blacks, Edin. 1872) is that the Fjörðs are glens once submerged, raised above water, and hollowed out by glaciers and by the various influences which come under the name of “weather.” Glacial action is, we must own, distinctly traced in most parts of the island. But in many places, Berufjörð for instance, there is no room at the head of the dwarf amphitheatre for a glacier of any magnitude. As in the Færoe archipelago, these ravines are the rents and fissures which divided and fractured the first upheaval; and in Iceland they were bound together by the action of earthquakes and eruptions, ice and snow, wind and rain. The greater gorges are found chiefly on three sides of the island. The south-western shore, like that of Ireland, is digitated by gales, currents, and Greenland ice, and it abounds in “Út-ver,”[78] the narrow-necked peninsulas of Norway. The Síða, or sea-“side” to the south-east, is a long, narrow strip of habitable land between the mountains and the waters: here the Fjörðs were obliterated by the combined action of the Jökulls. Under the name “Fjörðs” are also included immense bays, as the Faxa Fjörð, sixty-five miles across; the Breiði Fjörð, forty-five miles wide; and the Húnaflói, into which the Arctic Sea sends its unbroken swell, running forty-six miles deep and twenty-seven in diameter. The western features are, as a rule, broad, with shallow sag: here, according to some,[79] was deposited the Surtarbrand[80] or lignite, and, like the driftwood of Kerguelen Island, it escaped incineration by subsequent eruptions from causes analogous to the operation of charcoal burning. The northern firths are long and deeply indented, and the eastern are sharp and narrow, encased in walls of Palagonite, trap, and basalt.

The archipelagoes and solitary islands outlying Iceland are invariably small; and in places, as will be seen, the “stacks” and “drongs” form a “skerry-guard,” almost a false coast.

Concerning a common feature of the interior, the Gjá (pron. Geeow, or like ow in fowl), rent, chasm, or fissure, details will be given in the course of the Journal. Here it may be mentioned that it perfectly resembles the “Ka’ah” of the Lejá and the Haurán, and the Lava Fields in the Far West of North America, which lately sheltered the “Indians,” and gave so much trouble to the Federal troops.

The surface of Iceland, where free from snow, and over which men travel, may be reduced to four general formations.

1. Loose, volcanic ashey sand, grey above and black below; often mixed with pulverised Palagonite; barred with white lines of salt and potash, and either erupted subaërially or formed under water, as the rolled stones and pebbles show. This feature is found best developed in the central and the north-eastern parts of the island; the Sprengisandur and the Stórisandur (Sahará or Great Sands) being the great examples. The hills and terraces are utterly barren, because they will not hold water: the lower levels, fed by percolation, bear the normal growth, and especially the wild oat.

2. Stone; chiefly Palagonite, trap, basalts, trachyte, lavas, and obsidians, the Μαῦρα λιθάρια of the modern Greeks. It is, however, far safer travelling than the polished limestone of the Libanus, and an hour’s ride over calcareous Kasrawán is more troublesome than a day in Iceland. Its greatest inconvenience is perhaps the sun: during a clear day it becomes, in Icelandic phrase, “hot enough to make a raven gape.” A fair specimen of the stone-country may be found between Reykjavik and Krísuvík.

3. Clay and humus, the former generally disposed in horizontal strata, the latter deposited by decayed vegetation upon the surface. These formations, the Geest-lands of Denmark, mostly extend round the hill feet, dividing them from the deeper levels of bog. They form essentially “rotten” ground; drilled with holes by frost, rain, and sun, and cut by gullies of all sizes, a plexus of wrinkles or gashes and earth-cracks, radiating from the highlands to the lowlands. When the path becomes a hollow way, sunk too deep for riding, rut-tracks straggle, as in the Brazil, over wide spaces and, after the vernal thaws, the traveller will find the “corduroys” of America and the “glue-pots” of Australia; whilst in places scattered stones are so many traps for careless horses. Yet these clays and humus are the best paths and, after the sands, give the fairest chance of a gallop.

4. Bog in Iceland clothes the hill-sides, as well as the bottoms and the “flats,” that is, any low alluvial land: it is easily discovered from afar by the dull-red tint of iron-rust and the snow-white spangles of cotton-grass. There are two forms of profile: one lumpy, tussocky, and what one traveller calls “hassocky,” like the graves of a deserted churchyard; the other a plane, the swamp pure and simple; often flooded after rains, and in the dries provided with two or three veins, into which animals plunge, struggle, and fall. These channels change so frequently that none but local guides are of use, and often the best path leads to the place which has lately become the worst. Instinct and experience do something, but not much, for man and beast: both naturally prefer running water to stagnant, and when the foremost is bogged, the followers seek a better place either higher up or lower down. On frequented lines the impassable places are provided with “Brúr,” dykes or causeways of peat or stone, traversed by rude arches and flanked by shallow ditch-drains.

The Heiði, or high divide separating two river-valleys, is a “dry-land wave” (κῦμα χερσαῖον), varying from 1500 to 2000 and even 3000 feet in altitude. These ridges, especially during the mist and fog, snow and hail, wind and rain, are the horror of native travellers, and few venture upon the passage in foul weather. The profile is a harsh caricature of our Scotch and Irish moors and mosses, bogs and swamps, combining all the troubles of sand, stone, clay, and slush; whilst the marshes and drains are most troublesome to cross. “Carlines,” or old women (Vörður and Kerlingar),[81] are built in places where transit must be made at all seasons; but they are often useless, as the streams shift their bottoms, and permanent paths cannot be traced on what is neither water nor good dry land. At the beginning and end of the travelling season, snow-fonds and veins, based upon compressed ice, streak the slopes and dot the hollows, whilst natural arches and bridges, under which savage torrents gnash and foam, must be crossed on horseback. Concerning the behaviour of the snow, details will be found in the course of the Journal.

Roads are made in Iceland, like those of Syria, by taking off, not as in Europe by putting on, stones. In the more civilised parts of the island they are represented by horse-paths, which are occasionally repaired, and by sheep-paths, which are left to themselves: they humbly suggest the “buffalo” track of the prairie, and the elephant tunnel of the African forest. Not a few show worse engineering and tracery than those of olden Austria; hence we find upon the map such pleasant titles as Höfða-brekka[82] (head-brink or slope), Hálsavegr (neck-or-nothing way), Íllaklif (evil cliff), and Ófæra or Úfæra, Úfærð (the untravellable)—the latter often applied to short cuts over the sea-sands where the wayfarer is exposed to a cannonade from the heights.

§ 2. Hydrography.

The hydrography of Iceland has several peculiarities. A glance at the map shows that the Sprengisandur is the keystone of the flattened arch, which, averaging 2000 feet in altitude, forms the centre of the island. From this point the main lines diverge quaquaversally, except to the south-east, where the huge white oval, denoting the Vatnajökull, bars the way, and forms a drainage-system of its own. Hence none of the streams are navigable above the mouth, and their magnitude, as well as the dimensions of their basins, are out of all normal proportion to the area of the island. The four head rivers—Hvitá,[83] Thjorsá, Jökulsá (western), and Skjálfjandifljót (shivering or waving flood)—range from 100 to 160 miles in length. The Thjorsá is 150 miles long, and falls 2000 feet in twenty leagues, carrying more water than the Hudson of New York. “White River” is a common local name, the effect of glacier detrition giving the milky aspect familiar to every traveller in Switzerland, and hence, probably, the muddy White Nile, as opposed to the clear Blue River. A more unusual feature is the Fúli-lækr (foul or stinking stream); the iron pyrites, where the stones are ground to powder, part with their sulphur, and the latter, uniting with the hydrogen, accounts for the unsavoury name. The Jökulhlaup, or “Snow-mountain leap,” is the sudden débâcle and exundation which spring from the congealed masses, often with the irresistible might and the swift destruction of the true avalanche.

The streams in the south-eastern corner are the shortest and the most perilous, rising full grown from the glaciers, and sweeping down fragments and miniature floes of ice. Henderson is the first English traveller who forded and described the Skeiðará and the network called the Gnúpsvötn. We may here acquit him of excessive exaggeration: the natives of the eastern coast, when travelling to Reykjavik, prefer the immense round by the north to the short cut along the southern shore; and when asked the reason, they invariably allege the dangers of the snow-drains. In the course of the Journal we shall cross two of the four head streams, and observe a water-power amply sufficient for the wants of a first-rate European people. The principal cataracts are the Oxará, the Seljaland Foss, the Goða Foss, and the Dretti Foss, first visited by Baring-Gould. All have been described by travellers, and the highest is the Hengi Foss which we shall pass on the road.

Of the lakes (Vötn), we shall inspect the two largest, the Thingvalla-vatn[84] and the Mý-vatn; and we shall sight a multitude of tarns and ponds, single and grouped. One peculiarity is noticed in many of the minor waters. In Iceland it is emphatically untrue that lakes without drains are salt or briny—a rule apparently applicable only to the temperate and tropical zones. Whether the phenomenon in the north arises from subterranean drainage through the fissures of the bed, or if it be due to absence of saline matter in the area of drainage, which is often modern lava too hard to be sensibly degraded, we have no means of determining: perhaps there is a union of both causes.

A remarkable feature is the abundance of warm water laid on by the hand of Nature; the map shows upwards of two hundred; and here perhaps the hottest springs of the Old World are found. Suffice it to say at present that they are divided into two main groups. The acidulous and acid-silica, which redden litmus-paper, depositing gypsum and sulphur, do not erupt: these are the “Öl-keldur” (ale springs) mentioned in the “Royal Mirror” of the twelfth century, and they are still locally and popularly distributed into three species. Some, like “martial” waters, inebriate from the abundance of carbonic acid gas; others when allowed to stand, part with their stimulating property; and others again when filled in rise elsewhere. The second class is the alkaline-silica, which restores the colour of litmus paper; it is often explosive, and it contains chiefly sodium and silica. In the valley of the Yellowstone River the springs are either (1.) Calcareous (alkaline), depositing carbonate of lime with sulphates of magnesia and soda, chloride of calcium, and a little silica; or (2.) Silicious (acid), containing 85:100 silica, chloride of magnesium, and only a trace of lime.

The Geysir (gusher)[85] is a spouting spring; the Reykirs (reekers) give forth steam; the Laug is a warm fountain which may serve as a bath; the Náma[86] (hole of hot water) is sulphurous and gaseous; the Hverr (cauldron), like its smaller congener the Ketill (kettle), is a tranquil, hot, and even boiling well or pool, it is also applied to mud springs; and the Makkaluber (the Italian “Salsa,” or “Hofetta,” and the American “Mud-puff”) is a miniature volcano of hissing, boiling bolus. Further details concerning the names and natures of these features will be given in the Journal.

§ 3. Climate.

The “cold of Iceland” is as proverbial as the “deserts of central Africa,” and both sayings are equally based upon unfacts. “Iceland, where the cold and winter are perpetual, and the cold scarce to be endured,” is what we read. But those who travel in the island find—(1.) that even in winter the temperature is rarely severe; (2.) that there are two distinct climates, on the north coast and in the southern country; and (3.) that the air, however unpleasant, is exceptionally wholesome.

1. The isotherms by no means follow the circles of latitude. The cold lines swerve away from, instead of passing through, Iceland, and show none of that severity which characterises Greenland and the northern parts of British America. As has long ago been observed,[87] the isotherm of F. 32°, the freezing point of water, which is that of Akureyri, varies 14° between southern Asiatic Russia (N. lat. 56°) and northern Norway (N. lat. 70°).

The mildness of the insular climate, and that of the easterly winds, which are too clear to come from warmer waters, are popularly attributed to the “great Gulf Stream.” This sea-river, we are told, “sweeping up from the south, brings with it a store of heat to bless the islanders, and so materially affects the island that in the south of Iceland the winter is not more severe than in Denmark.” The Gulf Stream is generally supposed to strike the south-western angle, and to flow along the southern shores; while others make it bifurcate off Reykjanes, hence one part subtends the north-western point or Land’s End of Iceland, where it meets the Polar and Arctic current, the other half embraces the southern shore, and both meet in the north Atlantic arm separating Iceland from Norway. Dufferin’s map shows the popular belief: the true Florida current, sweeping past the southern shore of Iceland, forks about Spitzbergen, sending off a branchlet to the west, and ends south of Novaya Zemlja. On the other hand, Dr Carpenter contends that the real “River in the Ocean” dies out in the mid-Atlantic. According to Dr Joseph Chavanne of Vienna (Mittheilungen, No. vii., 1874), the northern arm of the Gulf Stream, which flows between Bear Island and Novaya Zemlja, touches the northern coast of Asia, and eastward of the New Siberia Islands joins the western drift of the Kurosiwo. The other northern branch, which subtends the western coast of Spitzbergen and the Seven Islands, is submerged between the Polar currents, to reappear at the surface farther northward, and thence to lave the shores of the Arctic continent: the latter is thus washed by two warm streams, rendering the existence of perennial ice a sheer impossibility.

We may fairly question the existence of the Gulf Stream along the southern Icelandic shore, and doubt its bifurcation and subsequent reunion. This is not the place to discuss the subject of ocean circulation, a “discovery equal to that of the circulation of the blood,” first made by Professor Lenz of St Petersburg in 1845, based upon the second voyage of Kotzebue in 1823-26, and independently by Dr Carpenter during the cruise of the “Porcupine” (1869). Their aqueous movement corresponding with the aërial; and the mass of thermal equatorial waters travelling towards the poles, whilst the counter current sets in the inverse direction, would account for many phenomena yet unexplained, but it is still sub judice lis.[88] We may remark that the comparatively shallow seas between the British Islands and Iceland must accumulate heat, and that this fact perhaps suffices for what has been attributed to the Gulf Stream and to the general circulation. Thomas Bartolin (Acta Medica Havn. ad annum 1673) mechanically explains away the necessity of the former: “Aqua Insulas Ferroenses allabens, quamquam per se frigida sit, salsitudine tamen suâ, ex perpetuo motu, plerumque producit hyemem temperatam.” Hence the waters of Niagara are colder above than below the falls, and the ocean is warmer after a storm.

Practical men, especially mariners, in Iceland vigorously deny the existence of the Gulf Stream.[89] Captain Tvede, an intelligent and observing Dane whom we shall meet in the eastern regions, considers that the theory, like judicial phrenology and a host of pseudo-sciences, became popular because it generalises, formalises, and simplifies facts. He declares that a Gulf Stream, if it existed, would entangle the Greenland icebergs, and carry them to the southern coast of Iceland, which never happens. He asserts that a few miles south of Ingólfshöfði the Sea River is still warm, but that instead of striking the shore it trends directly north-eastwards to western Norway, sweeps round the continental North Cape, and here meets the icebergs from Spitzbergen and Jan Mayen. He has found himself in an ice-dock floating in water which showed 35° F.

Captain Tvede kindly gave me the following series of observations:

1. June 19, 1867: thermometer in water 46° F. outside of Hrollaugseyar, 6 miles east of Ingólfshöfði, 48° F. 3 miles south-east of ditto, and 47° F. 20 miles west of ditto.

2. June 20: thermometer 47° between Portland and the Vestmannaeyjar, 47° F. 12 miles west of the Vestmannaeyjar.

3. June 23: thermometer 46° in the Breiði Fjörð, off Stykkishólm.

4. June 24: 43° outside of the Dýrafjörð, and 43°-43°·50 outside of the Ísafjörð.

5. June 25: 38° off the Húnafljói, and 43° off Cap Nord.

6. July 1: 40° off the Axarfjörð.

7. July 4: 39° off the Langanes (north-eastern point of Iceland).

8. July 6: 40° off Viðivik, and 42° outside of Borgarfjörð.

9. August 4: 46° 16 miles south-east of Langanes.

10. August 6: 42° in the Testilfjörð, western side of Langanes.

11. August 10: 38°·50 off Hornnes, and 39° same day off Gerpir, 4 miles south of Hornnes.

12. August 19: 44° off Dalataur, entrance of Sydisfjörð.

13. August 21: 44° off Héradsflói.

14. August 22: 42° to north, with Kollumúli bearing south-west, 44° at sea.

15. September 1: 41° off Berufjörð.

The subjoined figures are the means of observations taken every fourth hour on board the “Jón Siggurðsson” steamer, in which the author voyaged (June 26 to August 5, 1872) between Hafnarfjörð and Grafarós:

Air. Water.

1.12°(C.=53°·6 F.)10°(C.=50° F.)at Reykjavik.

2.11°(C.=51°·8 F.)8°·5(C.=47°·3 F.)at Flatey.

3.13°(C.=55°·4 F.)9°(C.=48°·2 F.)at N. lat. 66°30´, W. long. (G.) 24°.

4. 9°(C.=48°·2 F.)5°·8(C.=42°·4 F.)at N. lat. 66°10´, W. long. 23°12´.

5.14°·5(C.=58°·1 F.)8°·8(C.=47°·8 F.)at Borðeyri.

6.14°·5(C.=58°·1 F.)8°·3(C.=46°·9 F.)at Grafarós.

7.11°(C.=51°·8 F.)6°·8(C.=44°·2 F.)at Cap Nord.

8.11°(C.=51°·8 F.)8°·5(C.=47°·3 F.)at N. lat. 65°8´, W. long. 23°24´.

Both series tend to show the capricious variation of temperature (from 38° to 48° F., and from 48°·2 to 58°·1 F.), where the summer sea is subject to the influx of a little snow-water, and none of the regularity which might fairly be expected from a “gulf-stream.”

2. Every book of travels from Horrebow and Mackenzie to the present day, has given notices of the climate of Iceland.[90] The mean temperature of the Iceland year between 1828 and 1834, has been laid down at 3°·42 Reaumur (= 39°·7 F.). The annual average of Copenhagen is assumed at 46°·8 (F.); the maximum, observed in the shade, being 94°, and the minimum about 19° (F.). That of Montreal stands at 6°·30 Reaumur (= 46°·2 F.). The winters in Iceland are colder than in Montreal in October and November (both included); warmer from December to March, and again cooler from April to December. Eyjafjörð (N. lat. 65° 40´) is more genial than Cumberland House (N. lat. 53° 57´), and much warmer than any place in its own parallel. The almost nightless summers from June to August, which must affect the respiration of plants, gather caloric, and the sun at that season fails to heat only at a very obtuse angle, when the rays are intercepted by a thicker column of air. The equatorial current which prevails in occidental England for eight or nine months during the year, as the south-wester in Iceland, must greatly modify the climate. Old travellers assure us that the sub-surface is frost-bound throughout the year; this takes place only after a succession of hard winters and ungenial summers—even the cellars are rarely frozen in winter if care be taken to close the doors. Mr Vice-Consul Crowe (first Report on Iceland, 1865-66), asserts that “the average temperature of the earth is about 4½° Reaumur all the year round.”

Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland (N. lat. 64° 9´), enjoys a more genial climate than any place whose temperature is recorded between the parallels of 55° and 85° (N. lat.), except only St Petersburg (N. lat. 59° 56´) and Sitka Sound (N. lat. 57° 3´). The mean of the year is but 1° (F.) less than that of St John’s, which lies 16° farther south. The winter corresponds with that of Illukuk, 10° to the south, and the summer is much hotter. Humboldt’s mean temperature, 40° F., is generally adopted, although some reduce it to 39°·4, and even to 39°. He makes February, the coldest month, average 28°·22, and July, the hottest, 56°·3—a difference of over 28°, which others reduce to 27°. He fixes the winter mean at 29°·1; the spring at 36°·9; the summer at 53°·6 (in Berghaus’ Atlas, 50°); and the autumn at 37°·9. Dillon (pp. 167, 168), during the severest season of half-a-century, saw the mercury as low as 10° (F.), in February; and Pliny Miles (p. 55) declares that the thermometer seldom falls below 12° or 18°.

It will be remembered that the annual mean of climates, where civilisation is highest, represents in Europe 52° (F.), and the zone is 15° north and south of N. lat. 40°, an undulating belt of 30° arching towards the equator and the poles. Including its protraction eastward and westward, it contains 95/100ths of the white races, and almost all the greatest development.

Certain valuable “notes on the distribution of animals available as food in the Arctic regions,” compiled by Herr Petermann, and published in the Journal of the R. Geog. Society (vol. xxii.), enable us to compare the thermometer in the south and in the north of the island. “Reykiavig” (N. lat. “64°·08´´) is placed between New Herrnhut and Fort Reliance, whilst Eyjafjörð (N. lat. 66° 30´), stands between Fort Hope and Winter Island.

The figures are as follows:

Spring.Summer.Autumn.Winter.Annual mean.Difference Sum. & Wint.

1. New Herrnhut,26°·1539°·2826°·5014°·3026°·8324°·48

Reykjavik,37°·0453°·5437°·9429°·1839°·4324°·36

Fort Reliance,”12°·21”-16°·9716° (?)“

2. Fort Hope,-4°·7339°·5913°·93-25°·095°·9664°·68

Eyjafjörð,28°·1045°·8034°·4620°·8432°·3024°·96

Winter Island,6°·3531°·8017°·58-20°·478°·8252°·27

Ranged according to seasons and months, the figures stand:

Spring.

New Herrnhutin February (coldest),22°·10in March 21°·65in April 24°·80

Reykjavik”28°·31”29°·86”36°·46

Fort Reliance”-18°·84”-6°·14”8°·23

Port Hope”-26°·68”-28°·10”-23°·95

Eyjafjörð”18°·50”20°·66”27°·50

Winter Island”-23°·99”10°·72”6°·48

Summer.

New Herrnhutin May,32°·0in June, 40°·10in July, (hottest), 40°·33

Reykjavik”44°·80”51°·58”56°·19

Fort Reliance”36°·03”””“

Fort Hope”17°·88”31°·38”41°·46

Eyjafjörð”36°·14”43°·52”46°·94

Winter Island”23°·29”23°·17”35°·36

Autumn.

New Herrnhutin August 37°·40in September, 34°·03in October, 32°·90

Reykjavik”52°·86”46°·45”36°·91

Fort Reliance”””””20°·70

Fort Hope”46°·32”28°·57”12°·56

Eyjafjörð”46°·94”43°·16”34°·34

Winter Island”36°·86”31°·61”13°·25

Winter.

New Herrnhutin November, 15°·80in December 11°·75in January9°·05

Reykjavik”30°·45”29°·41”29°·82

Fort Reliance”13°·44”-17°·07”-25°·00

Fort Hope”0°·68”-19°·27”-29°·32

Eyjafjörð”25°·88”18°·32”25°·70

Winter Island”7°·88”-14°·24”-23°·17

Dr Joseph Chavanne, before alluded to, gives the following table of the wind temperature at Reykjavik, showing the deviations from mean:

Winter.—Mean Temperature -1·8.

N.N.E.E.S.E.S.S.W.W.N.W.Max.Min.Diff.

3·6-2·2+1·3+4·1+3·7+1·1-1·4-2·9E. 68,S. +4·4N. -3·68·0

Summer.—Mean Temperature +11.0.

0·0+0·5+0·1+0·2+0·3-0·7-1·0-1·3E. 30, S. +0·7W. 35,N. -1·62·3

Thus the climate of southern Iceland is insular and not excessive. We have a notorious instance of the same disposition in England. With us Devonia represents the south-western coast of Iceland, and justifies Carrington’s high praise:

The northern climate of Iceland, distant only 3° or 180 direct geographical miles, is distinctly continental; the difference ranging between 14° and 17° (F.). This is easily accounted for by the Arctic current, by the proximity of Polar ice, and by the prevalence of northern and north-western winds, which, in south Iceland as in Palestine, drive away rain. Whatever discrepancy of opinion there may be concerning the Gulf Stream, there can be none about the cold drift which, between Greenland and Iceland, measures some fifty miles in breadth, and many hundred feet in depth. Hence the north-western digitations are more subject to floes and bergs than the Breiði Fjörð, which again is oftener invested than the Faxa Fjörð, the latter being rarely beset more than once during the century. According to Uno Von Troil, the sea-ice, now so rare, came regularly in January with the north-eastern gales, and was never far from the north-east coast. At present the season is about April and even later.

In the north, according to Metcalfe (p. 152), the winter is much keener, and the summer is proportionally milder than in the south; some observers deny the truth of the latter part of the proposition, and make the hot months average about the same figure. The snow often begins with October and lasts till mid-May when the temperature stands at a mean of 35° (F.). For Akureyri Baring-Gould (quoting the Almanak um Ár 1863), gives the year as 32° (F., freezing point = Eyjafjörð), the winter as 20°·7, and the summer 45°·5. He therefore determines that, while the mean of Reykjavik is very nearly that of Moscow, Akureyri almost corresponds with Julianshaab in Greenland.

At Stykkishólm on the mid-west coast (N. lat. 65° 4´ 44´´, and W. long. (G.) 22° 43´ 17´´), observations have been taken by Hr A. O. Thorlacius for nearly thirty years. The gross results are given in the following table, taken from the Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society, iii. 148-304:

Mean Temperature of the Months at Stykkishólm, during the Years 1845-71.

Jan. Feb. Mar. April May. June July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Aver.

28·1 26·9 27·8 33·1 39·8 45·6 49·1 48·2 44·0 37·7 33·1 30·4 37°·0

Highest mean, 38·0 34·7 40·1 41·9 43·8 50·5 53·1 51·8 48·7 43·9 38·4 37·4 39°·8

Lowest mean, 17·2 13·3 12·4 19·8 31·4 41·5 44·2 43·0 37·2 32·5 26·4 24·0 29°·7

Mr A. Buchan, the learned Secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society, has printed in the same Journal (1873, pp. 304-307), the following highly interesting notice on the climate of Iceland, and especially of Stykkishólm, which appear to have great differences of temperature in the same months of different years.[91]

“The mean annual temperature of the twenty-six years (1845-71) is 37°·0. The highest annual mean of any of the years was 39°·8 in 1847, and the lowest 29°·7, giving thus the enormous difference of 10°·1. This very low annual mean of 29°·7 occurred in 1866 under very exceptional circumstances, which were detailed by Mr Thorlacius in a letter 15th October 1866. Spitzbergen ice surrounded Iceland on the north and north-east coast from January to the close of August in a greater or less degree, and did not wholly disappear till about the middle of September. Its effect on the temperature of the summer was therefore perceptible. What enormous masses of ice filled up the ocean north of Iceland may be conceived from the fact that, in clear weather, its gleaming appearance could be observed from Stykkishólm twenty geographical miles, not only during the day but also at night. The depression of temperature which followed was very great, amounting on the mean of the year to 7°·3; of the nine months from January to September to 8°·1, and of February and March to 14°·5. Leaving, then, this exceptional year out of account, the next lowest annual mean was 33°·6 during 1859. Hence the coldest year fell short of the mean annual temperature to the extent of 3°·4, and the warmest year exceeded it by 2°·8.

“With 1859 began a marked diminution of temperature. For the previous thirteen years the annual mean was on each, except 1848 and 1855, above the average—the mean of these thirteen years being 38°·2, or 1°·2 above the average. For the next thirteen years the mean was only 35°·8. Thus the first half of the period was 2°·4 warmer than the last half.

“As regards the annual mean of temperature, the lowest (26°·9) occurs in February, and the highest (49°·0) in July—the difference between the coldest and the warmest months being thus 22°·1. The three coldest months are January, February, March, the mean temperature of which is 27°·6, that of December being 2°·8 higher. In the northern part of the British Isles, and at the western station of the Atlantic, these are also the three coldest months, but the difference between their mean temperature and that of December is comparatively small, whereas in the south-east and interior of Great Britain, December, January, and February are the three coldest months.

“In the extreme north of the British Isles, the warmest month is August, and the temperature of September, if it does not exceed, is nearly equal to that of June. But at Stykkishólm, July is the warmest month, and the temperature of September is 1°·6 colder than that of June. Another point of difference between Iceland and Scotland is that at Stykkishólm, the mean temperature of April and that of November are the same, viz., 33°·1, whereas in Scotland April is 44°·7 and November 40°·3, or April is 7°·4 warmer than November.

“Hence the striking peculiarity of the climate of this part of Iceland is: During the cold half of the year the seasons are longer delayed than in any part of Great Britain. At Greenwich the mean temperature of April, as compared with November, being 6°·5 warmer; at York, 4°·9; at Aberdeen, 3°·9; at Bressay, Shetland, 0°·8; but at Stykkishólm, 0°·0. On the other hand, during the summer months the seasons at Stykkishólm are not delayed as in Shetland and Orkney, but resemble in this respect the eastern district of Great Britain.

“The great annual increase of temperature takes place from April to June—the increase of April being 5°·3, of May 6°·7, and of June 4°·8, and the great annual decrease from September to November—the decrease of September being 4°·2, October 6°·3, and of November 4°·6.

“But the most remarkable feature in the Icelandic climate is the great differences which occur in the temperature of the same month from year to year. This is seen in the highest and lowest temperature of each month during the twenty-six years. Thus, as regards March, the mean temperature in 1846 was 40°·1, but in 1866 it was only 12°·4, thus showing a fluctuation of 27°·7 in the mean temperature of March. The mean monthly fluctuation in the first four months of the year amounts to 22°·9, and for the whole twelve months 14°·9. As regards Scotland, the largest difference for any month during the past fifteen years was 11°·4—the temperature of December 1857 being 44°·9, and of the same month 1870 being 33°·5. In Scotland, the average of the whole twelve months is only 7°·1, or less than half of Iceland. These singular fluctuations of temperature are readily explained by the position of Iceland with respect to the Arctic regions on the one hand, and to the Atlantic with its warm currents on the other. As more than usual prevalence of easterly winds rapidly and greatly depresses the temperature by bringing to its coasts the cold, if not also the frozen regions. On the contrary a prevalence of south-westerly winds disperses the cold, and pours over the island the genial warmth of the Atlantic. This fluctuating character of the season is frequently very disastrous, it being evident that such summers as that of 1866, whose mean temperature was only 42°·9, will well-nigh altogether prevent the growth of vegetation.”

The veteran observer Hr Thorlacius has laid down the following rule: “The great and sudden diminution of pressure which characterises the winter months is the outstanding feature of the meteorology of Iceland.”[92] The barometric mean during twenty-five years at 37 feet above the sea is 29·602. There are two annual maxima of pressure, the greater in May and the lesser in November; whilst the minima are in January and October. The average yearly rainfall closely agrees with the lower parts of the Scottish Lothians—between 1856-68 the mean was 26·81 inches; the maximum (1868) being 34·23, and the minimum (1867) 21·28. The greatest amount fell in autumn and winter—in October 3·16 inches, and in May 1·41. The amount of melted snow, annually registered, ranges from 4 to 12 feet; the mean of twelve years is 7·43; the maximum (1863) is 12·21, the minimum (1867) 4·76. The snowy days average 82 per annum, and the greatest falls are in January, 1·40; in February, 1·34; in December, 1·24; and in March, 1·18. During seven of the twelve years no snow appeared in June; during ten none in July; during eleven none in August; and during five none in September. The severest storm remembered was in 1868; snow began on January 15, and lasted till the end of March, making 7·14 inches. With one or two exceptions, Greenland ice annually showed itself at Stykkishólm between 1859-69. Thunderstorms were very variable. None were registered between February 1860 and August 1861 (included), but sixteen during the six months between November 1853 and April 1854. Of 111 thunderstorms in twenty-three years nearly half were in December (twenty-five) and January (twenty-seven); two occurred in May and July, none in June and August. In the Færoes, also, thunderstorms are wintry, not summery: the reason seems to be that when the peaks are bare, electricity is equally distributed; but when they are invested with snow, a bad conductor, the local congestion relieves itself by discharges. Thunder is said to sound, as we might expect, unusually loud, the effect of rocky hill and stony dale.[93]

3. The climate of Iceland, if not pleasant, is assuredly one of the most wholesome. All the English travellers upon the island in the summer of 1872 agreed that Anglo-Indians on “sick leave” should prefer a tour in the north to the debilitating German Bäder, or to the fantastic hydropathic establishments which are best suited to riotous health. Consumptive patients, and those suffering from constitutional and nervous debility, have of late years been diverted to the dry, cold, and bracing air of Canada, instead of the parts preferred by their fathers—Montpelier, with its dreadful Vent de bise; Pau, where the people describe their year as eight months of winter and four of l’enfer; Pisa, where Johannum and Barahút—the hot and cold places of punishment—seem to meet; and bilious Madeira, with its enfeebling, warm milk-and-water air, which may relieve the one-lunged, but is sadly trying to those with two. In Iceland throughout summer the stimulus of light is never wanting; rich, oily fish can always enter into the bill of fare; and the evidence is in favour of “free ozone,” whose absence has accounted for the presence of cholera.[94] Hence phthisis hardly appears amongst the diseases of the islanders, although, when transported to warmer regions, they are as liable to it as natives of more genial climes. And whilst in Russia an overcoat may be necessary during the height of summer, in Iceland tourists walk about bare-headed at midnight.

There is a regular tide round the island, ebbing (Icel. fjara) and flowing (Icel. flóð) according to the rule of six hours. It sets into the Fjörðs, but in the offing it subtends the shore. According to old observers, these movements are stronger at the full and change, and strongest at the equinoxes. As every wind must blow more or less from the sea, those which pass over the least expanse of land bring rain condensed by the cold heights. Upon the coast there is a kind of daily trade following the summer sun’s course, like that known in Norway.[95] Cyclones are apparently wanting, but history records the most violent volcanic hurricanes; mountain squalls are the rule, and the smoke-gale of water-dust reminds us of the Continental Gauskuld, caused by the Finn-Lapp Magician sending forth his fly. In Iceland, as all the world over, the uplands are warmer than the lowlands—a fact well known to the ancients, but apparently puzzling to the modern traveller. “What is remarkable,” says Henderson (i. 104), “I found the temperature of the atmosphere twelve degrees warmer in this hyperborean region than it was below in the valley.” Yet it is easy to understand that whilst heated air rises, cold sinks; moreover, that, as a rule, there is more water, and consequently more evaporation, in lowlands than in highlands.

The mists (Mistar) are of the three kinds described by the Rev. G. Landt (Færoe Islands, London, Longmans, 1810): (1.) Skadda, or white cumulus on the hill-tops, supposed to show wet weather; (2.) Bolamjorkie, the vapour-belt which girdles the mountain flanks; and (3.) Mokyer (Icel. Thoka), the common fog of England.[96]

The Aurora Borealis, which the pagans held to be an emanation of the Deity—a nimbus encircling some mighty brow—and in which Greenland sees ghosts playing with walrus’ heads, is expected to appear in mid-August, but of course not so splendidly as in winter. The author never saw either streamers or zodiacal light. Uno Von Troil (p. 54) makes the former show from all quarters, but especially from the southern horizon. Metcalfe (p. 385) asserts that it ranges from north-east to south-west, and there is a popular idea that the focus is more easterly than it was a decade ago. In the Færoes it flashes either from west and north-west to east, or from east and north-east to west. The streamers are bluish-yellow, gold-coloured, and red; rarely blue, green, and scarlet. The latter are called Lopt-eldr[97] or lift-fire, which shows the sky aflame. It comes with strong winds and drifting snows, and, as in most hyperborean parts, it betokens great carnage over the place where it rises. Icelanders can no longer make the aurora draw nearer by whistling to it.

The Alpen-glow, also called the evening aurora, is often a glorious spectacle when the reflection of the blood-red west, showing that the sun has just set, falls upon craggy hill and lowland slope, lighting up every house and field to a distance of five or six miles, and washing colour over the daguerrotyped outlines, usually so hard and sharp. When distant objects seem near in most countries men predict rain, here the rule apparently fails. The “Vetrar-braut,” or course of winter (Milky Way), is by no means so bright as some travellers have described it. In heathen times its appearance was used to forecast the hard months, especially as fortune-telling was part of the great autumnal feasts and sacrifices. The author never saw in Iceland the phosphorescent water supposed to betray the presence of electricity and ozone, nor the fulgor brutum seu spurium of romantic meteorologists. The rainbow (Icel. Regnbogi Nikuðs,[98] or of “Old Nick”) is of course common; the twilights strike the stranger from the northern temperates as being unimportant like those of the tropics; and there is a name for the mirage or heat-reek, Hillingar, or Upp-hillingar, when rocks and islands look as if lifted (“up-heaved”) from the level of the sea. The common meteors are the Moorild or moor-fire of Norway (ignis labentes seu fatui), here called Hrævar-eldr[99] and Snæljós. Castor and Pollux in Christian times either became Saint Elmo’s (San Telmo’s) flames, or connected themselves with Saints Nicholas and Clare; hence the Corpo Santo, and hence our “corpusance,” frequently observed by the circumnavigator Pigafitta (A.D. 1519-1522). The old English sailor regarded them as Will-o’-the-wisps intimately related to a certain Davy Jones. The others are the Gýgjar-sól (gow-sun) or Auka-sólir, mock sun (parabolia); and paraselenæ or lunar halos, with Rosabaugr, or storm-rings, literally “sleet-rings,” the effect of minute ice spiculæ, or, perhaps, metallic particles, in the upper air refracting the light, and producing rainbow-hued circles and ovals, which often bisect one another. Water-spouts, the typhons of the Greeks, caused by the suction of clouds highly charged with electricity, have been observed. We read of fire-balls or shooting-stars (Viga-hnöttur or Stjörnuhrap); of electric flames and red-hot globes (volcanic bombs) discharged with loud detonations during eruptions; and the people still believe in the “fire-vomiting” of their craters. Modern science explains the phenomenon by the reflection of the brilliant, glowing, glaring lava and the red-hot scoriæ, upon the dust and ash column, and upon the “smoke-clouds,” which are really steam and other vapours. Yet M. Abich declares that in the Vesuvian eruption of 1834, he distinctly saw the flame of burning hydrogen, and this, indeed, might be expected.

As has been observed, the year of grace 1872 was exceptional. It opened with the finest weather till the equinox, after which it broke and strewed the ground with four feet of snow. Rain endured till the last quarter of June, but the rest of the travelling season was absolutely delightful. Mild east winds prevailed at Reykjavik, and the warmth of the “sirocco,” as it was called, set the citizens speculating upon the possibility of an eruption in the interior. After July 11th the sky was that of Italy for a whole fortnight. The autumn was rough, with heavy gales from north-east to east, and from south-east to south-west; there were also hard frosts about mid-November, after which the weather became as mild as in 1871. Dr Hjaltalín, Land-Physicus or Physician-General of Iceland, was inclined to think that the summers were waxing warmer in Snowland, as they are growing, or are supposed to grow, colder in Scotland.

The travelling season of 1873 was very raw and dry. From the 20th of June to the 20th of July strong north winds prevailed, and from the 16th to the 18th of July there was a considerable fall of snow. August was tolerably rainless, but cold, and winter set in in earnest about the 20th of September.

§ 4. Chronometry.

In these hyperborean regions the light season and the dark season represent the “dries” and “rains” of the tropical zone. The gradual changes from winter to summer, and vice versâ, known as spring and autumn, can hardly exist when the frost often binds the ground till mid-June, and reappears in latter August.[100] Thus the Edda of the old Northmen (Vafthrûðnismál, Thorpe’s trans., st. 27) very rightly distributes the year into only two parts:

The ancient heathen year contained 364 days (12 × 30 + 4 Auka-nætr, or Eke-nights):[102] the remaining day, with its fraction, was gathered up into an intercalary week, called Summer-eke, or Eke-week, introduced by Thorstein Surt (the black) about the middle of the tenth century. Of old it was inserted at the end of summer every sixth or seventh year, which then numbered 191 days. The Gregorian style inserts it every fifth or sixth year. Thus 1872 is marked the “first year after Sumar-auki;” the years 1860, 1866, and 1871 being years with “Sumar-auki.” New style was not adopted till A.D. 1700.

The light months technically began with the Thursday preceding April 16,[103] O. S., = April 26, N. S. On that day children received their Sumar-gjöf (summer presents), which take the place of our Easter gifts. The season consisted of 184 days (30 × 6 + 4 Auka-nætr); the eke-nights being inserted before midsummer, which parts the season into two halves, each of three months. Thus in the Iceland almanac for 1872, Sumar-dagr-fyrsti (first summer day) fell on Thursday, April 25; the Auka-nætr ranged between July 24 to 27; Mið-sumar was on July 28; and Sumar-dagr-síðasti (last summer day) happened on October 25. In modern usage the time from April to October is reckoned by the Sumar-vikur (summer weeks), the first, second, seventh, and twentieth; and the calendars mark every Thursday, during the light season, by the current number of the week. The “travelling time” extends from the Invention of the Cross (May 3) to St Bartholomew’s Day (August 24). Meteorologically, summer opens with July. The winter, or dark half of the year (Vetr), began on the Saturday before St Luke’s Day (O. S.), or that Saint’s Day if a Saturday; and, like the summer, lasted twenty-six weeks. The Vetrar-dagr-fyrsti (first winter day) for 1872 and 1873 corresponds with Saturday, October 26. The following are the names of the months (Mánuðr or Mánaðr):

1. January—Icelandic, Mörsugr, “fatsucker;” Anglo-Saxon, Æftera (second) Giuli (Yule), from the turning or tropic of the sun; Old Danish, Julemaaned.

2. February—Icel., Thorri; A. S., Sol monath, from offerings made to the sun; O. D., Blidemaaned, or “blythe month.”

3. March—Icel., Gói;[104] A. S., Rhed-monath, “travel-month,” or “month of the goddess Rheda,” to whom warlike sacrifices were offered; O. D., Törmaaned, or “Thor’s month”—hence Lucan (Phars., lib. i.):

“Et Taranus Scythicæ non melior ara Dianæ.”

4. April—Icel., Einmánuðr; A. S., Eostre monath, “Easter month,” from the goddess Eostre; O. D., Faaremaaned, “fair month,” or “sheep month.”

5. May—Icel., Harpa, or gaukmánuðr,[105] “cuckoo month,” or saðlid, “sowing season;” A. S., Trimilchi, because the sheep were milked thrice a day; O. D., Maimaaned, taken from the classics.

6. June—Icel., Skerpla, or egglið, “egg-season,” or stekklið; A. S., Ærra (first) Liða, “serene sea;” O. D., Hömaaned, or “hay month.” The 3d to 5th of June are called Fardagar, “flitting-days,” because then householders change their abodes.

7. July—Icel., Sólmánuðr, “sun-month,” or Selmánuðr, “saeter month;” A. S., Æftera Liða; O. D., Ormemaaned, or “worm (lumbrici) month.”

8. August—Icel., Hey-annir, or “time of haymaking,” which ends about the middle of next month; A. S., Weide monath, “pasture month,” or Wenden monath, “tare month;” O. D., Hoestmaaned.

9. September—Icel., Tvímánuðr; A. S., Haleg monath, or “holy month;” O. D., Fiskemaaned.

10. October—Icel., Haustmánuðr, “harvest or autumn month,” or Garðlagsmánuðr, “the month for building fences;” A. S., Winterfyllath, or “winter-full;” O. D., Sædemaaned, “seed-month.”

11. November—Icel, Gormánuðr, “gore-month,” or “slaughter-month;” A. S., Bloth monath, “sacrifice-month;” O. D., Slagtemaaned, “slaughter month.”

12. December—Icel., Frermánuðr, “frost month,” or Ýlir, “howler,” from the howling storms; A. S., Ærra Giuli (first Yule); O. D., Julemaaned.[106]

There is a quaint way of numbering the month-days by the knuckles of the closed fist, which denote the longer, while the intervals represent the shorter divisions, a memoria technica, thus taking the place of our mnemonic lines, “Thirty days hath September,” etc. This “Dactylismus Ecclesiasticus,”[107] concerning which Bishop Jón Arnason wrote, is possibly what Uno Von Troil means (p. 118), “They make use of an art to discover the sun by their fingers.”

The heathen week consisted of “Fimts” (pentads), whence, probably, the sacred pentagonal star of Odinism; and six of these formed the month. Thus the year was composed of seventy-two weeks, a holy number (= 2 × 36, or 6 × 12). This old style lingered long after the introduction of the planetary heptad, and lasts in such expressions as “There are many turns of the weather in five days (a fimt), but more in a month.” Yet the week (vika) was already in use about the middle of the tenth century. Bishop John, who died in A.D. 1121, induced Iceland to adopt the hebdomadal division, and the ecclesiastical names of the days, as they survive in Spanish and Portuguese, e.g., Feria secunda, etc. Here we recognise, with the exception of the two first, the familiar Quaker custom:

Sunday is Sunnu-dagr, or Drottins-dagr, “the Lord’s day.”

Monday—Mána-dagr, modern Icel. Mánu-dagr.

Tuesday—Thriði, or Thriðju-dagr, “third day.”

Wednesday—Miðviku, contracted to Miðku-dagr, the Germ. Mittwoch.

Thursday—Fimti-dagr, or “fifth day.”

Friday—Föstu-dagr, “fast-day,” the O. Swed. Vor Frudag, “le jour de Nôtre Dame,” who took the place of Freya.

Saturday—Laugar-dagr, “bath day,” as in the times of England before “tubbing.”

The old Icelandic names of the week days were: Sunnudagr, Mánadagr, Týsdagr (from Týr, Tuisco, the one-armed god of war), Óðinsdagr, Thórsdagr, Frjádagr, and Laugar or Thvátt dagr (“washing-day,” i.e., Saturday).

Both Iceland and the Færoes have preserved the classical and Oriental system of dividing into watches (Icel. Dagsmark, plur. Dagsmörk, “day’s marks”[108]), corresponding with the “Pahar” still used throughout Hindostan. They ignored the hour, which would have been too troublesome and minute. Wanting timepieces, they used sundials (Sólskifa) and sand-glasses. The rudest form was the peak or cairn, whose shadow noted the time: the same system still prevails amongst the Bedawin. By the sun also they learned to calculate the periods of ebb and flow, and the southern altitude of the luminary denoted the meridian. In winter evenings time was marked by the position of the Pleiades, called, par excellence, the Stjarna (star). The other constellations found useful at night were Örvindals-tá (toe of Orwendel, = Rigel Orionis?); Thjaza augu (the eyes of Thiassi, = Castor and Pollux?); Reið Rögnis (Charles’ Wain, the Wain of Rögn or Odin; whence also Ragna-rök, the twilight of the gods and doom of the world); and Loka-brenna (Sirius, Loki’s fire, also referring to the final Odinic conflagration).

The Færoese divide the day into eight öktur (Icel. eyktir) and sixteen half-öktur, the word Okt being shortened from octava.[109] The Icelanders reckon nine like our seamen, the additional one being a “dog-watch,” formed by dividing the 180 minutes into two. Their names are:

1. Nátt-mál, or night-meal to 9 P.M.

2. Miðnætti, to midnight.

3. Ótta, from midnight to 3 A.M.: “hana-ótta” is cock-crow.

4. Miður-morgun, also called Hirðis-rismál, “the rising time of the shepherd,” to 6 A.M.

5. Dagmál, day-meal to 9 A.M. (hora tertia.)

6. Hádegi, or Hiðr-dagr, “high-day” till noon.

7. Mið-mundi, first dog-watch from noon to 1.30 P.M.

8. Nón, in olden times also Eykt, second dog-watch from 1.30 P.M. to “nona,” or 3 P.M.

9. Miðr-aptn, or mid-afternoon to 6 P.M.

The shortest day in the south averages five hours,[110] and the longest is everywhere twenty-four.

As will appear in the Journal, Iceland preserves the Hebrew style of beginning the civil day with evening, not with midnight like the rest of Europe. So Tacitus (cap. ii.) of the Germans: “Nec dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computant;” and the older ecclesiastical law reckoned the greater feasts from the nones or evenings of the preceding days. The hours are fractioned after the English-Norwegian, not the German fashion: thus 3.30 would be called “half (after) three,” instead of “half (to) four” (halb vier). Similarly our seamen when heaving the lead sing out, “And a half three,” i.e., three fathoms and a half.

§ 5. Summary.

Iceland has the general contour of Ireland with the eastern side turned round to face the Arctic Pole. It is a square, cut, furrowed, and digitated by the violence of the northern, the north-eastern, and the south-western winds and waves; and its shape is regular, and unsupplied with ports only in the south, where, like Sicily, it is least exposed to weather.

The “little white spot in the Arctic Sea” is the epitome of a world generated by the upheaval and the eruption; dislocated and distorted by the earthquake, and sorely troubled and tortured by wintry storms, rains, snows, avalanches, fierce débâcles, and furious gales. The far greater portion, the plateau above the seaboard, has a weird and sinister aspect; verging on the desolation of Greenland, and lacking the sternness and grandeur of nature in Norway. And nowhere, even in the fairest portions, can we expect the dense forest on the Alp, “up to the summit clothed with green;” the warbling of birds, the murmurs of innumerous bees, the susurrus of the morning breeze, or the melodious whispering of the “velvet forest:” their places are taken by black rock and glittering ice, by the wild roar of the foss, and by the mist-cloud hung to the rugged hill-side. We may not look for that prodigality of colour with which sun and air paint the scenery of the happier south. The first impressions recorded by travellers are the astonishing transparency of the atmosphere, the absence of trees, the metallic green of the grass-fields, the pink and purple sheen of the mountain heaths, the sharp contrast of Ossas and warts, of ice and fire-born rock; and the prevalence of raw-white and dull-black hues, like gulls’ feathers strewed upon a roof of tarred shingles, in fact the magpie suits of snowy jökull and sable fell.

Despite the almost hyperborean latitude, the frequent oases—Wadys or Fiumaras—of admirable verdure, soft and secluded from the horrors of loose sand and black lava, have suggested reminiscences of the Arabian wildernesses, whilst the caravans of ponies, the “dromedaries of the glacial desert,” add a special feature of resemblance.

The “general glance” of southern travellers is perhaps too gloomy. It was hardly fair of the ancient Icelandic poet (tenth century) to call his native island a “gallows of slush,” or for the modern Icelandic parson to describe it as “nothing but bogs, rocks, and precipices; precipices, rocks, and bogs; ice, snow, lava; lava, snow, ice; rivers and torrents; torrents and rivers.” Cleasby crudely assures us that “the whole of Iceland may be said to be a burnt-out lava field, from eruptions previous to the peopling of the country.” Henderson says rudely: “The general aspect of the country is the most rugged and dreary imaginable;” he quotes Jeremiah about a region “where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds all monstrous, all prodigious things;” and he dwells with apparent gusto upon the “doleful and haggard tracts,” through which it was his “privilege” safely to pass. Baring-Gould repeats: “The general aspect of Iceland is one of utter desolation.” Forbes gives an even more gloomy picture of repulsive deformity. One might be reading in these travellers a description of St Magnus’ Bay:

The harsh name “Iceland,” which took the place of the far more picturesque and correct “Snæ-land,” predisposes the wanderer to look upon this northern nature with unfriendly glance; but it is strange how her beauties grow upon him. Doubtless the scenery depends far more upon colour and complexion than in the genial lands of the lower temperates. But, during the delightfully mild and pleasant weather of July and August, seen through a medium of matchless purity, there is much to admire in the rich meads and leas stretching to meet the light-blue waves; in the fretted and angular outlines of the caverned hills, the abodes of giant and dwarf; in the towering walls of huge horizontal steps which define the Fjörðs; and in the immense vistas of silvery cupolas, “cravatted” cones, and snow-capped mulls, which blend and melt with ravishing reflections of ethereal pink, blue, azure, and lilac, into the grey and neutral tints of the horizon. There is grandeur, too, when the Storm-Fiend rides abroad; amid the howl of gales, the rush of torrents, the roar of water-falls; when the sea appears of cast-iron; when the sky is charged with rolling clouds torn to shreds as they meet in aërial conflict; when the pale-faced streams shudder under the blast; when grim mists stalk over the lowlands; and when the tall peaks and “three-horns,” parted by gloomy chasms, stand like ghostly hills in the shadowy realm. And often there is the most picturesque of contrasts: summer basking below, and winter raging above; peace brooding upon the vale and elemental war doing fierce battle upon the eternal snows and ice of the upper world.

Finally, there is one feature in Iceland which assumes a grandeur of dimensions unknown to Europe—the Hraun or lava stream. The “rivers of stone,” like those of water, bear no proportion to the size of the island. The western arm of the Skaptárfellshraun, for instance, is nearly forty-eight miles long by ten of breadth at the lower end; and there are thousands of square miles covered by the Ódáða-hraun or Terrible Lava Stream. Every fantastic form, save of life, is there, and we cannot wonder if the peasant peoples them with outlying men or brigands. In a word, the student of Vulcanism must not neglect Iceland.