A TRIP AROUXD ICELAND 



Si 



The Kalfstindek Ranges. 



bedded igneous rocks, and with others broken down into broad mounds 

 of flowing stream-like pebbles were wonderfully strange. 



Iron oxide was significantly present everywhere, in the water and 

 marshes, and, later, as we crossed peninsulas of outstretched combs 

 from the mountain sides, it glistened as an iridescent film on the mir- 

 rors of the mountain streams. Heckla now came gloriously in sight 

 over another arm of the immense plain, beginning in the Thingvallir 

 vatn, and was superbly gleaming in its icy mantles, while removed 

 from it to the south were the Tindfjallajokull and the Eyjaffjalla- 

 jokull. 



The beautiful Laga vatn spread its mirrory surface below us, 

 imbedded in prairies of meadowland, and all radiant with unchecked 

 sunshine, while along its edges and up its arms rose columns of snow- 

 white steam from its hot springs. Here we stopped for rest at the 

 farmhouse mentioned above, after skirting the mountains by an excel- 

 lent narrow road winding through a shrubbery of dwarf birch, and 

 huckleberry bushes. 



The farm was characteristic. It consisted of five or six structures- 



VOL. LXXII. — 6. 



