A TRIP AROUND ICELAND 



89 



Cl.AY AND GEVSERITE IN RAVINE, GEYSER. 



everywhere in national life are advancing ideals, improving methods of 

 living and awakening commercial ambition. This is more marked 

 now since, after long years of almost fruitless agitation, the home 

 government — I mean the governmental functions exercised in the 

 island itself — is placed in the hands of Icelanders, and a practical 

 sympathy with its needs has already established useful changes. It 

 would seem dangerous to go too far in an effort to separate the island 

 from Denmark, as a parental supervision implying support and pro- 

 tection is indispensable. The maintenance of banks, a more general 

 utilization of a medium of exchange, increased facilities of obtaining 

 manufactured articles, internal improvements, in the extension of 

 roads, building of bridges, telegraph connections, have all sensibly con- 

 tributed to awaken the Icelander, given him new satisfactions, stirred 

 the desire for accumulation, and introduced to his attention new 

 projects for the development of natural advantages, as, for example, 

 the possible use of water power for electrical and manufacturing ends. 



There is a strong mentality in the Icelander that is not inappositely 

 united with imaginative power, and combined with distinctively reli- 



