“2 
HOT SPRINGS in ICELAND. 129 
we could conjecture, with any degree of probability, the lava 
to have iffued. It extended round us like a fea; and it had 
burft perhaps from fome part of the country it now covered, 
while the fire to which it owed its origin, had efcaped with its 
fhowers of cinders and afhes, from fome other orifice, and had 
formed one of the numberlefs cones we could difcover amidft 
the neighbouring hills. 
Tue unpleafantnefs of our ride over this country was in- 
creafed by the continual danger to which we were expofed of 
our horfes falling. The road was no other than what the few 
travellers of the country, as they paffed from their farms to 
Rykavick, had tracked over the lava where it was leaft rough ; 
but even this was interrupted by many breaks and crevices, 
formed by the cooling of the matter and the contraction of its 
parts. 
To this uncomfortable fcene fucceeded the view of a rich 
valley, opening into an extenfive green plain bounded by the 
fea. Ariver was feen winding between feveral fertile mea- 
dows ; and beyond thefe, the valley was terminated by a range 
of high and bold rocks. But our attention was chiefly at- 
tracted by the clouds of fteam, which afcended in various parts 
of the valley from the hot f{prings, and by jets of water which, — 
from fome of them, were inceflantly darted into the air. 
We defcended into the valley by a road winding over the 
Java, which, in one place, had flowed from the upper plain into 
the country below. On each fide it had {topped abruptly, and 
had thus formed a perpendicular wall, at leaft fixty feet high. 
WE pitched our tents in a pleafant field, on the fide of the 
river, oppofite to the farm, and not far from it, and at the foot 
of the hills which bounded the valley. Several fragments of 
rocks, which had falfen from thefe, lay {cattered round our fta- 
tion. Thefe were entirely volcanic; fome of dark blue lava, 
not unlike bafalte; others of a yellow fubftance; and again 
others of ‘a gray lava, mixed with a great quantity of white 
Vox. III. R glafs : 
