9° 



reached Norway and the Orkneys ; and there was room for a few 

 words more perhaps upon the subject of icebergs and the glacial 

 epoch. 



Mr. Cr. D. Sawyer hoped Mr. Watts, in his reply, would tell 

 them a little more than he had done about the inhabitants of the 

 island. 



Mr. DowsETT asked for infonnation as to insect life in the island, 

 and he should like to know what was the cause of the Icelanders 

 emigrating, if they were such lovers of their country. 



Mr. Welch enquired whether the diseases of the country were 

 similar to those of other cold mountainous countries ? 



Mr. Watts replied to these questions seriatim. The sulphur 

 mines in the southern part of the island were in a state of hopeless 

 standstill ; but those in the north might, he thought, be worked so as 

 to benefit the country and prove remunerative to the company which 

 had undertaken to work them. In the present position of the com- 

 pany, perhaps, it was scarcely advisable that he should say more upon 

 the subject. Wheat did not grow in the island ; but a kind of wild 

 oats did, though the grain it yielded was small and hardly worth speak- 

 ing about. With regard to thunderstomis, he believed they occurred in 

 the north as well as the south of the island, though they were less 

 frequent in the north than in the south. Although water erupted from 

 volcanoes in other parts of the world, none of them threw out anything 

 like the quantity of water discharged by those in Iceland. It was a 

 peculiar fact that the ash from the Iceland volcanoes generally went in 

 the direction of Norway. Insect life he did not know much about ; 

 but he might say that the mosquitoes were a great nuisance, and that 

 several districts were named after flies. There was a lake called the 

 Fly Lake ; it was sometimes covered with flies ; and sometimes there 

 was not a fly to be seen on it. He had seen the snow blackened with 

 flies, which had been frozen in their flight. A good many Icelanders 

 looked upon emigration as something which tended to the good of 

 their country; but though fascinated with the luxuries of Europe, and 

 quite willing to live there, the Icelander generally expressed a hope 

 that he might die in his native country. Brigham Young was doing his 

 best to foster emigration to the Salt Lake City, and he had three 

 missionaries working in the island during the past summer. The 



