412 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 



journals, longitude 163" 50' for the land we saw yesterday, 

 which we found it to be on comparing our accounts ; and 

 therefore we have fixed this lonj^itude, and shall beo-in a^-ain 

 from here to reckon the longitude. The commander of the 

 Zeeliaan is to give this Order to the steersmen. The maps 

 also made of this land should place it in longitude 163° 50' 

 as before mentioned. 



" Undersigned, Abel Jansen Tasman." 



2.— ICELANDIC NOTES. 



By the Ret: J. B. W. WOOLLNOUGH, M.A. 



The paper I am about to read consists of little more than 

 notes taken during a summer holiday. It makes no preten- 

 sion to scientific value. Still, Iceland is all but " far as the 

 poles asunder," whilst land and people are so unlike other 

 lands and other races that I hope at any rate to interest you. 

 The main idea I carried away from Iceland was that Nature 

 had left her work there unfinished, and now, probably, never 

 would finish it. Heat force is still hard at work. It is a 

 land of volcanoes, sulphur and hot-water springs. There is 

 lava everywhere. AVithin a mile or two, for instance, of 

 Reykjavik, the capital, the track passes over bare level lava 

 jjlains, like in appearance to our basaltic pavement at Eagle 

 Hawk Neck, from thence to fields of lava-blocks of all sizes 

 weathered into ])osition, thence again to marsh land, where 

 forests once stood, or to stretches of black volcanic sand. 

 Walkino- in summer is therefore difficult, the more so as out- 

 side the southern and northern capitals there are no roads 

 and but one bridge. Everybody rides. An Icelander jumps 

 on his pony to compass the length of a street. 



Cold has done much to stay the work of heat in making 

 Iceland like other habitable lands. Just outside the Arctic 

 Circle, the level of perpetual snow is but 3000 feet and some 

 of the glaciers, 1 believe, reach the sea. An evidence of the 

 close grip of heat and cold formed my first experience of this 

 weird land. Coming on deck in early morning I found that 

 Iceland was in sight, and that we were hugging the shore 

 somewhat closely. A short distance fi'om it towered up an 

 ice mountain 5000 feet. From between its lower spurs a 

 wide glacier ran down, apparently straight into the sea. 

 ^.longside, and yet wider, ran also a stream of lava, which in 



