ICELAND. 



655 



them from their nests. The drakes are not so fearless ; 

 but they frequently remain near the nests, and express 

 their displeasure when any one touches them. As soon 

 as the young ones have left the shells, and get to the 

 water, the eider ducks become as wild as any other 

 bird, and in a month or sis weeks almost all of them 

 disappear, and it is not known to what place they re- 

 sort. The nests are robbed of a certain nu mber of eggs, 

 and of the down. The former are a great luxury to the 

 natives *nd the latter is a valuable article of export. 

 It is part of the employment of the women during win- 

 ter, to pick the straws and refuse from the down. 



It is from the sea, however, which the Icelanders de- 

 rive their chief subsistence and profit. The cod is very 

 plentiful on the coasts ; and formerly the fishery ot'Ice- 

 tand was prosecuted by the English and French with 

 gnat ssirrfil The fishery commences early in Febru- 

 ary ; and the inhabitants of the interior move at that 

 time towards the different fishing stations, and travel 

 in darkness through the snow. They engage with the 

 owiwr of a boat to obey every call for fishing, and to as- 

 sist in the general labour, and he receives a share of the 

 fish in return for the use of the boat When a sufficient 

 quantity has been taken, the people from the country re- 

 turn home, leaving the care ot'drv ing the fish to the in- 

 habitants of the fishing villages. In June, the farmers 

 carry to the trading stations all their marketable commo- 

 dities, to be exchanged for necessaries and a fewluxuries, 

 and on their return they carry home their fish to serve 

 them during the next winter. The haddock is also ta- 

 ken in great plenty, and grows here to a very large size. 

 The cod is chiefly cured for exportation, and the had- 

 dock for home consumption- The ling, skate, hollibut, 



Iceland. 



Sounders, and the rat sVsh, are common, and are like- 

 wise dried for winter use. The skate is the least es- 

 teemed of all the other fish, and is seldom if ever eaten 

 fresh. Herrings are taken on the north coast ; but 

 though vast shoals of them frequent the bays, this 

 branch of the fishery is not much attended to. Sharks 

 are an important object on the north-west coast, and a 

 ; quantity of oil prepared from them is ex- 



Those travellers who have visited Iceland, having 

 bean then only during a short summer, and their time 

 having been almost entirely occupied with viewing the 

 country and its more prominent cufieakits, have not 

 umisd ociqgical enquiries very far. From what Mr 

 Hooker say s the insect tribes seem to offer something 

 has furniahed us with a very 

 e, to which we refer such of 



Hi 

 the 



MI; 



Thf 



of this remote 



only tree which withstands the rigours of 

 but its growth is limited, in the meat 

 situations, to five or six feet 

 ^ ne ""'*"' P **** 1 f Iceland is mountainous ; the 

 hiffcsst elevations appearing on the east and west sides, 

 wiile extensive plain* appear, with little interruption, 

 to sitsjssd from north to south across the island. The 

 highest mountain the height of which has been ascer- 

 tained, is said to be about 5KX) feet. The SneefellJo- 

 kul, which bounds the western extremity, and has been 

 by the natives the highest in the island, 

 trigonometrically by Sir George Mac- 

 xrtained to be 4558 feet above an exten- 

 sive beach formed near Stappen. It is probable that 

 none of the Jokuls exceed 6000 feet Many of them 

 an very extensive, forming long ridges ; a sliape which, 

 ~ i it not for their characteristic covering of perpe- 



1 



tual snow, would tend to lessen their apparent eleva- 

 tion to the eye. The height of the curve of congela- * ~ v~~* 

 tion may be taken for Iceland, at 2829 feet, as a mean; Min eralogr. 

 and thus a tolerable idea of the heights of the moun- 

 tains may be had, when an opportunity occurs of ob- 

 serving the snow line on the Jokuls. From what has 

 been actually observed, and from the best information, 

 it appears that all the Jokuls are of volcanic formation; 

 in other words, that they are either active or extinct 

 volcanoes. The greatest height of the other mountains 

 which are not volcanic, does not much exceed 2000 

 feet. They are all of the trap formation ; and this 

 does not appear to reach a great height in the northern 

 hemisphere. In Faroe, its greatest elevation appears 

 to be somewhat above 3000 feet As far as has yet 

 been discovered, the formations in Iceland are limited 

 to the flo:tz trap, volcanic, and alluvial, and those of 

 Faroe to the first and last. The flcetz trap of Greenland, 

 that of Iceland, and of Faroe, are probably connected ; 

 and the two last may be supposed to rest on primitive 

 rocks, as the Greenland formation has been ascertained 

 to do. 



The beds of trap are inclined for the most part at a 

 small angle to the horizon, dipping to the eastward of 

 the meridian; and in this respect they agree with those 

 of Faroe. 



The beds consist chiefly of amygdaloid, containing 

 zeolite, chalcedony, opal, quartz, arragonite, and cal- 

 careous spar. The base of the amygdaloid is for 

 the most part wacke. There arc many varieties of 

 greenstone, from the most compact to that whose 

 component parts are of large size ; felspar and augit 

 occurring in crystalline masses of from a quarter to 

 half an in.-li. Greenstone occurs also in veins, and it 

 is in this form only that basalt has been observed in 

 Iceland and Faroe. The veins of Iceland, and some 

 of those in Faroe, were found to have their sides vi- 

 treous, somewhat resembling black pitchstonc, and gra- 

 dually passing into the character assumed by the mass 

 of the veins. Greenstone occurs columnar. In the 

 island of Vidoe, there are columns formed of tables se- 

 veral inches in thickness, and from three to five feet 

 in diameter ; and in some instances, from decomposition, 

 easily separable from each other. Some of the tabular 

 columns have the appearance of the tables being com- 

 posed of oval concretions, rendered visible by decom- 

 position. 



Beds of tuf of large dimensions are frequent ; and it" 

 they are to be denominated from the formation in whk-h 

 they occur, they may be called tr:i|> tut. The resem- 

 blance wliich they bear to volcanic tuf is, however, in 

 many case* remarkably strong. They occur most fre- 

 quently among a class of rocks, which have been dis- 

 tinguished by Sir George Mackenzie by the name sub- 

 marine lavas; and we shall now quote from that gen- 

 tleman's account of Iceland, the description of these 

 rocks. He has selected a particular mountain which/ 

 presented a precipitous face about '2000 feet high, and 

 which, but not without considerable difficulty and ha- 

 zard, he and his fellow-travellers ascended, taking spe- 

 cimens from each bed, a series of which is preserved in 

 the cabinet of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. " The 

 mountain of Akkrefell stands perfectly detached, being 

 separated from the mountains of Ksian by the Hval- 

 fiord, and from those towards the north by a flat swam- 

 py country extending several miles. It is bounded on 

 the south and west partly by the Faxefiord, and partly 

 by the Borgarfiord. On the southern side the struc- 

 ture of the mountain is exposed almost from top to bot- 



