ICELAND : ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 165 



ice sheet measuring several hundred thousand square miles 

 Greenland. Iceland is not a bleak, arctic region, embedded 

 in tliickribbed ice, thougli its northmost peninsula, Kifstangi, 

 projects about a mile north of the Arctic Circle. Situate 

 between 63° 24' and G6° 33' north latitude, yet its thermic 

 anomaly is such, owing to the Gulf Stream, that the mean 

 temperature of tJie month of January at Stykkisholra, on the 

 Avest coast of Iceland, is 34-5° F. higher than it should be in 

 that latitude. It is surprising that January at Eeykjavik is 

 milder by ^° than at Milano, North Italy, or 1° F. milder 

 than at Munich on 48° 9' north latitude, i.e., 3^° further 

 south than London (51° 33' north latitude), while the mean 

 annual for the same place is but 1° less than at St. John's,^ 

 16° further south, namely, 39-5° F., or as much as that of 

 parts of Asia situate over*17° (over 1,000 miles) further south. 

 Grimsey, off North Iceland, cut in two halves by the Arctic 

 Circle, IS 5° F. warmer in January than Stockholm. The 

 coolness of the summer, however, reduces the annual mean. 

 The mean temperature of summer at Reykjavik is only 53° F. 

 (July, 59-20° F.). The sea round the south, west, and east 

 coasts of Iceland is never less than 41° F., while on the north 

 coast the nearness of Polar ice, pack ice drifting down from 

 Greenland occasionally every four or five years, causes a fall 

 in temperature. 



It will thus be seen that Iceland has a temperate climate, 

 while the clearness of its atmosphere rivals that of Italy. 

 "A medium of matchless purity" this combination of sea 

 and mountain air has been well called, and it is most bracing 

 and exhilarating, "like drinking champagne," an English 

 traveller says in her book on Iceland. It is freer from 

 microbes than the air of any part of Europe, and, according 

 to the researches of Dr. W. L. Brown, the blood of an Ice- 

 lander does, on an average, contain more hremoglobine than 

 that of other inhabitants of Europe. 



No country on earth of equal size contains so varied and 

 wonderful natural phenomena. The glaciers of Switzerland, 

 the fjords, salmon rivers and midnight sun of Norway, the 

 volcanoes, grottoes and solfataras of Italy — on a grander 

 scale — the mineral springs of Germany, the geysers of New 

 Zealand, the largest Avaterfall, next to Niagara, in the Avorld, 

 the Dettifoss, all are here. Nowhere has nature been so 

 spendthrift in giving a geological lesson to man. If there 

 be sermons in stones volumes lie unread here. Here we see 

 her titanic forces at work building up a country. 



