Dec. 



:^i>4] 



i\'ATU:\/: 



more or less irregular : just now, however, it is drawing so long a 

 breath that one fears that its last message has been carried. We 

 are now in the middle of December and the October number ! as 

 not yet been heard of ! ANGELUS 



The Pronunciation of Chinese Names 

 SOM] \\ hat after date, I beg to return to the subject of Anglo- 

 and Franco-Chinese orthography, referred to in Nature, vol. 

 "xx. p. 592. In a short paper of mine published in the Procted- 

 ings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xxii. No. 6, 1877, I 

 alluded to the desirability of a uniform or fixed " Roman equiva- 

 lent" for Chinese characters standing for names of places, &c. 

 I inclose a copy of this paper for in ertion if desirable. To my 

 mind the Italian vowels, &c, come nearest to the sounds of the 

 Chinese characters. Tung-King, meaning "Eastern Capital. 

 is the usually accepted form of Toiiquin, or Ton-Kin, the 

 terminal g being but slightly sounded. Shang-hai, the " Upper 

 Sea," or the place "of going up to the sea," should be pro- 

 nounced with the g, and is so spoken (Shanghai) by English and 

 American authorities. Dr. Wells Williams has, I believe, in 

 manuscript a standard Chinese Gazetteer of the World, in which 

 all proper names likely to be used in telegraphy, newspapers, 

 &c. , are smoothly transliterated into Chinese characters. For 

 translations from Chinese it is very necessary to adopt somesu^h 

 plan as Dr. Hunter has suggested for Indian names. Although 

 his plan has come too late into the field to induce people to spell 

 Calcutta a^ Kolkata, this is hardly the case as yet with Chinese 

 names. The old native names of places should always be literally 

 preserved. How much more beautiful is the 1 Id Franco-Indian 

 name Stadaconda than Quebec for the scene of the death of 

 Wolfe ! I should be glad to co-operate or correspond with any 

 interested in this matter, so prominent and important at the 

 present juncture. F. Porter Smith 



Ililhvorth House, Shepton Mallet, December 12 



EXPLORATIONS IN ICELAND 1 



The Lava Desert of OdaSahraun 



III. 



"THE second part of my programme included the ex- 

 *■ , ploration of the western and southern portions of 

 the OdaSahraun Desert. In this journey I spent a fort- 

 night during the latter half of August, a thoroughly rough 

 and arduous time, on account of the very unsettled 

 weather alternating between cold and rain, tempestuous 

 gales, snowstorms, and sand-hurricanes. My journey 

 extended to 240 English miles, but only two oases of 

 grass were discovered the whole way. Along the skirts 

 of Vatnajokul, throughout the whole extent of the lavas 

 and sand plateaus which form the northern fringe or 

 border intersecting it from OdaSahraun, not one single 

 blade of grass, nay, not even signs of mosses or lichens, 

 are anywhere discoverable, hence we were obliged to pro- 

 vide ourselves with fodder for the horses in the shape of 

 hay, oats, and maize dough. 



The results of the journey are in every way as good as, 

 under the circumstances, I could have anticipated. Now 

 at last the whole of OdaSahraun, with its surrounding 

 wildernesses, has been explored. The weather was often 

 enough sufficiently clear and fair to give me an opportu- 

 nity to note all that required surveying The few who 

 have travelled over various parts of these deserts before 

 me have seen next to nothing, on account of bad weather. 

 < >daSahraun, as stated in a former letter, is the largest lava- 

 desert not only in Iceland, but in all Europe ; the main por- 

 tion of it has been formed by volcanic activity in Iceland 

 in prehistoric times ; but since the discovery of the island, 

 even down to our own day, the region has witnessed a 

 succession of eruptions. The various lava flats form one 

 plateau, the bounds of which are determined on the east 

 by Jdkulsa in Axarfjord, south by Vatnajokul, west by 

 Skjalfandafljdt, north by Myvatn. At its southern ex- 

 tremity it rises to 3200, at its northern to from 1400 to 

 1500, feet above the level of the sea. Altogether I took 



1 Continued from vol. xxx. p. 585. 



there about two hundred barometric and trigonometrical 

 elevations and surveys. The separate lava-flats are due 

 to about twenty separate volcanoes, honeycombed by 

 hundreds of craters. Several of the separate lavas are, 

 to the extent of many tens of square miles, one unbroken 

 flat lava-field as it were : others, again, all torn up and 

 disrupted, in some cases almost, in others entirely, im- 

 passable. The substratum of OdaSahraun is palagonite- 

 tuffand breccia, over the top of which is spread the doleritic 

 lava, the origin of which dates from before the Glacial 

 period. Above all the modern lavas have flowed. All the 

 mountains that tower above the lava consist of palagonite 

 breccia ; along their roots and spurs are frequently found 

 rows of craters, as well as those shield-fashioned volcanoes 

 from which the lavas have welled out. The largest volca- 

 noes have been built up entirely by lava-floods, which lit. ve 

 flowed successively over each other, so as to form 

 enormous convexities presenting an equal inclination to 

 every side, but so slight as to amount to only a few 

 degrees. This kind of volcano, which in the north 

 country is generally designated by the name of Dyngja, 

 reaches in Iceland nowhere such dimensions as in 

 OdaSahraun, as for instance Kolldtta- Dyngja, Trolla- 

 dyngja, Kerlingar- Dyngja, Ketil-Dyngja. In some places 

 many rows of craters are ranged together along rifts from 

 north-east to south-west, as on Reykjanes, and in 

 Dyngjufjdll, where the craters around Askja and along 

 the slopes of the mountains are practically innumerable. 

 In OdaSahraun proper hardly any water is found ; rain 

 sinks through the lava, and emerges again from under its 

 edges in many small rivers and springs. The southern- 

 most portion of OdaSahraun has already been buried 

 under glacial mud and sand from Vatnajokul, incessantly 

 poured over its edge towards the north by innumerable 

 glacial rivulets, that mostly vanish into the underlying 

 sands and the lavas over which they are spread. Some 

 of the larger streams, however, find their way eastward 

 to Jdkulsa in Axarfjord, and a few into Skjalfandafljdt. 

 In consequence of the elevation of OdaSahraun above the 

 level of the sea, and of its waterless condition, it is a region 

 almost barren of vegetation! On the drift-sand a few 

 tufts ol Ely m in arenarius or stray specimens of Statice 

 armeria and Cerastium alpinum may be found. Round 

 the skirts of OdaSahraun, where the water wells forth, a 

 good deal of vegetation shows in some places, especially 

 along the western fringes, in the valleys of Skjalfandafljdt, 

 where summer-pastures form the sheep-walks of the 

 inhabitants of BarSardal. On the eastern side of OdaSa- 

 hraun there are only two oases — HerSubreiSarlindir and 

 Hvannalindir, and here the vegetation is confined to the 

 banks of springs, its most distinguishing feature being the 

 Angelica archangelica, which grows in small clusters or 

 bushes everywhere along the banks of the brooks. There 

 occur likewise some species of the slighter kinds of 

 willow, such as Salix glauca, S. pkyllicifolia, S. herbacea, 

 as well as a few species of heather. Over the watered 

 shingle-flats about HerSubreio'arlindir there are spread in 

 parts red carpets of the lovely French willow-herb {Epilo- 

 bunii angustifolium). Insect life is very poorly represented, 

 hardly anything being visible, save a few Diptera. To 

 the south of OdaSahraun not a plot of grass is to be seen, 

 except at Gassavotn, in Vonarskaro", where the vegetation 

 is of the scantiest kind, comprising indeed little more than 

 the Salix herbacea. Along glacial streams no sign of 

 vegetation is ever apparent here ; what little occurs grows 

 along fresh-water springs. 



It might be imagined that such a volcanic region as 

 Odaoahraun would be rich in hot springs, solfataras, &c. 

 But such is not the case. The main portion of the lava 

 is now so old, that all such volcanic phenomena seem to 

 have died out. Of warm springs only two may be said 

 to be still in existence, both on the western side of the 

 lava ; yet they are only lukewarm (respectively 33J and 

 35?° C.) About Gaesavotn such springs obviously once 



