A Visit to Lonely Iceland 



741 



brother, Mr Paul Bjarnarson, and noth- 

 ing can better illustrate the hospitality 

 and courtesy of the Icelanders than the 

 fact that these gentlemen took voluntarily 

 three days of their time to accompany us 

 over a section of their island with which 

 our guide was unfamiliar. At Prestholar 

 we saw the message found in the drift- 

 cask set loose by the Geographical So- 

 ciety of Philadelphia, the probable drift 

 of which was outlined in the National 

 Geographic Magazine for January, 

 1906. The cask had been picked up by 

 a farmer living near Prestholar, and be- 

 ing unable to read the message it con- 

 tained, although it was printed in four 

 languages, he had taken it to the Messrs 

 Bjarnarson, by whom it was forwarded 

 to Philadelphia. 



Our principal concern in going to 

 Rifstangi was to reach by land the most 

 northerly point in Iceland, and, if the 

 memory of the immediate inhabitants of 

 this district may be relied upon as accu- 

 rate, no foreigners had ever before 

 reached the spot in this way. There is 

 nothing particularly difficult about this 

 part of the trip, except that the road, if 

 it may be called a road at all, for the last 

 few hours of the ride leads over an un- 

 broken mass of boulders and round 

 stones, among which any other horse 



than a native pony would inevitably break 

 his leg. 



From Rifstangi to Seydisfjord, whence 

 we left for Scotland, the trip was com- 

 paratively uneventful. The east coast of 

 Iceland is exceedingly mountainous, and 

 each day succeeded the preceding in sub- 

 stantially the same way — i. e., we would 

 ascend some mountain in the morning, 

 travel across a high plateau for the 

 greater part of the day, and descend to 

 some farm or coast town in a valley or 

 fjord for the night. The descent to Sey- 

 disfjord was particularly beautiful. After 

 winding in and out among great ridges 

 of rock, the road bends abruptly and the 

 little town at the head of the fjord comes 

 suddenly into view far below, each little 

 white-painted house a mere speck in the 

 distance. From this point it is nearly 

 two hours' ride to the town itself. 



The trip which I have detailed above 

 occupied approximately four weeks. Dur- 

 ing that time we had abundant oppor- 

 tunity for observing the character and 

 disposition of the simple people to whom 

 Iceland is "home." Even should the 

 marvelous scenery of the island fail to 

 awaken the visitor's enthusiasm, he can- 

 not leave its shores without admiration 

 for the loyalty and devotion of its in- 

 habitants to a land so unfavored both 

 by nature and geographical position. 



THE LAND OF FIRE* 



By Herr Jon Stefansson, Ph. D. 



GEOGRAPHICALLY and geo- 

 logically Iceland is part of — a 

 continuation of — the British 

 Isles, for it is situated on the same sub- 

 marine mountain ridge, stretching from 

 southeast to northwest across the North 

 Atlantic, the average depth on it being 

 1,500 feet to 2,000 feet, while north and 

 south of it 12,000 feet is the average depth. 



reached by sounding. According to Prof. 

 James Geikie, land connection between 

 Greenland and the British Isles must 

 have existed in Cenozoic times, for relics 

 of the same Tertiary flora are found in 

 Scotland, the Faroes, Iceland, and Green- 

 land. 



It is as rational to call this island Ice- 

 land as it is to call an ice-sheet meas- 



* Abstracted from "Iceland; its History and Inhabitants." By John Stefansson. 

 sonian Institution, 1907. 



Smith- 



