tS . VULCANIC INDICATION S. 



Selvahamar is a tremendous range of vulcanic rocks, compofed entirely of 

 flaws, and covered in the feafon with fea fowl. It is endlefs to name all the places 

 which bear the marks of fire, in various forms, either by being vitrified, changed. 

 to a fiery color, ragged, and black ; or bear the marks of having run in a fmooth. 

 floping courfe for miles to the fea, and hardened into memorials of the horrible 

 phaenomenon. 



The ifland produces moft forts of the lava which other vulcanic places have 

 thrown up; the dark grey perforated kind, fimilar to the toadftone oi Derbyjhire;. 

 the Iceland agate, or pumex vkreus, both the tiiger and viridis : fbme have con- 

 leflured this to have been the lapis objidlanus of the antients, which they formed 

 into ftatues *. The fineft I ever faw was brought from Vulcano, off the coaft of 

 Sicily^ but it feems very ill calculated for fculpture. The pumex vulcani is alio 

 found here, the cinerarius; and the arenaceus. Befides \h.<i futurhra7id, jet is found 

 here in quantity. 



Certain iron ores are found in different parts ; and that elegant copper ore, thg 

 malachites, with a naturally poliflied green furface rifing into tubera, is not unfre- 

 quenf. Harrebow fpeaks of native filver ; but the mineral wealth of the ifland will 

 probably be long latent. The flavery under which the poor natives labor, will 

 ever difcourage from effecSting a difcovery, of which others are to reap the 

 advantage, 



A ftratum of fulphur is found near Myvatn, from nine inches to two feet in 

 thicknefs ; it is partly of a lemon colour, and partly of a deep orange. Immedi- 

 ately over the fulphur is a blue earth ; above that a vitriolic and aluminous earth j 

 and beneath the fulphur a ftratum of reddifh bole. This fulphur has been worked 

 and refined by the commercial company of Copenhagen. Semipellucid, and I think 

 - genuine native fulphurs, are unknown in Iceland. 



Basaltes, in variety of forms or degrees of cryftallization, are found in 

 many parts of Iceland, from a cracked furface, to a completion of the columnar 

 Siape. 



Hueravalle is fpoken of by Ollaffen as the moft furprifing colledion of boiling 

 water, otjet d'eaux, m the ifland. The mountain grafs grows in plenty near them j 

 and not far from the burning hugel, or tumulus, formed round one of thefe jets,, 

 is a lake in which fwans were fwimming ; and in a fmall Ipring were feveral 

 trouts : fo near to each other is the cold and the boiling water. Eaftward and 

 fouthward are great trads of Kiol-hrciun, or traits covered with vaft maflTes of 

 hva. Hueravalle takea its name from huerfwa, to whirl round ; wadirhwirfel 



* Plinii Hift. Nat, lib, xxxvi. c, xxvi. 



fignifies> 



