28 ISLANDS OF THE NOETII ATLANTIC. 



• perfect cone at the extremity of the peninsuhi, on the north side of Faxa Bay, its 

 snowy crest forming a prominent landmark, visible to the navigator as he rounds 

 the blufifs of Reykjanes, on the south-west side of the island. The great north- 

 western peninsula, connected with the rest of the land by an isthmus 5 miles wide, 

 is also very mountainous, many of its numerous headlands rising from 700 to 2,000 

 feet above the water. The northern capes are mostly also commanded by abrupt 

 escarpments, while on the east side are several peaks over 3,000 feet high, whose 

 sharp outlines are visible at a great distance, towering above the surrounding fogs. 

 The Oraefa-Jokull, culminating point of the island, lies at the southern angle 

 of the great Vatna-Jokull table-land, and is C,410 feet high, or about four times the 

 mean elevation of the land. 



Yiewed as a whole, Iceland maj' be compared to a plane inclined to the west, or 

 rather south-west. The most thickly peopled district is that which has the least 

 mean elevation, and here is also situated the capital, Reykjavik. 



The line of perpetual snow varies on the mountains with their latitude and 

 a«;pects : still it is higher than might be supposed from the name of the island. 

 In many places crests over 3,300 feet are completely free of snow during the 

 summer, and 2,800 to 2,850 feet may be taken as the mean. The term fell is 

 applied to heights free of snow in summer ; jokiill to those which always remain 

 covered. 



Glaciers, properly so called, are rare. ])oubtless a great part of the surface is 

 covered yvith. joklnr ; * but most of these frozen masses are very slightly, if at all, 

 inclined, and their highest crests rise scarcely a hundred yards above the surround- 

 ing plains. Owing to their relatively motionless state, the snow is seldom, or very 

 imperfectly, transformed to ice. Such a vast snow-field is the Klofa- Jokull, or Yatna 

 (6,300 feet), spreading over the south-west of the island for a space of about 3,000 

 square miles. True glaciers are found at the entrance of the gorges separating 

 the mountain masses, and of these the first to be studied was that of Geitland, 

 which fills an upland valley near Hval-Fjor^r,t north of Reykjavik. It was visited 

 about the middle of the last century by Olafsson and Palsson, who detected the 

 presence of crevasses, surface streams, " caldrons," " tables," and moraines, and 

 endeavoured to account for them. According to the natives this glacier enclosed 

 a deep and cultivated valley, inhabited by a tribe of men of the woods, sprung from 

 the ancient giants. But the largest and most rapid glaciers are the Skri^joklar, 

 flowing from the Yatna- Jdkull snows in the south-east of the island. They reach 

 the neighbourhood of the sea, and in their general character resemble those of 

 Switzerland. 



As in the rest of Europe, the Iceland glaciers have their periods of expansion 

 and contraction. In the middle of the last century they were in a state of 

 development, for Olafsson and Palsson saw some of recent formation near 

 Borgar-Fjor^r, on the west coast. Now, however, they seem to be generally 

 decreasing in size in the same ratio as those of Switzerland, although Watts speaks 



* riural oïjnhill. 

 . i The letter D, ^, is the soft English ih, as in the, these; p, \, is the hard th of thrust, thunder. 



