32 ISLANDS OF THE NOETH ATLANTIC. 



over 60 miles in length by 20 to 25 in breadth, between the Geysers and 

 _pingvalla, and right away to E,eykjanes, the land is filled by one enormous 

 mass of scoria, and the lava field of Odada Hraun, occupying many hundred 

 square miles of the interior north of Yatna-Jokull, is composed of beds, each of 

 which might fill a basin as large as the Lake of Geneva. The source of these lavas 

 is, perhaps, the east Skjaldbrei^, or Trolladyngja, south of the scoria fields, whose 

 last recorded eruption occurred in 1305. 



Like the Faroer, the north of Ireland, and the Hebrides, Iceland has many 

 natural colonnades, presenting the appearance of j)alaces built by giant hands. 

 The magnificent volcano of Baula, 60 miles north of Reykjavik, is remarkable 

 for its regular trachyte columns, formerly used by the natives as tombstones, and 

 still here and there met with covered with Runic inscriptions. ]\[any water-worn 

 headlands have revealed the inner structure of their basalts, and from the high seas 

 the coast at Portland Cape, the Yestmann Isles, and a hundred other pkices is 

 seen to be fringed with columns regularly succeeding each other, like the stems of 

 a branchless forest. Elsewhere the crests of the weathered rocks seem crowned with 

 pillared temples, while the alternate basalt bluffs and snowy slopes present at times 

 the effect of tissues striped in black and white. The columnar masses often assume 

 the most eccentric forms amidst the snows, which surround and bring into relief 

 their angular geometrical outlines. The southern slopes of the Snaefells- Jokull, 

 where fifty successive layers of lava have been counted, present the most remarkable 

 columnar masses of basalt, variously graded by atmospheric action, and assuming 

 such strange aspects as those of gigantic polypi. At the foot of this ancient 

 volcano bluffs and isles are hollowed into grottoes like those of Stafia, and would 

 be no less famous if found in more accessible waters. 



These igneous rocks contain many substances rarely found m other volcanic 

 regions, and eagerly sought after by collectors. None of these minerals are more 

 highly prized than the Iceland spar, so indispensable to physicists on account of 

 its property of double refraction. It is met here and there in small crystals, but 

 in large quantities only along the banks of the Silfra-lœkr (" Silver Brook "), 

 about 350 feet above the north shore of the Eski-Fjor^r, and almost in the verv 

 centre of the east coast. Here it fills a sort of geode, or rounded matrix, 52 feet 

 long, 26 broad, 13 deep, or rather more than 17,500 cubic feet in size. 



Sulj)hur also occurs, especially near Krisuvik, in the south-western peninsula, 

 and in the northern tract stretching from Lake Myvatn to Jokiilsa. Here thousands 

 of solfataras (sulphur springs) have formed vast beds, which have been more or less 

 systematically worked since the middle of the sixteenth century. The outlet for 

 these minerals, which are said to be inexhaustible, is Husavik, one of the best 

 harbours on the north coast. 



No less numerous than the solfataras and vende namer ("quick mines ") are the 

 hot springs and mud volcanoes resembling the maccaluhc of Sicily. In several 

 places the thermal springs are copious enough to forni tepid rivulets in midwinter, 

 the resort of thousands of trout, which grow so fat that their flesh becomes almost 

 uneatable. 



