1911-1912.] Iceland Spar and the Polariscope. 44 1 



as it approaches nearer to Greenland than any European 

 country, it is by many geographers regarded as belonging to 

 America. Having, however, been first discovered and peopled 

 from Europe, and being in other points more closely related 

 to this continent, it seems but right to consider it as forming 

 a portion of the Eastern Hemisphere. It is situated between 

 30° 20' and 24° 31' of west longitude, and between 63° 23' 

 and 66° 33' of north latitude, being nearly in the same 

 parallel with the Bay of Trondhjem in the Old World and the 

 Behring Straits in the New. The greatest extent of land 

 from east to west, measuring between the two most distant 

 points, is above 320 miles; its breadth from Eeykjanes to 

 Langaness is 300, and at an average 180 miles. It is calcu- 

 lated to contain 38,230 square miles, of which, however, only 

 about one-ninth is inhabited, the remainder being covered with 

 naked mountains of ice, or valleys rendered equally desolate 

 by lava and volcanic ashes. The attention of the spectator, 

 approaching this polar island for the first time, is usually 

 arrested by the snowy mountains ox johuls. Long before the 

 coast is visible they rise like small white clouds in the 

 distant horizon, becoming more distinct in their outline as 

 we draw nearer the land, and are at last plainly recognised 

 as a mass of lofty mountains. Sneefell-Jokul is seen at about 

 120 miles' distance. Notwithstanding the cheerless appear- 

 ance of these mountains of everlasting snow, they are, from 

 their colossal grandeur, objects of great beauty, and when 

 irradiated by the beams of the bright sunlight, with a blue 

 sky beyond them, they shine forth in wonderful splendour, 

 glistening with a dazzling lustre. 



The far - famed double refracting Iceland spar (Plate 

 XXXIX., Fig. 1) is not, as is often supposed, discovered in 

 the vesicles of the trap-rocks. The original place (and up to 

 about two years ago the only one) occurs in a fissure on the 

 northern side of the Eeydarfjord, about eight miles from the 

 village of Eskifjord. The only method of locomotion in 

 Iceland is by means of ponies, there being no such things as 

 railways or carriages. Generally speaking there are no roads, 

 but only tracks or trails, some of which one may lose on the 

 way, and not discover again for several miles. While on the 

 track from Eskifjord to " Silfurbergsnaman," as the Icelanders 



