442 Iceland Spar and the Polariscope. [Sess. 



call the mine, one passes through a large whaling -station, 

 carried on by N'orwegians, and to any one at all interested in 

 the manner of capturing and the subsequent disposal of these 

 large creatures, a halt should be made here. The whaling- 

 station is about half-way from Eskifjord to the spar mine. 

 The mine is situated about 1000 feet distant up the mountain- 

 side from the fjord. A small brook rushes down and brings 

 with it many small fragments of spar, and it was this fact 

 that led to the discovery of the mine. It is generally believed 

 to have been a land-slide which laid bare the spar, but of the 

 date of its discovery we have no certain knowledge. If we 

 follow the stream up the mountain -side we come to the 

 actual mine (Plate XXXIX., Fig. 2). The water has caused 

 great havoc from the fact that in winter it freezes in the 

 small fissures of the spar, and bursts it in all directions. The 

 origin of this mass of material is involved in great obscurity, 

 though it seems probable that it is a portion of some stratum 

 carried up to its present position by the trap-rocks. Any 

 void spaces in the spar are generally covered by beautiful 

 stilbite crystals. Its chief distinction is that the individual 

 parts have a greater magnitude and purity than is common in 

 limestone. 



The distance from the shore to the mine is about 1000 

 feet, as I have already stated. The actual height above sea- 

 level, as far as I can remember it, measured by the aneroid, 

 is fully 300 feet. The length of the mine is 130 feet, the 

 breadth 75 feet, and the average depth about 30 to 40 feet. 

 The mine is not what one generally supposes a mine to be, 

 inasmuch as it is open to the sky, and is therefore more 

 of the nature of a quarry. The finest pieces of spar are 

 generally found in the shape of boulders, embedded in a 

 yellowish clay, from which the pieces have to be dug out with 

 wooden spades, so as not to destroy the spar. The first owner 

 of the mine was an Icelandic clergyman of the name of 

 Erlendsson, belonging to Dupivogr. He was owner of the 

 land on which the spar was found, and hired the mine in 

 1857 to Svenssen, a Danish merchant in Eskifjord, and this 

 man was the first to start working the mine. He worked it 

 for four years, and built the hut which stands to this day. 

 He was not very successful in finding good spar. The next 



