BOH SPRINGS m ICELAND. 129 



we could conjecture, with any degree of probability, the lavd. 

 to have iflued. It extended round us like a fea ; and it had 

 burfl perhaps from fome part of the country it now covered, 

 while the fire to which it owed its origin, had efcaped with its 

 ihowers of cinders and afhes, from fome other orifice, and had 

 formed one of the numberlefs cones we could difcover amidft 

 the neighbouring hills. 



The unpleafantnefs of our ride over this country was in- 

 creafed by the continual danger to which we were expofed of 

 our horfes falling. The road was no other than what the few 

 travellers of the country, as they pafTed from their farms to 

 Rykavick, had tracked over the lava where it was leaft rough ; 

 but even this was interrupted by many breaks and crevices, 

 formed by the cooling of the matter and the contraction of its 

 parts. 



To this uncomfortable fcene fucceeded the view of a rich 

 valley, opening into an extenfive green plain bounded by the 

 fea. A river was feen winding between feveral fertile mea- 

 dows ; and beyond thefe, the valley was terminated by a range 

 of high and bold rocks. But our attention was chiefly at- 

 tracted by the clouds of fleam, which afcended in various parts 

 of the valley from the hot fprings, and by jets of water which, 

 from fome of them, were incefTantly darted into the air. 



We defcended into the valley by a road winding over the 

 lava, which, in one place, had flowed from the upper plain into 

 the country below. On each fide it had flopped abruptly, and 

 had thus formed a perpendicular wall, at leafl fixty feet high. 



We pitched our tents in a pleafant field, on the fide of the 

 river, oppofite to the farm, and not far from it, and at the foot 

 of the hills which bounded the valley. Several fragments of 

 rocks, which had fallen from thefe, lay fcattered round our fta- 

 tion. Thefe were entirely volcanic ; fome of dark blue lava, 

 not unlike bafalte ; others of a yellow fubftance ; and again 

 others of a gray lava, mixed with a great quantity of white 



Vol. III. R glafs i 



