VAUX VOLCANIC ROCKS OF ICELAND. 



175 



THE SPIEIT or GOOD BOOKS. 



NOTICES OF THE YOLCANIC EOCKS AND GEYSIRS OF 



ICELAND. 



EXTEACTEI) FKOM LoED DuFEEEIn's " LeTTEES FEOM HiGH LATITUDES." 



By the Rev. J. E. Vadx, A.M. 



{Continwd from page 146.) 



The name " Iceland " raises ideas, especially in the winter time, the 

 reverse of cheering ; and a subsequent low average of fingers and toes 

 suggests itself as no very unlikely price to pay for witnessing the 

 marvels of Thing Yalla. Gentle reader ! what think you of an al 

 fresco breakfast taken on the plain, in shirt-sleeves, with a white 

 handkerchief wrapped round the head for fear of the sun, the whole 

 landscape gleaming and glowing in the beauty of one of the hottest 

 summer days I ever remember ?" Such is the description given of the 

 summer climate as the party encamped to examine the place more 

 in detail. 



Descending the gorge of the Almanna Gja, they went towards the 

 lake. The perpendicular walls of rock rose on either hand from the 

 flat greensward that carpeted its bottom, pretty much as the waters of 

 the Red Sea must have risen on each side of the fugitive Israelites. A 

 blaze of light smote the face of one cliff, while the other lay in the 

 deepest shadow ; and on the rugged surface of each might still be 

 traced corresponding articulations that once had dovetailed into each 

 other, ere the igneous mass was rent asunder. So unchanged, so recent, 

 seemed the vestiges of this convulsion, that I felt as if I had been 

 admitted to witness one of nature's grandest and most violent operations, 

 almost in the very act of its execution. A walk of about twenty 

 minutes brought us to the borders of the lake — a glorious expanse of 

 water, fifteen miles long, by eight miles broad, occupying a basin 

 formed by the same hills, which must also, I imagine, have arrested 

 the further progress of the lava torrent. A lovelier scene I have 

 seldom witnessed. In the foreground lay huge masses of rock and 



