ICELAND. 



79 



is only +33°, though even this shows a comparatively mild climate in so high 

 a latitude. But if Iceland, thanks to its insular position and to the influence 

 of the Gulf Stream, remains free from the excessive winter cold of the Arctic 

 continents, its summer, on the other hand, is inferior in warmth to that w^hich 

 reigns in the interior of Siberia, or of the Hudson's Bay territories. 



The mean summer temperature at Reykjavik is not above 4-54°; during 

 many years the thermometer never rises a single time above + 80° ; sometimes 

 even its maximum is not higher than +59° ; and, on the northern coast, snow 

 not seldom falls even in the middle of summer. Under such circumstances, the 

 cultivation of the cereals is of course impossible ; and when the drift-ice re- 

 mains longer than usual on the northern coasts, it prevents even the growth of 

 the grass, and want and famine are the consequence. 



The Icelandic summer is characterized by constant changes in the weather, 

 rain continually alternating with sunshine, as with us in April. The air is but 

 seldom tranquil, and storms of terrific violence are of frequent occurrence. 

 Towards the end of September winter begins, preceded by mists, which finally 

 descend in thick masses of snow. Travelling over the mountain-tracks is at 

 this time particularly dangerous, although cairns or piles of stone serve to 

 point out the way, and here and there, as over the passes of the Alps, small huts 

 have been erected to serve as a refuge for the traveller. 



In former times Iceland could boast of forests, so that houses and even ships 

 used to be built of indigenous timber; at present it is almost entirely destitute 

 of trees, for the dwarf shrubberies here and there met with, where the birch 

 hardly attains the height of twenty feet, are not to be dignified with the name 

 of woods. A service-tree (Sorbus anciiparia) fourteen feet high, and measur- 

 ing three inches in diameter at the foot, is the boast of the governor's garden 

 at Reykjavik ; it is, however, surpassed by another at Akureyre, which spreads 

 a full crown twenty feet from the ground, but never sees its clusters of berries 

 ripen into scarlet. 



The damp and cool Icelandic summer, though it prevents the successful cul- 

 tivation of corn, is favorable to the growth of grasses, so that in some of the 

 better farms the pasture-grounds are hardly inferior to the finest meadows in 

 England. About one-third of the surface of the country is covered with vege- 

 tation of some sort or other fit for the nourishment of cattle ; but, as yet, art 

 has done little for its improvement — ploughing, sowing, drainage, and levelling 

 being things undreamt of. With the exception of the grasses, which are of 

 paramount importance, and the trees, which, in spite of their stunted propor- 

 tions, are of great value, as they supply the islanders with the charcoal needed 

 for shoeing their horses, few of the indigenous plants of Iceland are of any use 

 to man. The Angelica archangelica is eaten raw with butter ; the matted 

 roots or stems of the Menyanthes trifoliata serve to protect the backs of the 

 horses against the rubbing of the saddle ; and the Icelandic moss, which is fre- 

 quently boiled in milk, is Ukewise an article of exportation. The want of bet- 

 ter grain frequently compels the poor islanders to bake a kind of bread from 

 the seeds of the sand-reed (Elymus arenarius)^ which on our dunes are merely 

 picked by the birds of passage ; and the oarweed or tangle {Laminaria sac- 



