VAUX — VOLCANIC ROCKS OF ICELAND. 
175 
THE SPIRIT OF GOOD BOOKS. 
NOTICES OF THE VOLCANIC ROCKS AND GEYSIRS OF 
ICELAND. 
EXXEACTED FEOM LoED DuFFEEIN's " LeTTEES FEOM HiGH LATITUDES." 
By the Rev. J. E. Yaux, A.M. 
ICotitinued from page 116.) 
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 an-ested 
the further progress of the lava torrent. A lovelier scene I have 
seldom witnessed. In the foreground lay huge masses of rock and 
