450 FEXNELL : SOME PHYSICAL FEATURES IN ICELAND. 
the basalt in Iceland is in many places 10,000 feet in 
thickness. This country is remarkable for the large fissures 
which run from north to south in the north of the island, and 
in the south the direction is generally N.E. to S.W. From 
these fissures in many cases have issued streams of lava, and 
they are now sometimes marked out with springs of boiling 
water. Unfortunately the time I had on land did not give me 
the opportunity of studying these matters of great geological 
interest so carefully as I should have liked. I am therefore 
intending to confine my remarks, which shall be very brief, to 
three physical features which particularly attracted my attention. 
1. Weathering and disintegration of the coast line. 
2. Characteristic " tussocky " condition of large surface 
areas. 
3. The Icelandic Puzzle — Stone Outlines. 
1. Weathering and Disintegration of the Coast. 
After spending several days at that most interesting group 
of Islands, the Freroes, Avhich are situated midway between 
Scotland and Iceland, and which are entirely volcanic, being 
built up of lavas and sheets of basalt, forming the characteristic 
terrace-like escarpments seen on almost every hillside, which 
(especially in Iceland) are frequently made the more prominent 
by a line of snow, also noting the flat tops of some of the 
islands so distinctively of trap formation, it was particularly 
interesting to note as we travelled north round the coast of 
Iceland, how the denudation of this magnificent coast was 
gradually forming what will in seons yet to come be a group of 
islands very similar to the Fseroes in their general appearance. 
We are informed that the great volcanic island of Iceland 
is connected with the Faeroes by a submarine volcanic ridge, and 
Sir Archibald Geikie tells us that nowhere in Europe are the 
lessons of denudation more eloquently taught than at the Fjeroes. 
I think we may say without fear of contradiction that this 
eloquence is extended to the coast of Iceland, especially between 
Dyrafjord and Isafjord. 
