JOURNEY TO THE GEYSERS. 
shaped summits are plainly seen from Reikevig, 
and by far exceed in height any of the neigh¬ 
bouring hills. At the foot of this, a deep and 
narrow chasm caught our attention, which seem¬ 
ed as if it had been formed by some violent con¬ 
vulsion of nature, and continued for some way 
by the side of our road. Near it, 1 also remark¬ 
ed the perpendicular side of a hill, composed 
of basaltic columns, jointed here and there, like 
those in Staffa, but not more than eight or ten 
inches in diameter, and less regularly columnar. 
From this place, till we got to the banks of the 
Lake of Thingevalle, nothing interesting occurred. 
The country, through which we passed, consisted 
either of a dreary moor, over which large masses 
of rock were every where scattered, or of a 
disagreeable morass, into which our horses every 
now and then sunk up to their bellies. In one of 
these morasses, I passed a woman, driving a horse, 
loaded with the trunk of a tree, which had been 
dug up close by; it was so large, as to appear 
nealy as great a burthen as the beast could well 
walk under, and was, probably, five or six feet 
long, and nearly a foot in diameter. I do not re¬ 
collect meeting with any remarkable plants, but 
what I had before seen about Reikevig, except an 
Orchis , with a singularly inflated and semi¬ 
transparent nectarium, of which I could find no 
description in the Flora Scandinavia ?. Several 
sorts of dwarf willows were common, as well as 
