REYKHOLT. 
257 
of a few paces from this mound is the Snorralang, 
a perfectly circular aperture, about twenty feet in 
diameter and four or five feet deep, cut in the side 
of a small hill, and walled round with square 
pieces of rock, not joined by any cement, but 
neatly placed together, so as to present a very 
even surface. The floor is paved with the same 
materials, and about a foot and half of the lower 
part of the wall projects into it, so as to form a 
bench all round, where twenty or thirty persons 
may, with more convenience than cleanliness, 
bathe at once. The boiling fountain in the im¬ 
mediate vicinity, called Skribla # , affords at all 
times an abundant supply of hot water for the 
bath, into which it is conveyed through long 
wooden troughs. By means of a transverse 
board, moving upon a pivot, the water may be 
directed to the bath, or turned off to another 
course, after a sufficient quantity has been admit¬ 
ted; and, for the purpose of reducing the tem¬ 
perature of this water to the wishes of the persons 
about to bathe, a cold stream, from an adjoining 
spring, is, also, by a similar contrivance, con¬ 
veyed to the basin, or suffered to flow in its 
natural bed. By drawing a plug from a small 
diagonal opening in the bottom of the basin, 
* Near the source of this spring and attached to the inside 
of the wooden troughs, I met with many specimens of An- 
thoceros punctatus , flourishing in a very great degree of heat. 
s 
