The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

32 ISLANDS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC.over 60 miles in length by 20 to 25 in breadth, between the Geysers andiMngvalla, and right away to Reykjanes, the land is filled by one enormousmass of scoria, and the lava field of Odada Hraun, occupying many hundredsquare miles of the interior north of Yatna-Jokull, is composed of beds, each ofwhich mio-ht fill a basin as large as the Lake of Geneva. The source of these lavasis,perhaps, the east Skjaldbrei^, or Trolladyngja, south of the scoria fields, whoselast recorded eruption occurred in 1305.Like the Faroer, the north of Ireland, and the Hebrides, Iceland has manynatural colonnades, presenting the appearance of palaces built by giant hands.The magnificent volcano of Baula, 60 miles north of Reykjavik, is remarkablefor its regular trachyte columns, formerly used by the natives as tombstones, andstill here and there met with covered with Runic inscriptions. Many water-wornheadlands have revealed the inner structure of their basalts, and from the high seasthe coast at Portland Cape, the Yestmann Isles, and a hundred other places isseen to be fringed with columns regularly succeeding each other, like the stems ofa branchless forest.Elsewhere the crests of the weathered rocks seem crowned withpillared temples, while the alternate basalt bluffs and snowy slopes present at timesthe effect of tissues striped in black and white. The columnar masses often assumethe most eccentric forms amidst the snows, which surround and bring into relieftheir angular geometrical outlines. The southern slopes of the Snaefells- Jdkull,where fifty successive layers of lava have been counted, present the most remarkablecolumnar masses of basalt, variously graded by atmospheric action, and assumingsuch strange aspects as those of gigantic polypi. At the foot of this ancientvolcano bluffs and isles are hollowed into grottoes like those of StafTa, and wouldbe no less famous if found in more accessible waters.These igneous rocks contain many substances rarely found in other volcanicregions, and eagerly sought after by collectors. None of these minerals are morehighly prized than the Iceland spar, so indispensable to physicists on account ofits property of double refraction. It is met here and there in small crystals, butin large quantities only along the banks of the Silfra-lcekr (" Silver Brook "),about 350 feet above the north shore of the Eski-Fjor&r, and almost in the verycentre of the east coast. Here it fills a sort of geode, or rounded matrix, 52 feetlong, 26 broad, 13 deep, or rather more than 17,500 cubic feet in size.Sulphur also occurs, especially near Krisuvik, in the south-western peninsula,and in the northern tract stretching from Lake Myvatn to Jokulsa.Here thousandsof solfataras (sulphur sjjrings) have formed vast beds, which have been more or lesssystematically worked since the middle of the sixteenth century. The outlet forthese minerals, which are said to be inexhaustible, is Husavik, one of the bestharbours on the north coast.No less numerous than the solfataras and vende namer ("quick mines ") are thehot springs and mud volcanoes resembling the maccaluhe of Sicily. In severalplaces the thermal springs are copious enough to form tepid rivulets in midwinter,the resort of thousands of trout, which grow so fat that their flesh becomes almostuneatable.