The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

36 ISLANDS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC.artesian wells sunk near the coast. The heavier salt water penetrating throughthe deep fissures slowly upheaves the lighter fluid, which again subsides with theebb. These land tides are generally one hour behind those of the sea.The Iceland seaboard is indented with numerous fiords, and the north-westpeninsula especially presents a striking example of such diversified shores. Butas a whole the coasts are less varied in this respect than Norway, Greenland,Fig. 15. North-TVest Peninsula of Iceland.Scale 1 : 150,000.North Scotland, or the Hebrides. This is probably due to the frequent volcaniceruptions, and to the consequent more rapid distribution of the alluvia. Theashes thrown up by the volcanoes, and the sudden floods produced by the meltingof the snows about the craters, combined with the torrents of lava, have filled inmost of the fiords on the south side, where nothing now remains except a fewestuaries, or even basins already separated from the sea by narrow strips of sand.