rim or mouth of one, and elevated about ten or twelve feet from the above-mentioned lava. On climbing to its top, we found the edge extremely rugged, sharp, and vitrified, having an orifice from six to seven feet wide, and gradually becoming narrower for a few feet as it descended, then widening again, and forming a hole, whose depth I was by no means able to ascertain. That it did not descend exactly in a vertical direction for any great length of way, was made evident by throwing in a stone, which soon struck upon some projecting ledge or bend in the pipe. The color of this cone on the outside was a deep greyish brown, almost inclining to black, and in some places a full red, considerably darker than the lava it stood upon, which appeared to have been exposed to a less degree of heat. There was no smoke, nor any smell of sulphur to be perceived; nor, to judge from the grass that grew in thick tufts some way down the crater, had there been any for a great length of time. The natives, too, had no tradition of its having thrown out fire, neither was the place itself known to many who lived in this quarter of the island. Sir John Stanley seems to have passed over

a part of this same bed of lava, during his travels, and was at a loss to imagine whence such a prodigious mass could have issued. I should have been equally so, if it had not been for the friendly priest Egclosen, who alone, of several Icelanders now with us, was acquainted with this crater, which undoubtedly gave birth to a portion, at least, of the lava that surrounds it. Having spent some time here, and made a few sketches of the spot, as well as the violence of the wind would allow me, we took leave of Egclosen and Thorlavsen, and continued our journey. We descended from the little eminence on which the crater stood, and arrived in a short time at the foot of a great mountain, whose sides appeared entirely composed of fragments of bare rock, varied, indeed, between the interstices with patches of Trichostomum; but these of small size, and scattered at not small intervals: near the summit the snow lay in considerable quantity, over, perhaps, a solid bed of rock *. As we passed round the foot

* I have observed mountains in Iceland more lofty than this, composed entirely of loose pieces of rock, with their summits perfectly free from snow; whilst others in their vicinity, of much less elevation, but solid in their structure, were thickly covered with it.

of this huge and luinpish mountain, other more lofty ones, and with more rugged summits, but almost of a black color, came in sight. On reaching the bottom of a steep hill, we entered a small and fertile valley, the fertility of which was the more apparent and the more pleasant from its being shut in, almost on every side, by these high black mountains. At one extremity of this valley, upon an eminence of lava, we remarked several conical masses of rock, which appeared to be the apertures of extinguished craters, and exactly of the same nature as the one we had just left. They, however, were too far from us to allow of our examining them, as it would have detained us a day more, before we could arrive at the Geysers. I therefore proposed staying here, if possible, on my return, and contented myself, for the present, with going a little way up a gulley, in one of the mountains, to look at a cave, which an Icelander in our party had assured us was worth seeing, though I must confess I found in it nothing remarkable. It was an opening in the side of the mountain, barely six feet high, by twenty or thirty feet deep, excavated in a black sand stone, which, (at least

that part of it that had not been exposed to the air,) was of a very shining quality. Although the whole of this mountain appeared to be composed of sand-stone rock, yet it was not all equally soft: some lay in interrupted, but horizontal, strata of several feet in thickness, and of a very firm and compact nature, not being so easily washed down by the torrents of snow water, as the rest of the mountain, but remaining firm, and projecting from its sides in various places, and of a browner color. Continuing our journey, we crossed a rugged moor of considerable extent, and at length entered upon an immense plain, a great part of which was either a morass, or covered with a Lake, called Apn-Vatn. From the water near the margin we saw at a distance, at a place known by the name of Laugardalr*, a great quantity of steam rising in three or four columns. On approaching, we found it caused by some boilingsprings, one of which was of considerable size, and proceeded from an opening in the rock in a very shallow part of the lake, throwing up a very beautiful jet about four

* Laugar is a term applied to the warm baths, in Iceland.

feet in height, and of nearly the same width. At the margin of the water, nearest the hotspring, was a border of sulphur, which covered the stones with a thin yellow incrustation. Three or four other boiling-springs, also, were close by, some a little way in the lake, and others rising from the dry ground, but all of a small size. The rest of our road to Middalr, where we proposed passing the night, was along the margin of the lake, and we reached the place about eight o'clock in the evening; having travelled the whole day without resting the horses. Our tents were placed near the church and the house of the priest, who soon came down to welcome us, and offer any thing that his parsonage would afford. As the most necessary, I first requested that we might have some fire prepared to cook our victuals by; during which operation I was witness to a scene that afforded me no small degree of amusement. After Jacob had been gone into the house some considerable time with the fish that was to be dressed for our dinners, I began to be rather impatient, and begged to be shewn into the kitchen, that I might see if any thing had happened. I was conducted thi