Morasses. Caves. Erratic blocks and glacial grooves. progress being stopped by enormous walls of basalt and obsidian; while other profound chasms radiate from the grand trunk or primary fissure. The general aspect of Iceland is one of utter desolation. The mountains are destitute of herbage, and the valleys are filled with cold morasses. Grass springs on the slight elevations above the swamps, in the dells, and around the lakes. By drainage, a large percentage of marsh might be reclaimed; but some must always remain hopeless bog. The extraordinary amount of swamp is due to the fact that the ground is frozen at the depth of six or eight feet, so that, when there is a thaw, the valleys are flooded, and the water, unable to drain through, rots the soil. In many places a stream is thus completely absorbed, and a considerable tract of land rendered impassable, where the labour of a few weeks would give it a channel, and transmute marsh into productive meadow land. Many bottoms are filled with an amazing depth of rich soil, the wear of volcanic rock, abounding in the constituents necessary for vegetable life. Yet the ignorance of agriculture prevailing in the island has deterred any from turning them to advantage, by draining off the icy water which nips and destroys the tender grass, ready enough to spring. Besides these swamps, there are stone bogs on all high land, caused by the breaking up of the tufa rocks, through the united action of frost and snow: a bed of soft mud and stone is thus formed, which is particularly trying to the horses, who sink in it to their knees, and cut their hoofs with the rocky splinters. There are a considerable number of caves in Iceland, formed in the lava by the generation of gases during the process of cooling. Few of them have been explored; and, indeed, they hardly repay the labour of investigation. Their bottoms are strewn with immense angular fragments of vitreous rock, making the toil of traversing them very considerable. The few caverns which have been examined, are those already known as having been resorted to by outlaws and bandits in historic times. Of these the most interesting are Surtshellir; that of Bárdr Snæfelsás; one in the Hallmundar Hraun; and Paradísarhellar, long regarded by the superstitious as the entrance to regions like those in S. Patrick's purgatory. The openings to similar caves are visible near Myvatn, and in the lava tract above the Raven rift, near Thingvellir. Over the whole surface of the country are to be seen blocks of stone placed in singular positions, much resembling the Logan rocks of Cornwall. These go by the name of Grettistaks, and are perched on high moors or in valleys. That they have been brought by ice can hardly be doubted; the uplands bear many evidences of having been covered by water, and traversed by floating icebergs. In one spot alone did I find unmistakable glacial grooving, and that was along the hill above Bjarg, in Mith-fjord: a complete description of this will be given in Chapter XVII. One of the Grettistaks I have sketched; it will be seen in Plate III. In no case did I find them belonging to other rock formation than that already existing in the island. There are no traces of moraines, except at the skirts of modern glaciers. Rock needles, which abound on the coasts, are named Drángir Rock by the natives. Some of these are very noble. The entrance of needles. the Isa-fjord is guarded by one such, standing up from a platform of basalt high above the water; it goes by the name of "the Sentinel." A curious spire of rock above the Hörgárdalr is illustrated in Plate XI. There are needles in the Skaga-fjord off Drangey, and in the Breithi-fjord. Of roads, there is not one in the whole island; tracks are all Roads. that mark a vegr or way, and these are obliterated at every thaw. The routes are, consequently, indicated by vörthur and occasional kerlingar. The former are heaps of turf, or simply a stone or two placed on a rock, in a manner which the eye will recognize as artificial. The latter are stone pyramids, bearing a fanciful resemblance to old women. Many of these marks are out of repair, and others are too far apart to be of much practical advantage. A few feeble attempts have, in some spots, been made to clear the path of the larger stones, but with little result. The natives complain that the Danish Government does nothing for the roads; but surely each hrepp ought to look after its thoroughfares; and Government is like Providence, it only helps those who help themselves. It is essential for the prosperity of the island that these ways should be kept open for traffic; and Althing might well devote its session to a consideration of the means by which money might be raised for improvements of this nature, instead of frittering away its time in idle grumblings against the mild and merciful rule of Denmark. In certain spots on the surface of Iceland are forests, skogar, Forests. as they are termed by the natives. These consist of low coppices of birch; the trees being mere shrubs, from one to twelve feet high. The Icelanders believe that in former times the growth of birch was much loftier: woods were undoubtedly more abundant, as the Sagas mention forests where no trees grow at the present day, and the underwood still existing rapidly Tempera ture. diminishes to supply the neighbouring farmers with fuel. We The temperature of Iceland is varied. The north is far colder than the south-west, which is washed by a branch of the Gulf Stream. The average temperature of Reykjavík is about the same as that of Moscow, the whole year included. At Reykjavík the average summer heat is 53° 6′ Fahrenheit; winter, 29° 3'; and that for the whole year is 39° 4′. At Akureyri, in the north, on the Eyja-fjord, the average summer heat is 45° 5′; that of the winter, 20° 7'; and the mean for the year is freezing point (Almanak um ár, 1863, af Schjellerup). According to Humboldt, the mean temperature of the year is 40°; of the winter, 29°1'; of the spring, 36° 9'; of the summer, 53° 6' ; of the autumn, 37° 9'; of the warmest month, July, 56° 3'; of the coldest month, February, 28° 22′. Horrebow, in Bessastathr, found the hottest day, in the years 1749-1751, to have been 70° 5', which was the 30th July, 1751; and the coldest to have been 13° 75', on the 25th January of the same year. The maximum heat at Akureyri in the summer is 75° 2′, and in winter the thermometer sinks as low as-29° 2′. It will be seen that there is a difference of seventeen degrees between the average temperature of Reykjavík and Akureyri; so that whilst the mean of the former is very nearly the same as that of Moscow, the mean of Akureyri is about that of Julianshaab, in Greenland. The isotherm of 32°, which is that of Akureyri, touches the north Cape, on the continent of Europe, under latitude 71° N.; from which point it turns suddenly to the south-west, running along the Dovrefjeld. It then takes a bend towards the south-east, and returning to the Arctic Circle, touches Tornea at the head of the Baltic, passes Uleaborg in Finland, dips towards the interior of Russia, more and more south, almost touching Statoust. It then passes the Ural, and leaving Tobolsk on its north, runs nearly parallel with the lines of latitude, reaches Irkutsk, then turns again towards the sea, cuts through the middle of Kamschatka, and reaches the Polar Circle on the north-west of America. In the interior of this continent it makes a rapid descent towards the south, following the Rocky Mountains, touching lake Winnipeg, and cuts the southernmost sweep of Hudson's Bay. From the eastern coast of Labrador it stretches northward once more, and traversing the snowy promontory of Greenland above Julianshaab, returns to the north coast of Iceland. The coldness of the winter depends upon the formation of Greenland ice. Periodically large masses break away and float off south, producing cold summers in England. The Gulf Stream is then able to take a higher sweep, and a succession of mild winters ensue till the ice-fields have again recovered their southern position. This advance and shrinking of the ice is an infallible index to the changes in the temperature of Iceland. There is a saying among the Danes that there is mild weather in Iceland when it is cold in Europe, and vice versá: an observation probably true in the main, though not borne out by fact in the year 1862, when I was in the island. The summer was cold throughout Europe, and also in Iceland: however, there was a difference in one particular; June and July were months of incessant rain throughout England, France, and Germany, whereas I had only three rainy days during the whole of my tour. Thunder and lightning are rare in Iceland, and only occur Meteorological during the winter. pheno The Aurora Borealis is very splendid as soon as the darkness mena. of winter sets in, lighting up the gloomy skies with its glorious scarlet streamers. Other phenomena are the Hrævarelldur, or electric flames, which appear about metallic objects, such as buttons, or stream from the head, like the glories of the saints. Rosabaugur, or storm-rings, form about the moon, and mock suns, called hjásólar, are frequently seen, sometimes to the number of nine at once. Meteors, termed vigahnöttur, and shooting-stars, stjörnurhap, are often observed. Olafsen and Povelsen give a singular account of a circumstance which took place in the summer of 1754. They say that, on a morning when the weather was serene, though the sky was rather cloudy and a slight wind prevailed, there was seen at Eyrarbakki a black cloud coming from the mountains in the north-east, and descend Natural history. ing obliquely through the air towards Eyrarbakki. The nearer it approached the smaller it became, and it darted along with the rapidity of a hawk. This cloud, which then appeared round, flew towards a spot where several persons had assembled, as well strangers as natives, for the purposes of commerce; and on passing rapidly before them, it touched the jaw of a middle-aged man, causing him such pain that he instantly became raving mad and threw himself into the sea! Those who were near him prevented him from drowning; but he remained insane, uttered all sorts of extravagant expressions, and made many forcible attempts to free himself from those who held him. They wrapped his head in flannel, and held him down for some time upon the bed; after two days, the madness abated, but he was not restored to his senses till the expiration of a fortnight. Another account of this phenomenon states that the persons in the company did not perceive the cloud till it came up with them, but simply heard a hissing in the air while it passed: those, however, who were farther off observed its rapid course, and saw it sink and disappear on the sea-coast. The cheek of the man who was touched turned of a deep black and blue colour, which gradually disappeared as he recovered. There can be little doubt that this "cloud" must have been some material flung from Hekla, which erupted that very year. A fireball of a terrific nature was cast up during the eruption of Kötlugjá, in 1755. Hurricanes and whirlwinds traverse Iceland with great rapidity and with enormous violence. One is mentioned in the Gisla Surssonar Saga, which tore the roof off a hall. Olafsen and Povelsen saw a similar whirlwind detach from the shore of Reykja-fjord a large block of stone to which a ship's cable was attached, and whirl it into the sea. Reindeer were Thirteen head were then Of wild animals, foxes are the most plentiful. introduced into the island in 1770. brought from Norway. Of these, ten died during the voyage; but the remaining three increased rapidly, so that at present there are considerable herds in the unpopulated districts of the island, especially in the rolling mountain deserts of the northeast. In winter, the reindeer are hunted down by the natives, for the sake of their flesh and horns. They have never been domesticated, as the country is too uneven and intersected by rivers to render sledging practicable; and, as they devour the esculent lichen, which is an Icelandic staple of food, the reindeer are looked upon with very little favour. Bears come over with the drift-ice from Greenland, but in no |