48 GUIDE TO ICELAND. A remarkable proof of the existence of radiating channels is found in the fact, that during the eruption in the vicinity of the Skaptar Jokull, in 1783, of the most prodigious lava-flood of which we have any record in Iceland Or elsewhere, lava welled forth beneath the sea and built up an islet, ElcLey, a few miles south-west of Reykjanes, over one hundred and fifty miles from the Skaptar Jokull! It would not be a very difficult matter to propound a feasible geological theorem to account for the existence of subterraneous channels in the sub-strata of an island built up, as Iceland has been, chiefly by volcanic agency; but space cannot be spared to do so, this section having already run to a greater length than was intended. In Route 3 mention is made of several places where there is abundant evidence of their existence ; notably in the Asfojrgi, Myvatns Orcefi, Sncefell peninsula and the Vatnsdal. Mention, however, must be made of the eruption from the Kot- lugja fissure in the year a.d. 1660, as it is strongly corroborative of the theory as to Iceland’s formation advanced by the author. The eruption ‘began November 3rd; such was the quantity of sand, stone and debris borne down with the flood from the mountain, that a dry beach was formed where formerly people fished in a depth of twenty fathoms; the coast was pushed 1,000 fathoms out to sea; five or six farmsteads were destroyed’ (Th. Tho- roddsen’s extract from the Icelandic annals). With one such eruption in every decade it would not take many centuries to unite a widely scattered group of islets into one large island! The geologically minded reader will find the genesis of Iceland more fully entered into in the monograph from which the fore- going is extracted; and to this the author must refer those who desire to extend their knowledge of the geology of this strange island. The reader will be able to form some idea of Iceland from the foregoing brief topographical description, and the remarks upon the scenery in the introductory chapter. He will not find it diffi- cult to picture in his mind the wild weirdness of many of its landscapes, where widely extending ice-clad mountains rise from fire-blasted deserts of lava, volcanic ash and sand; nor to imagine that as suddenly as by the stroke of an enchanter’s wand, a scene as calm and peaceful, as the one left was the reverse, may open to his gaze upon descending to the margin of one of the still fjords, or tranquil lakes, lying embosomed amid the snow-clad remnants of the older plateau; whose rocky buttresses on the north have

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