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About 150 paces from the Great Geysir are several pools of the most beautifully clear water, tinting with every shade of the purest green and blue the fantastical forms of the silicious travertin which clothes their sides. The slightest motion communicated to the surface quivers down to the bottom of these crystal grottoes, and imparts what might be called a sympathetic tremor of the water to every delicate incrustation and plant-like efflorescence. "Aladdin's Cave could not be more beautiful," says Preyer; and Mr. Holland remarks that neither description nor drawing is capable of giving a sufficient idea of the singularity and loveliness of this spot. In many places it is dangerous to approach within several feet of the margin, as the earth overhangs the water, and is hollow underneath, supported only by incrustations scarcely a foot thick. A plunge into waters of about 200° would be paying rather too dearly for the contemplation of their fairy-like beauty.

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The gigantic chasm of the Almannagja is another of the volcanic wonders of Iceland. After a long and tedious ride over the vast lava-plain which extends between the Skalafell and the lake of Thingvalla, the traveller suddenly finds himself arrested in his path by an apparently insurmountable obstacle, for the

enormous Almannagja, or Allman's Rift, suddenly gapes beneath his feet-a colossal rent extending above a mile in length, and inclosed on both sides by abrupt walls of black lava, frequently upward of a hundred feet high, and separated from about fifty to seventy feet from each other.

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A corresponding chasm, but of inferior dimensions, the Hrafnagja, or Raven's Rift, opens its black rampart to the east, about eight miles farther on; and both form the boundaries of the verdant plain of Thingvalla, which by a grand convulsion of nature has itself been shattered into innumerable small parallel crevices and fissures fifty or sixty feet deep.

Of the Hrafnagja Mr. Ross Browne says: "A toilsome ride of eight miles. brought us to the edge of the Pass, which in point of rugged grandeur far surpasses the Almannagja, though it lacks the extent and symmetry which give the latter such a remarkable effect. Here was a tremendous gap in the earth, over a hundred feet deep, hacked and shivered into a thousand fantastic shapes; the sides a succession of the wildest accidents; the bottom a chaos of broken lava, all tossed about in the most terrific confusion. It is not, however, the extraordinary desolation of the scene that constitutes its principal interest. The resistless power which had rent the great lava-bed asunder, as if touched with pity at the ruin, had also flung from the tottering cliffs a causeway across the gap, which now forms the only means of passing over the great Hrafnagja. No human hands could have created such a colossal work as this; the imagination is lost in its massive grandeur; and when we reflect that miles of an almost impassable country would otherwise have to be traversed in order to

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reach the opposite side of the gap, the conclusion is irresistible that in the battle of the elements Nature still had a kindly remembrance of man.

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“Five or six miles beyond the Hrafnagja, near the summit of a dividing ridge, we came upon a very singular volcanic formation, called the Tintron. It stands, a little to the right of the trail, on a rise of scoria and burnt earth, from which it juts up in rugged relief to the height of twenty or thirty feet. This is, strictly speaking, a huge clinker, not unlike what comes out of a grate -hard, glassy in spots, and scraggy all over. The top part is shaped like a shell; in the centre is a hole about three feet in diameter, which opens into a vast subterranean cavity of unknown depth. Whether the Tintron is an extinct crater, through which fires shot out of the earth in by-gone times, or an isolated mass of lava, whirled through the air out of some distant volcano, is a question that geologists must determine. The probability is that it is one of those natural curiosities so common in Iceland which defy research. The whole country is full of anomalies-bogs where one would expect to find dry land, and parched deserts where it would not seem strange to see bogs; fire where water ought to be, and water in the place of fire."

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"Ages ago," says Lord Dufferin, "some vast commotion shook the foundations of the island; and bubbling up from sources far away amid the inland hills, a fiery deluge must have rushed down between their ridges, until, escaping from the narrower gorges, it found space to spread itself into one broad sheet of molten stone over an entire district of country, reducing its varied surface to one vast blackened level.

One of two things then occurred: either,

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the vitrified mass contracting as it cooled, the centre area of fifty square miles (the present plain of Thingvalla) burst asunder at either side from the adjoining plateau, and sinking down to its present level, left two parallel gjas, or chasms, which form its lateral boundaries, to mark the limits of the disruption; or else, while the pith or marrow of the lava was still in a fluid state, its upper surface became solid, and formed a

FALL OF THE OXERAA.

roof, beneath which the molten stream flowed on to lower levels, leaving a vast cavern into which the upper crust subsequently plumped down." In the lapse of years, the bottom of the Almannagja has become gradually filled up to an even surface, covered with the most beautiful turf, except where the river Oxeraa, bounding in a magnificent cataract from the higher plateau over the precipice, flows for a certain distance between its walls. At the foot of the fall the waters linger for a moment in a dark, deep, brimming pool, hemmed in by a circle of ruined rocks, in which anciently all women convicted of capital crimes were immediately drowned. Many a poor crone, accused of witchcraft, has thus ended her days in the Almannagja. As may easily be imagined, it is rather a nerve-trying task to descend into the chasm over a rugged lava-slope, where the least false step may prove fatal; but the Icelandic horses are so sure-footed that they can safely be trusted. From the bottom it is easy to distinguish on the one face marks and formations exactly corresponding, though at a different level, with those on the face opposite, and evidently showing that they once had dovetailed into each other, before the igneous mass was rent asunder.

Two leagues from Kalmanstunga, in an immense lava-field, which probably originated in the Bald Jökul, are situated the renowned Surts-hellir, or caves of Surtur, the prince of darkness and fire of the ancient Scandinavian mythology. The principal entrance to the caves is an extensive chasm formed by the falling in of a part of the lava-roof; so that, on descending into it, the visitor finds himself right in the mouth of the main cavern, which runs in an almost straight line, and is nearly a mile in length. Its average height is about forty, and its breadth fifty feet. The lava-crust which forms its roof is about twelve feet thick, and has the appearance of being stratified and columnar, like basaltic pillars, in its formation. Many of the blocks of lava thus formed have become detached and fallen into the cavern, where they lie piled up in great heaps, and heavily tax the patience of the traveller, who has to scramble over the rugged stones, and can hardly avoid slipping and stumbling into the holes between them, varied by pools of water and masses of snow. But after having toiled and plodded to the extremity of this dismal cavern, his perseverance is amply rewarded by the sight of an ice-grotto, whose fairy beauty appears still more charming, in contrast with its gloomy vestibule. From the crystal floor rises group after group of transparent pillars tapering to a point, while from the roof brilliant icy pendants hang down to meet them. Columns and arches of ice are ranged along the crystalline walls, and the light of the candles is reflected back a hundred-fold from every side, till the whole cavern shines with astonishing lustre. Mr. Holland, the latest visitor of the Surts-hellir, declares he never saw a more brilliant spectacle; and the German naturalist, Preyer, pronounces it one of the most magnificent sights in nature, reminding him of the fairy grottoes of the Arabian Nights' Tales.

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From the mountains and the vast plateau which occupies the centre of the island, numerous rivers descend on all sides, which, fed in summer by the melting glaciers, pour enormous quantities of turbid water into the sea, or convert large alluvial flats into morasses. Though of a considerable breadth, their

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