Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Blaðsíða 64

54
NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS
wash out a northern sun. This presence of an unsullied at-
mospheric medium, previously tempered by the glaciers and
the sea, and then pervaded all the day and nearly all the night,
by a vitalizing solar glow, is, of course, a phenomenon only
possible in a high arctic land. An additional climatic advantage
possessed by Iceland is the comparative absence, more partic-
ularly marked in the northern provinces, of that especially
malevolent humidity, which springs from the existence of forests
and fens damp with vegetable decay. Still another is the sense
of healthy calm and nervous repose, invariably produced by
the summer life of Iceland upon the mind and body of the
stranger sojourning within her gates, — a mental condition,
which is indeed induced alike by the air of its sand-plains and
lava-fields, and by the atmosphere that floats over the desert
tracts of Egypt and Arabia. In common with Switzerland,
Iceland possesses, but at lower altitudes, and consequently
more conveniently reached, great masses of snow and glaciers
— the Vatnajokull, in the south-east, being the most extensive
field of ice in Europe; and Icelanders know how to recount
instances of remarkable recoveries from the infection of tuber-
culosis by residence in these frozen portions of the island. The
whole country benefits, too, as Switzerland does not, from the
salty breezes of the ocean, so generally, during the sunny season,
both benign and bracing. And finally, it enjoys, as we shall
see, yet one more of nature’s blessings, lacking to all the fre-
quented higher regions of the European continent, namely
innumerable hot springs, of varied constituents and effects,
scattered through each of its four great provinces. Thus all
who seek health in the lofty world of the Alps, or in the cool-
ing winds and refreshing waves of the sea-margins, or in the
thermal sources of Bohemia, or Nassau, or Tuscany, will find
every one of their priceless advantages combined in this single
marvellous land. — Yet there are many other considerations,
which tend to indicate Iceland as the future’s great sanatorium.