Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Blaðsíða 69

NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS
59
other quarters, may indeed be melancholy, yet they are none
the less awsome to the eye and impressive to the imagination.
The lesser crevices in the lava, not infrequently lined with the
pendant tresses of the maiden-hair fern, mirrored, with a back-
ground of sky, in a limpid pool at the bottom, show that even
below its surface Iceland has its half-hidden gems. On a larger
scale are the rocky grottoes like Surtshellir, which, with its roof-
adorning icicles, is a miracle of subterranean singularity,
rendered more attractive by the quaint legends of which it is
the scene; and then there are other caverns similar to it, including
the one lately discovered near the Almannagja. — The vast
glaciers give rise to many swift streams and streamlets of milky
water, contrasting strangely with the crystal purity of those
which have their origin in the less icy mountainous regions.
Both the one and the other form, in their courses, scores of
waterfalls of great mass as well as of great height. One of these,
the Dettifoss, draining in part the monstrous south-eastern ice-
tract, holds the foremost place among European cascades,
though few other than native eyes have looked upon the mighty
natural marvel. It is situated on one of the largest of the several
streams which bear the name of Jokulsa, flowing towards the
northern sea, and precipitates itself with sudden fierceness into
a great gorge nearly a score of miles in length, bordered by
rocky walls from ioo to 150 feet in height. The vast depth
of water, charged with glacial clay, making it of turbid white-
ness, rushes, foaming, frothing, steaming, and thundering, down
some 330 feet into the narrow chasm, actually, in its fierce
fury, causing the rocks, which enclose it, to tremble. Only less
inferior in majesty are the Gullfoss, at no great distance from
the Great Geysirs; the GoSafoss on the northern Skjalfanda-
fljbt, overhung by its canopy of mist and growling out its far-
heard roar; the Fjardararfoss in the east; the Skogafoss in the
southern realm of jdkuls, which, when looked down upon by
the midday sun, reveals, in rock and water, an astonishing play