Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Page 77

NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS____________6t;
which is everywhere kept on sale by foreign pharmacists,
and from which pastelles for coughs, or other preparations,
sometimes a sort of pudding, for invalids, are made. Thirdly,
an unique Icelandic product is the double-refracting feldspar
(Icelandic feldspar), used by opticians and in optical tests
and experiments. The world’s sole mine, or quarry, of this
singular material is situated near Eskifjor&ur in the south-east
of Iceland, and is the property of the Icelandic government.
It is often visited by travellers. — In the fjords or along the
shores (as one sails around the land) are many islands, not a
few of them noticeable in character or form. Starting from
Reykjavik and going east-ward, the visitor comes first to the
Westman group, deriving its name from fugitive slaves of
Hjorleifur, one of Iceland’s first settlers, who were Irish (that is
“men of the west”). It is a storm-bound home, at times, for human
beings, yet the largest islet, Heimaey (“home isle”) contains a
hamlet of 600 souls; around it on all sides, tower many bold and
beetling cliffs, thronged by uncountable sea-birds and washed
by high-lifted waves, while above it two massy mountains
raise their summits, the Heimaklettur and the Helgafell. There-
after the boat reaches Iceland’s southernmost spot, the Dyrholaey,
through which has been wrought, by the waves, a tunneled
arch, under which boats may sail, and around which protrude
from the waters several needle-like and other isles and skerries.
The pierced rock is known to foreign sailors as Portland. Not
a long distance farther east, the traveller may see the Reynis-
drangar (dr'ingur signifies a solitary upstanding rock — a name
and thing wrell-known all along these coasts), being a small
group of closely-clustered rocks, lifting from the water their
sharp-pointed, spire-like pinnacles — a striking spectacle, and one
warranting the strange stories told of so odd an apparition.
Beyond this is Papey, now a sort of bird-farm, where great
flocks of birds and thousands of eggs are yearly harvested and
shipped, but famous in story as a site on which Christian relics