The Iceland year-book - 01.01.1926, Blaðsíða 37

Thus all who seek health in the lofty world of the
Alps, or in the cooling 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 in this single
marvellous land.
Yet there are many other considerations which
tend to indicate Iceland as the future’s great
sanatorium. On of these is, of course, the gentler
average temperature of the summer, when com-
pared with that of more southern localities, de-
spite the prolonged sunshine and the drynesa
to which we have referred. Even the noon-day
hourse are rarely oppressive to the foreigner. A
second favourable point is the fact that the
abundant waters, already alluded to, have an
unequalled range of temperature, from luke-
warmness to the boiling point; and they include
the Great Geysir, with a myriad of lesser ones, the
strong sulphur cauldrons, and the bubbling, puf-
fing, seething kettles of mud. Of the
Medicinal cold and potable medicinal waters the
waters. so-called „ale-wells“ (olkeldur), or
carbonic acid sources, are, perhaps, of
most frequent occurrence on the long Snaefellsnes
and in the adjacent districts of the West; at one
of these (RauSamels-blkelda), most happily situ-
ated, and very easy of access, the erection of
a spacious summer hotel“ has frequently been sug-
gested and planned, but lack of funds, or lack of
enterprise, has so far prevented these plans from
materializing. Some of the other olkeldur are well
situated for the same purpose, but none of them
is as yet utilized in any regular way, though even.
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