The Iceland year-book - 01.01.1927, Síða 28

in a disordered way, a few more of these multi-
tudinous mountains; — Arnarfellsjokull, really a
section of the far-extending Hofsjokull, sending
forth its score of glaciers; Langjokull in Mid-Ice-
land, boasting half a score more, and in the western
snows of which lies that cold, almost inaccessible
valley, once lighted and warmed by the hues and
fires of fancy, the legend-rich Thorisdalur; Torfa-
jokull, its base fringed with clusters of steaming hot
springs, and lying in easy sight of Hekla; Eiriks-
j okull, from which came, long ago, many of those
tongues of lava which lie in the upper valleys of
the historic Hvita, and which are described by a
late traveller as being beds „filled in all their hol-
lows with pretty foliage and flowers, and the
contrast of the dainty blossoms and
A Common ferns with the rugged black caves
Picture. and clefts, in which they are shelt-
ered, gives a curious and unexpected
poetry to thee scene,“ —hut this is a picture again
and again repeated on the more ancient lava
levels; Glaina and Drangjokull, which raise from
the elevated plateau of the north-western peninsula
their snowy cupolas and buttresses, the latter,
moreover, pushing down its flowing glaciers al-
most to the water’s edge by the harsh and inhospit-
able Hornstrandir, where the so-styled Drangar, a
series of gigantic pointed pyramids, stretch out into
the icy sea and give their name to the loftier peak.
Of the most observable features which char-
acterize the fire and ice jokull-regions may he
especially cited the expanses of lava,, large and
small, already passingly alluded to, such as the vast
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