Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Síða 208

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LE NORD
with greenhouses of this kind, but thousands of hectares which
might just as well be heated in this way, are waiting for their
being put under glass. In these greenhouses any degree of heat
may be maintained all the year round without any expenditure
at all for fuel, regardless of snow-storms and frost, and sunlight
may be replaced by electric light. There is a possibility of grow-
ing all cultivated growths — even southern fruits — now. Here
there are undreamt-of possibilities of progress on a large scale.
Even the whole of Reykjavik is now heated in the same way
by means of the hot springs. From the springs, which yield an
amount of about 250 litres of water a second at a degree of heat
of 90 C., the water is conducted at minimum loss of heat to
Reykjavik through a pipe-line about 9 miles long. The consump-
tion of coals in this town with its 40,000 inhabitants thus is re-
duced to a minimum, the more so as there has already been built
a power plant, which supplies sufficient power for the industries,
and cheap electricity for light and cooking in private houses.
So it is not only a question of private economy, but also to the
highest degree of importance to national economy to utilize these
natural forces to the greatest extent possible.
In the Saga Period Iceland was wooded from mountain to
fiord. The wood formed a natural protection against the weather,
but in the years of poverty of Iceland it was nearly completely
destroyed; it was not any large forest, but it was of some im-
portance, as only the wood was able to prevent the surface from
blowing off. What happened in Iceland is remarkable and in-
structive, because here as perhaps nowhere else we see the value
and importance of the preservation of the woods. By the dis-
forestation of the country the sand-drift increases and lays waste
large stretches of land. Where formerly — particularly in the
south country — there were flourishing farms with luxuriant
growth of plants, we now see waste plains of sand and gravel.
In many places there are mounds, metres high, the so-called
“ships,” which here and there in the sands give ample evidence
of the ravages of the forces of nature.
The Government has realized that the cultivation of the wood
is best made under its own leadership. The result of the work
is only to be sought in a distant future, and the casual owner
perhaps will not live to see it. The country is still very bare in Ice-
land, only in favourably situated tracts we find remnants of the