The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1914, Page 9

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
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naines. In East Iceland there are also many larger and smaller
bays and fjords; the largest and best-known are Vopnafjörður,
Hjeradsflói, Seyðisfjörður, Reydarfjörður and Berufjörður. Although
the coast of Iceland is so cut up hy fjords, it is not especially rich
in islands; onljr in Breiðifjörður is there a number of islands and
islets, in t\vo large groups or collections; otherwise, the islands along
the coast of Iceland are few and scattered, and are usually high
and rocky. To the SSW. of Iceland are situated the volcanic islands,
the Vestmannaeyjar and Fuglasker, and north of Iceland, in the
Arctic Ocean, the Isle of Grímsey, 45 km. from the coast.
The north, east and north-west coasts of Iceland, which abound
in fjords, are everywhere rocky, and rise steeply from the sea like
black walls 300—500 metres in height, composed of from 30 to
100 layers of basalt, distinguishable as narrow ledges or steps.
Numerous small streams have excavated channels in the rock-sides,
and leap in small cascades from ledge to ledge. The foot of the
mountáin and the narrow coastal-land are usually green and grassy
in places where the rocks are not too steep, but the mountain itself is
chiefly of dark rocks, covered with gravel, and with white patches of
snow in the higher regions. At the head of the tjords, whence the
various valleys branch off into the interior of the country, there usu-
ally occur several or a few groups of mountains with crests, ridges
and peaks often of the most fantastic form, while the edge of the
mountains along the fjords resembles walls with bastions and battle-
ments. At many of the fjords there are trading-stations with the
wooden houses painted white or red, while scattered under the sides
of the mountains the white gables of the farm-houses peep forth
amidst the sap-green home-fields. On the south coast the mountains
retreat and the strand is bounded by sandy and pebbly flats; along
these tracts the mountains are usually more rounded and softer in
outline, as they are composed of tuff and breccia. The highest parts
of the plateau are covered by snowr-fields (Vatnajökull, Myrdalsjökull)
from wdiich large and small glaciers come down through every cleft,
and extend to the level country.
Iceland consists of two distinct table-lands, one large (about
88000 square km.) and one much smaller (ahout 9000 square km.),
the north-western peninsula, which is attached to the mainland by
a narrow neck of land only, forming a table-land by itself. The
large table-land which almost entirely occupies the remaining part
of the island is highest to\vards the SE. where the snow-masses of