The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1914, Síða 70

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THOllODDSEN
eruptions have constantly been influencing the soil-formation, peat
is rare. In the peat there often occur quantities of stems, roots
and branches of Betula odorata, and Francis J. Lewis1 has found
remains of Betnla verrucosa in peat-bogs in South Iceland. Even
in districts where birch-copses no longer thrive, as e. g. on Horn-
strandir north of Jökulfirðir, birch-stems are found in the peat bogs.
The .Icelandic peat is largely utilized as fuel, and as regards its
fuel-value it compares favourably with peat from other countries/
only the amount of asli is rather considerable, especially in peat
froin South Iceland, perhaps on account of the presence ol' volcanic
ashes and blown sand. In the Icelandic peat-bogs there usuall}r
occur several, or a few, bands of volcanic ash of various thickness,
usually basaltic ashes, but yellowish liparitic pumice-ash occurs
also. In districts situated in the neighbourhood of active volcanoes
the ash-bands in the bogs are very numerous. Bog iron-ore occurs
also in the Icelandic bogs; in some places in rather considerable
quantities. In olden times it was much used by the inhabitants,
and for the smelting of the iron many coppice woods were destroyed.
Parts of various boggy stretches — wet meadows — have great
economic importance, and the hay (uthey) is largely used as fodder
for sheep and cattle, especially as winter fodder for horses and
sheep; the best part of it, only, is used for the cows, which livé
mainly upon hay from the home-fields (tun-hay). In 1910 about
14,300 tons (each ton 1000 kg.) of this uthey were harvested. Of
the largest and most productive meadows of this kind may be
mentioned Hvanneyri in the district of Borgarfjord, Forin in Ölfus
and Safamýri in Holt. At the mouths of various large glacier-rivers
are large and very fertile stretches of meadðw-land, which either
constantly or else .at times are flooded by glacier water, e. g. in
Lón in East Iceland, at Hvanneyri in Borgarfjord, and in several
other places where a kind of marsh is formed by the deposited
glacier-clay which contains fertilizing substances; in such places
the river-water is no longer very cold, and has a very slight current
or none at all. In water frorn Icelandic rivers the following sub-
stances of use for plant-food were found: the íigures given are those
for five million j)Ounds of water (one pouud = half kg.).3
1 F. J. Lewis: Stratification of Peat Deposits in Iceland (Transactions of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. 47, Part IV (No. 26), Edinburgh, 1911, pp. 827—831).
2 Analyses of Icelandic peat by A. Torfason are found in Eimreidin, XI
(1905), pp. 40—41, and in Búnaðarrit, XX (1906), pp. 116—119.
3 The analyses are found in P. Feilberg: Græsbrug paa Island, 1897, p. 22;