Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-08-15
w hole Number 1884.

out containing more truth. Iceland
is not a paradise. The warmest pa
triot or the keenest huntsman will
hardly claim that it is; but it is a
country with weird, fierce, appalling
beauties of its own-an old labora-
tory of the ice and fire kings, where
they worked together, welding the
elements with Titanic might, and
torturing the earth into the widest
and unearthliest of forms. The sur
face is broken into plateaus of scoria
and lava, awful chasms, and volcan-
lc mountains. 1t is inhabited by the
children of the bravest and noblest of
the old Mortimer, and it has his
tory and literature to be proud of.
Just south of the arctic circle, touch
ing it only in the north, the island
contains about $4,000 square miles,
sos English miles in length, and 100
miles in breadth. {. It's shape is very
irregular, slightly resembling a
heart, with considerable peninsula
on the northwest united to the main
land by an extremely narrow neck
of land. The coast is wide and des-
olate beyond description. On the
south there is a group of rugged lit
tie speoks, the Westmann Islands,
only one of which is inhabited and
that by few poor fishermen, who
are seldom able to communicate
with the main land, owing to the
frequent gales. Near the harbor of
the capital, Reykjavik, there is an
immense columnar rock of basalt
called the ''mealsack," upon which
living man has never landed, nor
can land-sharp needles, projecting
near the water line, and breaking
the sea into an everlasting tumult.
The great aux, a bird as scarce as
the dodo, is said to live on the top;
and focks of other birds nestle in
the seams, mingling their shrill cries
with the eternally melancholy beat
of the sea.
Elsewhere the coast is varied by
cliffs of basalt and far-reaching
marshes. Shattered blocks of lava,
worn into fantastic and curious
forms, are seen in the greatest pro-
fusion. In some places the sea has
worked them into natural arches,
through which the wind sweeps
with terrible shrieks; and in other
places they have the form of i'm
mense spires, turrets and cupolas.
On the northwestern coast there is a
bold promontory, about 1000 feet
in height, and scarcely more than
fifty degrees out of the perpendicu-
lar. 1t fronts on one of the bays,
and across its fall there is a terrible
pass called Bulaudshofdi, which
looks like a mere thread or telegraph
wire. 1t affords a dangerous p&s-
sage for man and a horse; and it
Is seldom travelled, as layers of the
rock on the face of the cliff are semi
detached, and often tumble down at
the touch of the wind. Except at
such points as these where the coast
is high, there is a back ground of
several ranges of snoW-capped noun
tains, which exhibit the most beauti-
full effects under the changing light
of the arctic heaven.
Only 1000 square miles of this
wonderland are inhabited. The rest
of the country is desert of lava
fields and volcanoes. You may tray
el mile after mile without finding a
trace of vegetation or a patch of
fresh, brown earth. There are some
forests of pinched, stunted, precari-
GUS growth; but the largest tree in
the country is only thirty feet high,
and is pointed out as a marvel. The
mountains are of two classes, the
''fells''s and the "yokulls," the for
mer being free from snow In the
summer, while the latter are wrap
ped in perpetual ice. Their forHas
are exceedingly varied and beautiful,
most of them reaching upward by
easy gradations to a sharp pinnacle
that has probably spouted fire with
in the memory of living man. The
"yokulls" generally have rounded
heads of ice, resting on abrupt fanks
of rock. The "fells'' are of uniform
elevation, and are rounded at the
top, but do not support ice-felds.
The principal "yokull" is Orefa,
which is 6,341 feet above the level
of the sea, and there are four others
almost as large, the smallest being
4,577 feet above the sea level Both
"yokulls" and "fells'' are volcanic,
and the havoc they have caused is
manifest in every part of the coun-
try. Hecla, the best known of the
''fells,' has been in eruption twenty
six times since the year 1904. The
last eruption occurred in Is45-'46,
and it is said that masses of the
cinders were carried as far as the
Orkney Islands.
Appleton'S Journal