ginal bed, and the pieces which had fallen
from them had their edges very sharply
defined, and had broken off in laminse, of
about an inch in thickness. The stone is
extremely hard and compact, of a rusty
brown color, in some specimens more inclining
to grey, and with a perfectly smooth
and flat surface. Sir John Stanley supposes
that its substance is chiefly argillaceous, and
that, like every other stone in the island, it
h s undergone some change by fire. I met
with nothing remarkable on the summit,
where there is a considerable extent of flat
surface, almost covered with Trichostomum
canescens, intermixed with the Lichen is-
landicus; and from each extremity of this
plain arises a conical eminence, unequal in
height, of the same nature as the rock it
springs from, and producing no plants that
are not to be seen equally abundant in various
other parts of the country. The most
scarce were Trichostomum ellipticum, which
grows in tolerable plenty upon the dry rocks,
and Andraea Rothii, which, though it has
been found in but few countries, is very
abundant in Iceland. The top of Laugerfell
afforded me a very commanding prospect.
Just beneath me, facing the south-east, was
to be seen, at one view, the steam rising
from upwards of a hundred boiling-springs,
among which the great Geyser, from its regularly
circular figure, looked like an artificial
reservoir of water. A little stream at
the bottom of the hill formed the boundary
to. these, and beyond this was an extensive
morass, whose sameness was only interrupted
by the rather wide course of the river Hvitaa,
winding through it. The view was terminated,
in that quarter of the compass, by a
long range of flat and tame mountains, over
which towered the three-pointed and snowcapped
summit of Hecla, which rises far
above the neighboring hills, and is, in clear
weather, plainly visible when standing by
the Geyser. In the north-east was situated
the church and farm of Haukardal, and a
continuation of the morass, bounded by
some lofty jokuls of fantastic shapes. In the
north-west, at a small distance from the place
where I stood, and, indeed, only separated
from it by a narrow portion of the morass,
with a small river winding through it, rose
another chain of mountains, thinly covered
with vegetation, beyond which some jokuls