the Talbot, as in the town, or in visits to
the Stiftsamptman at Vidoe, and to Doctor
Clog, the chief physician of the island, who
lived at an excellent house at Noes-gaard,
where we were sure to meet from him and
his lady with a kind and hospitable reception.
My memory no farther enables me to
continue my journal in any thing like a
regular manner, but, even had this been the
case, yet still such would be found the uninteresting
nature of the events that happened,
except, indeed, those political ones
that are more fully detailed in the Appendix
A, that they could afford but little amusement.
I therefore have less reason for regret
at having lost this part of my notes, and I
proceed to a brief recital of such matter as
fell under my own personal observation, but
has been omitted to be noticed in the course
of my journal; conceiving that it may be
of service in adding somewhat to our knowledge
of the natural history of the island.
blished. The Icelandic Sabbath commences, according
to the Ecclesiastical Laws of the island, at six o’clock
on the Saturday evening, and terminates at the same
hour on the Sunday.
My inclination rather than my ability
leads me in the first place to offer a few remarks
on the botany and zoology of the country.
In these two great kingdoms of nature,
perhaps it would be difficult to find any spot
of land, of an equal extent, in a similar
degree of latitude, which can lay claim to so
small a number of species. The arctic
regions of Norway, Lapland, and the Russian
Empire, are comparatively rich in these departments;
a circumstance most probably
to be attributed to their warmer summers,
and to the undisturbed state of the soil. In
spite of this, however, a botanist, coming
from the more temperate climate of Great
Britain, will still meet with many vegetable
productions that will interest him, such as
Azalea procumbens, Cardamine hastulata,
of English botany, Rubus saxatilis, Erigeron
alpinum, Saxífraga nivalis, rivularis, cer-
nua, and oppositifolia, Silene acaulis, Veronica
alpina and fruticulosa, with many
other species, which he has been accustomed
to see only on the summits of his loftiest
mountains, but which will here be found
growing in the plains and vallies, and near
the shores of the sea. Ranunculus lapponi-
eus, glacialis, and hyperboreus, Eriophorian