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and the ancient paganism was abolished, more than
eight hundred years ago. It is now a place of
desolation, and the country around it presents a
wdd picture of physical disorder and confusion.
Immediately after leaving Thingvalla, the route
we pursued led us through what might be called a
thicket of dwarf birch-trees, rising out of the numerous
cracks and crevices of porous and contorted
lava mixed with slag ; they had not attained a
greater height than from three to five feet above
the ground, and among them was also a sprinkling
of dwarf willows. These were the first specimens
of arborescent plants of any description that we had
fallen in with since leaving Reikiavik. The historians
of Iceland, however, Avould have us believe
that, when the first settlers arrived on the island,
they found the lower parts of the country covered
with forests of birch-trees so thickly as to prevent
their penetrating into the interior; and they assign
as a reason why there are now no trees, that
hurricanes and streams of lava have destroyed
them, and that the Greenland ice besetting their
shores has prevented them of late years attaining
to their former growth—and, in short, that the
climate has altogether changed. Few 1 believe
lay any stress on change of climate. That intelligent
traveller Von Buch has furnished an answer
to this supposed change of climate. “ I t is impossible,”
he says,—speaking of the high latitudes on
the coast of Norway,—“ it is impossible to adduce,
with certainty, a single fact to show that the mean
temperature for several years, at the same place,
has diminished even half a degree. Where is the
region, since the earth was inhabited by human
beings, where spruce or Scotch firs could formerly
grow, and cannot grow now, or where could oaks
and birches grow? Never beyond the region which
the temperature has assigned to these trees^. To
the birch of Iceland the temperature seems to have
settled its maximum at about ten feet in height,
and three inches in diameter, though Dr. Hooker
thinks he saw some, the loftiest of which might be
eleven or twelve feet in height, and five or six
inches in diameter at the basef. Another traveller
tells us the growing stumps of several birch-trees
were visible (to his own eyes of course) two fe et
in diameter ! He must have seen them in a dream,
for he would find it difficult, I suspect, to discover a
hirch-tree two feet in diameter even in all Scotland.
The late Archbishop Von Troil says there arc
certain proofs of wood having formerly grown in
great abundance in Iceland, and he adduces, as
proof, the instance of wood having been found m
peat-bogs, and the surturbrand. Of the former I
have not seen any certain description, either as to
the nature or size of the wood, to enable me to
offer any opinion. The only specimen seen by me
* Travels tlirougli Norway and Lapland, p. 180.
f Journal of a Tour in Iceland, p. 261.
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