File:The Arctic world- its plants, animals and natural phenomena (microform) - with a historical sketch of Arctic discovery down to the British Polar Expedition- 1875-76 (1876) (19991251183).jpg

Title: The Arctic world: its plants, animals and natural phenomena (microform) : with a historical sketch of Arctic discovery down to the British Polar Expedition: 1875-76
Identifier: cihm_02501 (find matches)
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors:
Subjects: British Polar Expedition, 1875-76; British Polar Expedition, 1875-76; Zoology; Zoologie
Publisher: London; New York : T. Nelson
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Digitizing Sponsor: University of Alberta Libraries

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VOLCANOES OF ICELAND. tea square miles. Not more than 4000 miles, however, are habitable, all the rest being ice and lava; for the island seems to be little more than a mass of trachyte, snow-shrouded and frost-bound, resting on a sea of fire. It consists of two vast parallel table-lands, the foundations of ranges of lofty mountains, most of which are active volcanoes; and these table-lands strike across the centre of the island, from north-east to south-west, at a distance from one another of ninety to one hundred miles. Their mountainous summits are not pyramidal, as is generally the case in Europe, but rounded like domes, as in the Andes of South America. Their sides, however, are broken up by precipitous masses of tufa and conglomerate, intersected by deep ravines of the gloomiest character. They are covered with a thick shroud of ice and snow, but in their wombs seethe the fiery elements which ever and anon break forth into terrible activity. The eastern
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.VN ICKLANDIC LANDSCAPE. table-land and its mountain range is the mo.'st extensive, and contains Oerafa, the culminating point of Iceland. It is visible from a great distance at sea, like a white cloud suspended above the island. Its height is 6426 feet, and it springs from a vast mountain-ma-ss; no fewer than 3000 square miles being perpetually burdened with ice and snow, at an altitude varying from 3000 to 6000 feet. A very considerable portion of the island is occupied by the large glaciers which descend from the mountains, like frozen torrents, pushing forwaixl into the lowlands, and even to the margin of the sea. These act as almost impassable barriers to communication between tho various inhabited districts.

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