"Ah!" said I, rather put out. "But do let me exhaust all the possible objections against this document."
"Speak, my boy, don't be afraid. You are quite at liberty to express your opinions. You are no longer my nephew only, but my colleague. Pray go on."
"Well, in the first place, I wish to ask what are this Jokul, this
Sneffels, and this Scartaris, names which I have never heard before?"
"Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Liepzig. Nothing could be more apropos. Take down the third atlas in the second shelf in the large bookcase, series Z, plate 4."
I rose, and with the help of such precise instructions could not fail to find the required atlas. My uncle opened it and said:
"Here is one of the best maps of Iceland, that of Handersen, and I believe this will solve the worst of our difficulties."
I bent over the map.
"You see this volcanic island," said the Professor; "observe that all the volcanoes are called jokuls, a word which means glacier in Icelandic, and under the high latitude of Iceland nearly all the active volcanoes discharge through beds of ice. Hence this term of jokul is applied to all the eruptive mountains in Iceland."
"Very good," said I; "but what of Sneffels?"
I was hoping that this question would be unanswerable; but I was mistaken. My uncle replied: