The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, whose researches into Icelandic literature have been of such service to the philologist, gives the following description of the view from the slope above Reykjahlíð, looking across the Lake Myvatn:
“You see the indigo chain of Blafell, beyond which is a field of sulphur and boiling mud called Fremri-Námar, not visited by travellers, as it is difficult of access, and inferior in interest to the Námarfjall springs.... (From Námarfjall) in half an hour we reach the sulphur mountains, a chain of red hills, perfectly destitute of vegetation. We dip into a glen, and find it full of fumaroles, from which steam is puffing, and sulphur is being deposited. These run along the dale in a zigzag. By the road-side I noticed a block of pure sulphur, from which every traveller breaks a piece, so that in time it will disappear altogether.
“Passing through the Námar-skarth, a winding cleft in the mountains, I came upon a plain of mud, the wash from the hills bounded by a lava-field; the mountains steaming to their very tops, and depositing sulphur, the primrose hue of which gives extraordinary brightness to the landscape.... Presently the beautiful Lake Myvatn, or Midge Lake, opened before us, studded with countless lava islets; beyond was the sulphur range, yellow as though the sun ever shone on it.”[195]
In Mr Shepherd’s work on the North-West Peninsula of Iceland, we find another lucid description:
“We rode to the sulphur mountains on the east of the lake (Myvatn). These large hills are a very wonderful sight. They are of various colours, a variety of mixtures of red and yellow. From their sides are emitted various jets of steam, and masses of bright yellow sulphur are strewed all around them.... All around the soil was very treacherous, consisting of hot mud, with a covering of sulphur about an inch in thickness, which in most cases was sufficiently strong to bear a man’s weight. When the crust was broken, steam issued forth, strongly impregnated with sulphur.”[196]
The distinguished Lord Dufferin (the present Governor-General of Canada) in his charming book, “Letters from High Latitudes,” says:
“Opal, calcedony, amethyst, malachite, obsidian, agate, and felspar are the principal minerals; OF SULPHUR THE SUPPLY IS INEXHAUSTIBLE.”
M’Culloch’s “Geographical Dictionary,” vol. i., p. 585, under the heading “Iceland,” says:
“Few metals are met with. Iron and copper have been found, but the mines are not wrought. The supply of sulphur is inexhaustible; large mountains are encrusted with this substance, which, when removed, is again formed in crystals by the agency of the hot steam from below. Large quantities were formerly shipped; but latterly the supplies sent to the foreign market were comparatively small.”
“Chambers’s Encyclopædia,” under the heading “Iceland,” vol. v., p. 505, says: