The examination of these facts is quite enough to show the inquirer that the transit from Myvatn to Húsavík is more practical, and of more easy access, than that from Krísuvík to any of the ports at the south-west corner of the island, which have been extolled by Mr Vincent in his ex parte glorification of the Krísuvík mines. We will now turn to the testimony of a far greater traveller, whose opinion on the subject ought, indeed, to be regarded as final. Captain R. F. Burton, in his recent exploration of Iceland, devoted much time to the examination of the Myvatn sulphur deposits. The great question is answered by him in the following letter which appeared in the London Standard, Nov. 1, 1872:
“Sir,—Perhaps you will allow me, in continuation of my letter of October the 14th, to attack the subject of the sulphur deposits in Iceland now belonging to British subjects.
“For many years these diggings, so valuable since the exhaustion of the supply from Sicily, were a bone of contention between France and England....
“Denmark can hardly work the mines for herself without a great expenditure of capital, which will find its way into Icelandic pockets, and thus she wisely leases her property to strangers. She relies upon the fact that sulphur has risen from £4, 10s. to £7 per ton, and consequently that her Iceland diggings must become more valuable every year.
“I spent three days—from August 7th to August 9th, 1872—at the solfataras of Mý-vatn, or Midge Lake, situated to the north-east of the island. I lodged at the farm of Reykjahlið (reeky ledge), under the roof of the well-known Hr Pètur Jónsson, whose alacrity in composing a bill of charges has won for him a wide reputation.
“On Wednesday, August 7th, I set out under the guidance of this worthy to inspect the diggings of Krafla, generally but erroneously written Krabla. And now a verbatim extract from my diary will assure the reader that my statements are completely free from the process called ‘cooking.’
“Rode to Leirhnúkr (mud knoll) in one hour fifteen minutes. At once understood an emplacement very imperfectly described by old travellers. It is the northern head of a spine, a sharp prism about one mile broad, with a magnetic direction of 215 deg., in fact, nearly due north—south. It is a mass of Palagonite (sea-sand forming a stone), everywhere capped by spills and gushes of modern lava, and sulphur abounds at the junction of these formations. The hillock of Leirhnúkr is one vast mass of sulphurous deposits. I counted seven wells upon the slope, whilst the lowlands around were spotted with unwholesome-looking eruptions. Rode east to Helvíti, which the Rev. Mr Henderson described in 1815 as a crater, not unworthy of its grim name. ‘Hell,’ here as elsewhere, has been ‘dismissed with costs,’ the placid blue lake, ruffled at times by the passing breeze, and blowing off odours the reverse of Sabæan, is now hardly worth visiting. At Hrafntinnuhryggr (raven stone ridge)—excuse the word, I did not make it—expected to find, as the ‘Obsidian Mountain’ has been described, ‘a heap of broken wine bottles shining with their jet-like colouring.’ Found nothing of the kind, but picked up some decent specimens. Rode back much edified, etc., etc....
“On the next day rode to the Fremrinámar (outer warm-springs) to the south with some easting to Reykjahlíð. Found the road utterly dissimilar to anything laid down in maps. After four hours thirty minutes of rough travelling, reached the deposit which has been worked for some generations, but which cannot be said to have been EVEN SCRATCHED. The ‘lay’ is upon the north-eastern, the eastern, and the southern flank of a crater, described by the late Professor Paijkull as ‘probably the largest in Iceland.’ Immense deposits covered the ground, and white fumes everywhere filled the air. Whole torrents of what Mr Crookes calls the ‘mainstay of our present industrial chemistry’—I mean sulphur—have here been ejected. Could not count the hissing ‘hot coppers,’ popularly called fumaroles. Returned after a stiff ride of eight hours thirty minutes, which gave a fine view of the Ódáða Hraun, the ‘great and terrible wilderness’ of lava to the south-west, etc....
“August 9th was a lazy day, spent in preparing for a trip to the desert. Inspected the Hlíðarnámar (ledge springs), from which the farm of Reykjahlíð takes its name. Bravely objected to be deterred by the ‘smell of rotten eggs,’ by the ‘suffocating fumes,’ and by the chance of being ‘snatched from yawning abysses by the guide’s stalwart arms.’ Perhaps the conviction that the abyss nowhere exceeds three feet in depth may account for my exceptional calmness in such deadly peril. The Hlíðarnámar, or Ledge Springs, lie west of the sulphur mountain, and on a lower plane than the eastern deposits. They are bounded north by two lava-streams issuing from the base of the Hlíðarfjall, and south by independent outbreaks of lava, showing hosts of small detached craters. East is the hill, and west the Mý-vatn water, and its selvage of fire-stone. The area of this fragment of the grand solfatara may be one square mile.