The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . ENTRANCE TO THE ALMANXAGJA. The gigantic chasm of the Almannagja is another of the volcanic wondersof Iceland. After a long and tedious ride over the vast lava-i>lain which extendsbetween the Skalafell and the lake of Thingvalla, the traveller suddenly findshimself arrested in his path by an apparently insurmountable obstacle, for the 74 THE POLAR WORLD. enormous Almannacrjn, or Allnuuis Kift, suddenly gapes beneath his feet—acolossal rent extending above a niik in lLii^th,and
The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . ENTRANCE TO THE ALMANXAGJA. The gigantic chasm of the Almannagja is another of the volcanic wondersof Iceland. After a long and tedious ride over the vast lava-i>lain which extendsbetween the Skalafell and the lake of Thingvalla, the traveller suddenly findshimself arrested in his path by an apparently insurmountable obstacle, for the 74 THE POLAR WORLD. enormous Almannacrjn, or Allnuuis Kift, suddenly gapes beneath his feet—acolossal rent extending above a niik in lLii^th,and inclosed on both sides byabi-iijit walls of black lava, frequently upward of a liundred feet high, and sep-aiMted from about fiffv to se\tntv hvt fium cae-li THE ALMANNAGJA. A corresponding chasm, but of inferior dimensions, the Ilrafnagja, or Ra-vens Rift, opens its black rampart to the east, about eight miles fartlicr on ;and both form the boundaries of the verdant plain of Thingvalla, which by agrand convulsion of nature has itself been shattered into innumerable smallparallel crevices and fissures fifty or sixty feet deep. Of the Ilrafnagja Mr. Ross Browne says : A toilsome ride of eight milesbrouglit us to the edge of the Pass, Avhich in point of rugged grandeur farsurpasses the Almamiagja, though it lacks the extent and symmetry which givethe latter such a remarkable effect. Ilei-e was a tremendous gap in the earth,over a liundred feet deep, hacked and shivered into a thousand fantastic shapes,-the sides a succession of the wildest accidents; the bottom a chaos of brokenlava, all tossed about in llio most terrific confusion. It is not, however, tlie ex-traordinary desolation of the scene that constitutes its principal interest. There
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, books, booksubjectnaturalhistory
