“Well, in the first place, I wish to ask what are this Jökull, this Snæfells, 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 Jökulls, 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 Jökull is applied to all the eruptive mountains in Iceland.”
“Very good,” said I; “but what of Snæfells?”
I was hoping that this question would be unanswerable; but I was mistaken. My uncle replied:
“Follow my finger along the west coast of Iceland. Do you see Reykjavík, the capital? You do. Well; ascend the innumerable fjords that indent those sea-beaten shores, and stop at the sixty-fifth degree of latitude. What do you see there?”
“I see a peninsula looking like a thigh bone with the knee bone at the end of it.”