In Snæfells Joculis craterem quem delibat umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas descende, audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges. Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm. 3

Which bad Latin may be translated thus:

“Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the Jökull of Snæfells, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the kalends of July, and you will attain the centre of the earth; which I have done, Arne Saknussemm.”

In reading this, my uncle gave a spring as if he had touched a Leyden jar. His audacity, his joy, and his convictions were magnificent to behold. He came and he went; he seized his head between both his hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books; incredible as it may seem, he rattled his precious nodules of flints together; he sent a kick here, a thump there. At last his nerves calmed down, and like a man exhausted by too lavish an expenditure of vital power, he sank back exhausted into his armchair.