er. Whole ranges of
ink-colored blocks are wrenched from their places, and scattered about
between the ledges. Well may they represent the law-books of the old
Icelandic Sagas and judges, who held their councils near this fearful
gorge! Corresponding in face, but less regular and of inferior height,
is the opposite wall. In its molten state the whole once formed a
burning flood, of such vast extent and depth that it is estimated by
geologists nearly half a century must have elapsed before it became
cool. The bottom of this tremendous crack in the sea of lava is almost
a dead level, and forms a valley of about a hundred feet in width,
which extends, with occasional breaks and irregularities, entirely up
to the base of the mountain. This valley is for the most part covered
with a beautiful carpeting of fine green grass, but is sometimes
diversified by fragments of lava shivered off and cast down from the
walls on either side.

The gorge by which we entered must have been impracticable for horses
in its original state. Huge masses of lava, which doubtless once
jammed up the way, must have been hurled over into the gaping fissures
at each side, and something like a road-way cleared out from the chaos
of ruin. Pavements and side-stones are still visible, where it is more
than probable the old Icelanders did many a hard day's work. Eight or
nine centuries have not yet obliterated the traces of the hammer and
chisel; and there were stones cast a little on one side that still
bear the marks of horses' hoofs--the very horses in all probability
ridden by old Sagas and lawgivers. Through this wild gorge they made
their way into the sheltered solitudes of the Almannajau, where they
pitched their tents and held their feasts previous to their councils
on the Logberg. Here passed the members of the Althing; here the
victims of the Logberg never repassed again.

[Illustration: SKELETON VIEW OF THE ALMANNAJAU.]

There are various theories concerning the original formation of this
wonderful fissure. It is supposed by some that the flood of lava by
which Thingvalla was desolated in times of which history presents no
record must have cooled irregularly, owing to the variation of
thickness in different parts of the valley; that at this point, where
its depth was great, the contracting mass separated, and the inferior
portion gradually settled downward toward the point of greatest
depression.

Others, again, hold the theory that there