ing Bootes and the Great Bear, reach
with their utmost outlying parts the latitude of the freezing zone; and
beyond these the extraordinary sharpness of the cold suffers not human
habitation. Of these two, Norway has been allotted by the choice of
nature a forbidding rocky site. Craggy and barren, it is beset all
around by cliffs, and the huge desolate boulders give it the aspect of
a rugged and a gloomy land; in its furthest part the day-star is not
hidden even by night; so that the sun, scorning the vicissitudes of day
and night, ministers in unbroken presence an equal share of his radiance
to either season.

On the west of Norway comes the island called Iceland, with the mighty
ocean washing round it: a land very squalid to dwell in, but noteworthy
for marvels, both strange occurrences and objects that pass belief. A
spring is there which, by the malignant reek of its water, destroys the
original nature of anything whatsoever. Indeed, all that is sprinkled
with the breath of its vapour is changed into the hardness of stone.
It remains a doubt whether it be more marvellous or more perilous, that
soft and flowing water should be invested with such a stiffness, as by a
sudden change to transmute into the nature of stone whatsoever is put to
it and drenched with its reeking fume, nought but the shape surviving.
Here also are said to be other springs, which now are fed with floods
of rising water, and, overflowing in full channels, cast a mass of spray
upwards; and now again their bubbling flags, and they can scarce be
seen below at the bottom, and are swallowed into deep hiding far under
ground. Hence, when they are gushing over, they bespatter everything
about them with the white spume, but when they are spent the sharpest
eye cannot discern them. In this island there is likewise a mountain,
whose floods of incessant fire make it look like a glowing rock, and
which, by belching out flames, keeps its crest in an everlasting blaze.
This thing awakens our wonder as much as those aforesaid; namely, when
a land lying close to the extreme of cold can have such abundance of
matter to keep up the heat, as to furnish eternal fires with unseen
fuel, and supply an endless provocative to feed the burning. To this
isle also, at fixed and appointed seasons, there drifts a boundless mass
of ice, and when it approaches and begins to dash upon the rugged reefs,
then, just as if the cliffs rang reply, there is heard from the deep a
roar