When one of these puny stems reaches four feet in height, it is considered a gigantic tree.

The greater portion of these miniature forests grow on the lava with which the valley is covered.
The formation of the lava here assumes a new character.

Up to this point it has mostly appeared either in large masses or in streams lying in strata one above the other; but here the lava covered the greater portion of the ground in the form of immense flat slabs or blocks of rock, often split in a vertical direction.

I saw long fissures of eight or ten feet in breadth, and from ten to fifteen feet in depth.

In these clefts the flowers blossom earlier, and the fern grows taller and more luxuriantly, than in the boisterous upper world.
After the valley of Thingvalla has been passed the journey becomes very monotonous.