Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/301

Rh

or ashes, have increased its size. But, in the sequence of igneous additions, the character of the rocks has changed, and differs strikingly from the original basement basaltic flows. Thus have the fires of earth raised a monument above the tides of the Atlantic.

No sooner had this architectural wonder been raised by Pluto, than Neptune and Jupiter Pluvius conceived its destruction, and their machinations for its overthrow were inconsiderately helped by their subterranean brother. Earthquakes have doubtless altered and reduced its size, detaching or sinking broad patches or morsels of its periphery. We can imagine, to continue our simile, that Pluto, groaning and agitated over the envious assaults of the upper gods, helped to knock out some of the underpinning of his own creation.

But in their process of reduction the air deities have made Iceland most attractive, wonderfully picturesque; they have cut out its deep fiords, furrowed its cliffs, dug grottoes in its stony walls, put pinnacles and minarets along its sky-lines; they have led valleys, green with pasture and splashed with the color of flowers, down to its wave-strewn lips; they have dropped island pearls around its coasts; they have