I was hoping that this question would be unanswerable; but I was mistaken. My uncle replied: "Follow my finger along the west coast of Iceland. Do you see Rejkiavik, the capital? You do. Well; ascend the innumerable fiords that indent those sea-beaten shores, and stop at the sixty-fifth degree of latitude. What do you see there?" "I see a peninsula looking like a thigh bone with the knee bone at the end of it." "A very fair comparison, my lad. Now do you see anything upon that knee bone?" "Yes; a mountain rising out of the sea." "Right. That is Snæfell." "That Snæfell?" "It is. It is a mountain five thousand feet high, one of the most remarkable in the world, if its crater leads down to the centre of the earth." "But that is impossible," I said shrugging my shoulders, and disgusted at such a ridiculous supposition. "Impossible?" said the Professor severely; "and why, pray?" "Because this crater is evidently filled with lava and burning rocks, and therefore--" "But suppose it is an extinct volcano?" "Extinct?" "Yes; the number of active volcanoes on the surface of the globe is at the present time only about three hundred. But there is a very much larger number of extinct ones. Now, Snæfell is one of these. Since historic times there has been but one eruption of this mountain, that of 1219; from that time it has quieted down more and more, and now it is no longer reckoned among active volcanoes." To such positive statements I could make no reply. I therefore took refuge in other dark passages of the document. "What is the meaning of this word Scartaris, and what have the kalends of July to do with it?" My uncle took a few minutes to consider. For one short moment I felt a ray of hope, speedily to be extinguished. For he soon answered thus: "What is darkness to you is light to me. This proves the ingenious care with which Saknussemm guarded and defined his discovery. Sneffels, or Snæfell, has several craters. It was therefore necessary to point out which of these leads to the centre of the globe. What did the Icelandic sage do? He observed that at the approach of the kalends of July, that is to say in the last days of June, one of the peaks, called Scartaris, flung its shadow down the mouth of that particular crater, and he committed that fact to his document. Could there possibly have been a more exact guide? As soon as we have arrived at the summit of Snæfell we shall have no hesitation as to the proper road to take." Decidedly, my uncle had answered every one of my objections. I saw that his position on the old parchment was impregnable. I therefore ceased to press him upon that part of the subject, and as above all things he must be convinced, I passed on to scientific objections, which in my opinion were far more serious.