During the last hour of the climb we were enveloped in clouds and as we gained the summit snow was falling. A sudden change in the direction of the wind swept the clouds from the top of the mountain and we had ten minutes of clear sky which afforded time for two good photographs and a quick view of the surrounding country. Mrs. Russell unfurled the flag of the Arctic Club of America, the stars and stripes in the upper left hand corner of an ice-green field. This flag had been presented to me for this purpose by the late Rear Admiral W. S. Schley, then president of the Arctic Club. We have every reason to believe that Mrs. Russell was the first woman to gain this point and I know that it was the first time that the stars and stripes ever floated from the summit of a volcano in Iceland. The reading of the thermometer at the summit was zero, Centigrade; the reading of the aneroid barometer, carefully compared with the standard at the station in _Reykjavik_ before starting and corrected by the same instrument for the same hour when we returned, gave the elevation of _Hekla_ as 5,050 feet. This is not a high mountain but it has features peculiar to itself that render its ascent one of toil. Any person with endurance and thoughtful care can make the ascent and no one who visits Iceland, if at all interested in the topography of the country or in volcanic formations, can afford to miss it. I climbed down to the brink of the crater upon the snow shelf to view the interior and to photograph the opposite wall. No ascent had been made for four years and at that time the local guide stated that the crater was full of snow and ice. This is the ash crater of 1845. The opening is about 450 by 360 feet. When I looked into its depths on July 20, 1909, there was no snow in the bottom and vapor was ascending. This vapor was doubtless snow evaporation. Yet, there has been some heat radiation from within to clear out this great cavity of ice and snow in four years. Fifteen minutes walk along the ridge brings the traveller to the red crater, which is about the same size as the other or northern crater but unlike it the material is red with considerable sublimated sulfur. _Hekla_ is by no means dead. Numerous earthquakes have occurred in its vicinity within the past three years and a large area of the ice mantle is reported as having slipped off in 1910. It is sixty-nine years since the great eruption of 1845, which is more than twice the average period of inactivity but it is nine years less than its longest period of rest. An eruption may be expected at any time. The old volcano, in spite of the slander which Burton heaps upon it, is worthy of scientific study and before its next eruption a series of observations should be taken similar to those made by Frank Perret on Vesuvius and other Mediterranean volcanoes.