At the summit, the clouds scattered again; this time in earnest and we experienced no more rain during the long trip. It was just one long and glorious summer day and we wandered care-free in full enjoyment of the wonderful country. Near the summit we passed a lonely little farmhouse and the people being absent in the hayfield the lonesome dog came out to make our acquaintance. At this place the trail winds through an exceedingly rough area of lava, tangled and twisted. It was my first experience with recent volcanic products and it was with absorbing interest that I examined this material, as the ponies climbed the steep gradient and threaded the narrow path through the labyrinth of angular blocks. Above our heads rose a line of peaked and jagged volcanoes, _Kálfstindar_, Calf-Peaks. This place has been the center of considerable volcanic activity as evidenced by the different forms of lava, i. e. lava of different periods of eruption also by the weathering piles of tufa and conglomerate. Near the trail there is a peculiar formation, a _tintron_. This is a volcanic chimney, rising about nine feet out of the lava plain. The opening at the top is in the form of an ellipse and the tube extends forty feet down into the solid lava. The sides are blistered and it has the appearance of having been a blow-hole from which thin lava was thrown upward in the form of a fountain as water from the nozzle of a hose. There are several of these unique formations in the north which will be discussed when we reach _Mývatn_. Soon after leaving the _tintron_, the trail wound downward along the side of the mountain and under projecting cliffs of tufa and brought us suddenly in view of the fair valley of _Laugardalr_, Valley-of-the-Hot-Springs. An entrancing panorama was spread out at our feet. The luxuriant green of the valley contrasted strangely with the scorched and blistered barriers over which we had been climbing. In the distance a smiling lake of no mean proportions cut a large space out of the meadows. On the nearer and the farther shore of _Laugarvatn_, Hot-Spring-Lake, rose columns of steam in slender spirals quivering in the breeze and vanishing in the upper air. Numerous sheep and cattle marked the valley with dots of white and brown. Besides the nearer hot springs clustered a group of farm buildings and the distance caused their turf roofs to appear like tiny hillocks. This lake and valley appear like a monstrous chrysoprase in a grand setting. The valley is enclosed by the needle spires of the volcanoes which are red, brown, yellow and gray and streaked with a mixture of all these colors on their naked slopes where the melting snows have swept down many an avalanche of ash and cinder.