FROM the days of her ancient imperial glory, Denmark has retained a few scraps of land, including that sixth continent, Greenland, which seems to contain valuable mineral treasures(iron, zinc and graphite)but which is so completely covered with glaciers(only about one-thirtieth of the whole of Greenland is free from ice)that it may never be of any value to any one unless the axis of the earth shifts just a tiny little bit and allows Greenland once more to enjoy that tropical climate which must have prevailed there millions of years ago, as we are able to deduce from the presence of several large coal fields.

Her other colonies are the Faroe Islands(literally the Sheep Islands)which lie 200 miles north of the Shetlands and have a population of about 20,000 people and a capital city called Thorshavn, from where Hudson commenced his dash across the ocean which carried him to Manhattan. And then there is Iceland.The latter is a country of particular interest.Not only on account of its volcanic nature, which makes it a veritable store-house for all those queer phenomena we usually connect with the mysterious fires from old Vulcan's furnace, but also on account of its political development.It is the oldest republic of our planet with a record of self-government which began some eight centuries before our own and which with only a few short interruptions has lasted until today.

The first settlers of the island were fugitives from Norway who found their way to this distant spot in the ninth century.

Although 5000 square miles out of the total of Iceland's 40,000 are perpetually covered with glaciers and snowfields, and only one-fourteenth of the island is really fit for purposes of agriculture, living conditions there were so much more favorable than in the mother country that already by the beginning of the ninth century there were over 4000 homesteads inhabited by free and independent farmers. And these, continuing the habits of practically all early Germanic tribes, at once established a loose form of self-government.It consisted of an“Althing”—a gathering of the different local“Things”or“moots”,(which is really the same word as our“meeting”).This Althing met once a year during midsummer on a huge volcanic plain, called the Thingvellir and situated about seven miles distant from Reykjavik, the present capital, which is only a hundred years old.

During the first two centuries of their independent existence, the Icelanders developed enormous energy, composed some of the best sagas that have ever been written, discovered Greenland and America(five centuries before Columbus),and made this northern island, where in the winter the days are only four hours long, a more important center of civilization than the mother country itself.

But the curse of all Germanic races—an all-too-pronounced individualism which makes political or economic cooperation almost an impossibility—had accompanied the natives on their flight towards the west. During the thirteenth century, Iceland was conquered by the Norwegians, and when Norway became part of Denmark, Iceland followed suit.The Danes completely neglected the island, which henceforth was at the mercy of French and even Algerian.pirates until all the old prosperity had disappeared, while the literature and architecture of the heathenish period lay forgotten and the ancient wooden buildings of nobles and freedmen were being replaced by huts made out of peat.

Since the middle of the last century, however, there has been a return of some of the old prosperity and with it a renewed demand for complete independence. Today Iceland once more rules itself as it did eleven centuries ago, although outwardly still recognizing the King of Denmark as its sovereign.The biggest city on the island, Reykjavik, has still fewer than 10,000 inhabitants but is the seat of a university.The total number of inhabitants does not surpass the hundred thousand but they have an excellent literature of their own.There are no villages but only isolated farms where the children are taught and taught well by itinerant schoolmasters.

Altogether this is a most interesting little corner of the world. Like so many other small countries, it shows what can be done when intelligence is pitted against unfavorable outward circumstances.For Iceland surely is no earthly paradise.While the winters are not very cold, due to the presence of a branch of the Gulf Stream, the summers are much too short to allow the raising of grain or fruit.And then, it is forever raining!

The twenty-nine volcanoes of which the most famous, the Hekla, has been responsible for twenty-eight outbreaks during the period of which we have any historical record, have covered the island with vast tracts of lava, some of which are over a thousand square miles large. Earthquakes have upon occasion destroyed hundreds of farms and enormous fissures or clefts, running often for miles across the solid sheet of lava, and sulphur spring and lakes of boiling mud make travel from one part of the island to the next a somewhat complicated affair.The geysers or hot-water gushers for which Iceland is so famous are interesting rather than dangerous, for although one of these, the famous Big Geyser, sometimes spouts its boiling water as high as a hundred feet, their activity is steadily decreasing.

And yet people not only live on Iceland but want to go on living there. During the last sixty years more than 20,000 of them have moved to America, chiefly to Manitoba.But many of them have returned whence they came.It rains.And it is uncomfortable.But it is home.