Curiosities of Olden Times
the grass-land round the lake Hvitarvatn, to the east of the Jökull, where the mountains are lower, and the existence of a large sheet of water, from which issues a considerable river—the Hvitá—points to this being a place to which the drainage of a very considerable portion of the glacier converges.
It is not a little remarkable that the huge extent of Lang Jökull feeds scarcely any other rivers. It is true that the Nordlinga fljot, another Hvitá and Asbrandsá, have their sources under the Lang Jökull, but they are only small streams, whereas the Hvitá bursts out of its lake a wide and deep river; and we think that this is accounted for by the presence of a depression towards the interior of the range which gathers the drainage from the surrounding glaciers, and then pours the flood in a sub-glacial torrent into the lake. The opening to this valley we suppose to be blocked above the lake by the glaciers from Hrutafell and Blàfell's Jökull, which meet and overlap.
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