Gullfoss

The Hvítá turns sharply west about a kilometre above the falls, runs down a wide curved three-step staircase and then drops in two stages, eleven metres and twenty-one, into a crevice thirty-two metres deep, twenty wide and 2.5 kilometres long, cut at right angles to the river. Summer flow averages 141 cubic metres a second; the highest flood measured was 2,000. Investors tried through much of the twentieth century to dam it for electricity, and Sigríður Tómasdóttir, daughter of a co-owner, is credited with stopping them, reportedly threatening to throw herself into the falls. A stone above the water carries her profile.