20. 



THE TRUE STATE OF ICELAND ad. 



1592. 



powder is compounded) chingle and great stones being 

 skorched in that fiery gulfe, as it were in a furnace, [I. 557.] 

 together with abundance of sande and ashes, are vomitted 

 up and discharged, and that for the most part not 

 without an earthquake : which, if it commeth from the 

 depth of the earth, (being called by Possidonius, 

 Succussio) it must either be an opening or a quaking. 

 Opening causeth the earth in some places to gape, and 

 fall a sunder. By quaking the earth is heaved up and 

 swelleth, and sometimes (as Plinie saith) casteth out huge Lib. 20. cap. 

 heaps : such an earth-quake was the same which I even 

 now mentioned, which in the yere 1581 did so sore 

 trouble the South shore of Island. And this kinde of 

 earth-quake is most clearkely described by Pontanus in 

 these verses : 



The stirring breath runnes on with stealing steppes, 



urged now up, and now enforced downe : 

 For freedome eke tries all, it skips, it leaps, 



to ridde it selfe from uncouth dungeon. 



Then quakes the earth as it would burst anon. 

 The earth yquakes, and walled cities quiver, 

 Strong quarries cracke, and stones from hilles doe 

 shiver. 



I thought good to adde these things, not that I 

 suppose any man to be ignorant thereof: but least 

 other men should thinke that we are ignorant, and there- 

 fore that we will runne after their fables, which they do 

 from hence establish. But yet there is somewhat more 

 in these three fained mountaines of Island, which causeth 

 the sayd writers not a little to woonder, namely whereas 

 they say that their foundations are alwayes burning, and 

 yet for all that, their toppes be never destitute of snowe. 

 Howbeit, it beseemeth not the authority and learning of 

 such great clearks to marveile at this, who can not but 

 well know the flames of mount Aetna, which (according 

 to Plinie) being full of snowe all Winter, notwithstanding 

 (as the same man witnesseth) it doth alwayes burne. 



107 



