TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 83 



This comparative account sadly exhibited the deserted state of a country very 

 similar to Ireland in its natural dimensions. The interior or central parts of Ice- 

 land are not inhabited, and are but little known to the traveller. 



The author, after describing the general aspect of the island, and its total want of 

 trees, added a brief description of Mount Hecla, and its three somewhat conical 

 summits. As the poets of Grecian antiquity had dedicated one of the tops of the 

 Bifid Parnassus to Apollo, and the second to Bacchus, so he conceived the Skalds 

 or Bards of Iceland ought to have assigned the first summit of the Trifid Hecla to 

 Odin, the second to Frea (Friga), and the third to Thor. 



According to the recent survey and measurement of Prof. Bjcirn Gunnlaugsson, 

 the altitude of the highest top of Hecla is 4961 Danish feet, or somewhat above 5100 

 English feet. A brief description by a late traveller of the view from one of its 

 summits was given. 



The author alluded to the wonderful Geysers, and other boiling springs, which 

 after certain intervals spout jets of water and steam high into the air, and proved 

 that some of them had existed for at least six centuries and a half. 



Then followed an account of the climate in summer and winter ; the aurora 

 borealis, and other meteorological pheenomena ; also of the continuance in June and 

 July of sunshine during the night, and of the want of it in the day through the cor- 

 responding period in December and January. 



An enumeration of some of the chief volcanic products and minerals was made j 

 and the poverty of vegetation, the few wild emimals, and those which are domesticated, 

 were noticed. 



Next, concerning the ethnology of the Icelanders. These were characterized as 

 a plain, but well-made, not very robust race, of good height, with reddish hair and 

 blue eyes. They are short-lived, content, and moral, although much addicted to 

 drinking. They are naturally lazy, phlegmatic, and not very hospitable. Profess- 

 ing Lutheran tenets, they are religious, fond of their native land, and well-educated. 

 Crimes are very rare. Owing to the severity of the climate, they are warmly clad; 

 both sexes wearing old-fashioned garments of a coarse dark cloth, Wadmal. The 

 houses, or rather huts of the lower class, are low and miserable, and from the 

 scarcity of timber, are mostly built of lava. They are very filthy and want fresh air. 

 Fuel is scarce ; peat, as well as the remains of fish and birds, are its substitutes. 



Their diet consists of salt fish, fermented milk, rancid butter ; also train oil is 

 much esteemed. Salted mutton is used, and fresh fish in summer. Wheaten bread 

 is scarcely ever to be had ; sometimes barley cakes are eaten, but the usual bread of 

 the peasantry is made from the poor flour of the Iceland Lichen {Cetraria Islandica), 



In summer travelling is efl^ected on horses ; in winter in sledges, which are the 

 only carriages known. ■ ^ - 



The occupations of the Icelanders are chiefly breeding horses, catlle and sheep ; 

 fishing for cod and seals, and in certain rivers for salmon ; salting and drying fish and 

 mutton. Much attention is given to the care of Eider ducks, their down being a 

 most valuable export. Little is done in commerce as yet, except by the Danish 

 merchants. The other principal exports are dried salt fish, fish roe, pickled mutton, 

 skins, fur, wool, feathers, train oil, and tallow. Brandy and salt, with most of the 

 other necessaries of life, are imported; so are manufactured goods. 



Nearly all the lower classes can read and write ; and in every hut is found the 

 Bible. During their long winter, the Icelanders spend much time in reading, at 

 which season both sexes knit and weave. Small plots of ground are here and 

 there cultivated for gardens, in which some common vegetables are with difiiculty 

 grown ; there are no corn-fields ; only meadows and pastures in the valleys ad- 

 joining upon lakes and streams. 



The Icelanders have several diseases, which are very fatal*, and vast numbers of 

 the children die when infants. 



Mr. Hogg made mention of the Icelandic language, which is the original Nor- 

 wegian, or Norse, scarcely at all altered by length of time, or contact with other 

 nations. It belongs to the Scandinavian branch of the great Teutonic family of 

 many ethnologists ; or, according to Jacob Grimm, it forms a dialect of his fourth 

 division of the Germanic language. The author is more inclined to esteem it, with 

 Rask and later authorities, a sister language, rather than a mere cognate dialect of 

 * Dr. Latham obser\'ed (after the paper was read), that, according to Dr. Schleisner, the 

 temperature of the blood of the Icelander is sensibly higher than that of any other European. 



6* 



