ICELAND: ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 281 



seat of the eruption. This island was taken possession of by the Danes. 

 The next year it had disappeared. The GeirfngLasker (or Skerrie 

 of the Great Auk), one of these islands, was reported in 1884 to have 

 sunk into the sea. 



Eldborg (Fire burgh, the fortress of fire) is a crater 179 feet high 

 and 636 feet in diameter, in the middle of a flat plain, from which a 

 lava tract, now called Borgarhraun, issued. It is the first crater 

 mentioned in history in a state of eruption (Landnama, about A. D. 

 900). From afar it looks like an old feudal castle rising in the midst 

 of the plain, with battlements, alone and isolated. It rises gently till 

 within about 80 feet of the summit, Avhen it shapes itself into a steep 

 and precipitous wall of black, glazed lava, crowned with lofty 

 battlements. 



Katla or Kotlugja, in the eastern part of Mj^rdalsjokuU, is a vol 

 canic chasm covered with ice between the eruptions. It has burst 

 thirteen times, with prodigious inundations, from 894 to 1860. These 

 " glacier leaps " have carried down masses of pulverized lava and 

 alluvial detritus, filling up fjords and bays, altering the coast line 

 and causing the land to encroach upon the sea. The first eruption of 

 Katla (894) laid waste two districts. Ruins of the farms destroyed 

 that year were found at the beginning of the seventeenth century. 

 During its third eruption, in 1245, glacier slips overran Solheimasan- 

 dur. The layers of ashes were half a foot thick. In 1311, fifth 

 eruption, fifty-one homesteads were destroyed and a whole district 

 laid waste. In 1625, eighth eruption, ashes fell in Norway, inunda- 

 tions with ice floes, earthquakes, and columns of fire; lightnings lit 

 the darkness of ashes. Pasture land was covered 2 feet deep with 

 pumice. 1660. ninth eruption: Such Avas the quantity of stones and 

 detritus borne down with the glacier slide that a dry beach was 

 formed Avhere formerly people fished in a depth of 120 feet. The 

 coast line was pushed over 6,000 feet out into the sea. The ice blocks 

 swept a church away and it sailed out to sea in the midst of them. 

 1721, tenth eruption : The ice blocks of the glacier slip were grounded 

 in a depth of 400 to 500 feet, 13 to 14 miles out at sea ; a grass}'' 

 ridge of land was swept away and in its place was left a polished 

 slab of rock 6,750 square fathoms. The ashes fell so thick that at 

 farms 115 miles distant from the crater light was obscured so as to 

 make the reading of print impossible. 1755, eleventh eruption: 

 Rocks of the size of a house were embedded in ice blocks carried to 

 sea. Fire and water issued from three craters, accompanied with 

 such terrific explosions that people thought the country was being 

 blown up. A hail of burning stones and balls of fire fell. In the 

 night everything seemed on fire and the air was filled with a sul- 

 phurous smell ; fift}^ farms were destroyed. The south part of the 

 country was covered with a layer of ashes one-half to 4 feet thick. 



