ICELAND: ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 283 



Avard 1° 2G' toward the mouth of the valley which opens into the 

 surrounding lava tracts. Many active craters stud its bottom. An 

 eruption took place here in 1875. In the southeast corner of this val- 

 ley is a dip 800 feet deep in the ground, in which there is a round, hot 

 lake, having a temperature of 72° F., and 4,000 feet in diameter when 

 it was found in 187G. In 1884 it filled the whole dip and had become 

 10,000 feet long, but its temperature was only 56° F. 



On March 29, 1875, an eruption covered the whole of eastern Ice- 

 land Avith pumice and ashes. The crater from which the eruption 

 proceeded is situated on the northeast edge of the dip, 300 feet in 

 diameter, 150 feet in depth. Its exterior is a slope filled with ashes; 

 its interior is round and perpendicular. It is now a mud caldron, 

 which no longer emits steam, but goes on boiling, in quaint colors, 

 depositing sulphur. Craters in this lake emit steam, with thundering 

 noises, sounding in the far distance like the simultaneous letting oif 

 steam from innumerable pipes. Thoroddsen says : 



Nature is here grander and more overawing than in any place in Iceland I 

 have seen. He who once has stood on the edge of this earthdip will never forget 

 the sight. 



The steam pressure seems to have converted all the lava in this 

 eruption into pumice and ashes. 



Northeast of the Oda^ahraun is a mountain range in which the 

 volcano Dyngja, which has given name to the whole group of moun- 

 tains, is situated. It is 3,000 feet high. The original crater is 1,500 

 to 1,000 feet in diameter and half filled with lava, from which 12 

 colunnis of lava rise. In the midst of these is a crater 4,500 feet in 

 diameter, 000 to 700 feet deep, with a terrific and startling look down. 

 Northwest of this Dyngja is another volcano, also called Dyngja 

 (northern Dyngja). 



North of the Dyngjufj()ll in the lava tract Myvatns-oraefi (the 

 desert of the Mosquito Lake) an eruption took place in 1875, near 

 Sveinagja. A rift miles long appeared, along which some crater 

 cones, 70 to 108 feet high, shot up and spread 10,000 cubic feet of 

 lava over the plain. 



No spot in Iceland is so crowded with craters, lava formations, sol- 

 fataras, and hot springs as the neighborhood of Lake Myvatn, espe- 

 cially on its eastern shore. It is so thickly studded with extinct vol- 

 canoes and remainders of prehistoric convulsions as to look more like 

 a landscape in the moon than anything else. 



Eruptions took place there with short intervals in th3 years 1724- 

 1730. The chief volcanoes are Krafla and Leirhnukur (Clay Peak) 

 in a palagonite ridge running from south to north. Of these erup- 

 tions those from Leirhnukur have been the most formidable. 



In an eruption of Krafla, May 17, 1724, great masses of volcanic 

 matter issued from an explosive crater called " hell " (Viti), 1,030 feet 



