1823.] 
spring; but this uncommonly mild 
temperature announced to us, as .on 
many former occasions, (especially in 
the year 1783,) an eruption of one of 
our most dangerous volcanoes. ‘This 
iime -it was the crater Kotlugjan, 
which"js situated in the district of 
Myrdals Jékel. It had been quict for 
sixty-eight years, viz. since the year 
1755; at that time it caused the 
greatest desolation in the country, 
since, according to Dr. Stepharsen’s 
“werk, (“Iceland in the Wighteenth 
Century,”) in the following bad year, 
through the revolutions of Kotlugjan, 
the population of the country was di- 
minished by 9744 souls, 
On the preseat occasion, a loud 
detonation and rumbling noise, in the 
bowels of the glacier in Myrdals 
Jékel, and frequent lightning, on the 
22d of June, announced the eruption ; 
which, however, did not take place till 
the 26th, when a great quantity of 
ashes and pumice-stenc was thrown 
into West Myrdal, lying at the foot of 
the mountain. Pillars of smoke and 
vapour concealed the mountain, and 
darkened the air, which was lighted 
only by incessant lightnings, accompa- 
nied by thunder and earthquakes. At 
length the whole mass of ice which 
covered the mountain was burst asun- 
der, and thrown over the fields and 
sandy plains below. A quantity of 
these masses of ice was carried with 
a dreadful torrent of water into the 
sea; and, at the same time, the gronnd 
was covered with a mixture of pu- 
mice-stone and ashes, by which three 
of the best farms were laid waste, and 
numbers of cattle killed. All the in- 
habitants fled, with the rest of the cat- 
tle, from the three larms, to parts less 
exposed. 
No dives were lost; but the whole 
country is covered with water and 
ashes; aud even merchant-vessels, at 
the distance of 100 miles from. the 
coast, were also covered with ashes. 
The road through Myrdal, and to the 
south of the glacier,—which is the high 
road from all that part of the island 
called Skaptefield’s Syssel,—was ren- 
dered impassable; and it has caused 
much trouble to clear a new and much 
longer one, to the north of the glacier. 
Hitherto, there have been only three 
great cruptions of ashes, pumice-stone, 
&c.; and since that time the voleano 
has been quiet. Constant north-west 
winds fortunately carried the ashes 
exclusively over Myrdel and the. sea; 
/ Montury Mag, No. 388, 
Account of a Volcano in Iceland. 
313 
and the rest of the country has hitherto 
escaped. 
The cold and dry spring, and the 
present heat of July, have been unfa- 
vourable to the crops: to this may be 
added, that the Greenland icc, ‘which 
is said to have shut up the North-west 
Coast, has laid a long time before the 
coast of Nordland, and is said to have 
blocked up the coasts of Huneyands 
Syssel. A scarcity of provisions be- 
gins to be felt in several parts of 
Nordland. 
——l_ 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
DRY-ROT and TANNING. 
O censiderations can possibly de- 
mand more serious attention 
thin the preservation of the British 
navy, and timber in general, from dry- 
rot; and perhaps no process has 
excited more attempts, than to shorten 
and cheapen the tannage of Jeather by 
oak-bark, or to discover substitutes 
for oak-bark for that purpose. An. 
alarming naval dry-ret excited my 
first notice to this subject, 
During a residence at Portsmouth 
for above thirty years, I never heard 
of the dry-rot; but, within the last 
twenty years, the complaint has been 
general. Isoon traced the origin of 
dry-rot to the abolition of the use of 
winter-hewn oak in our dock-yards, 
and from the great scarcity and dear- 
ness of oak-bark for tanners, since 
1792; prior to which time the Navy 
Board allowed seven and a quarter 
per cent. as equivalent to the bark. 
My first object was to seek substi- 
tutes for oak-bark, and I found that 
tops and leps of oak fully answered 
the purpose of tanning, by simple de- 
coction; but the colour was rather too 
dark to be marketable, and the colour 
alone was sufficient to raise a clamour 
and combination against the article at 
Leadenhall;, this arose. from my 
having used the decoction while warm, 
but, on using it cold, the colour was 
much improved. 
1 next tried oak-bark, &c.in various 
ways, till [ found the means of tanning 
crop-hides or sole-leather in four 
months, ox one quarter of the usual 
lime, with much greater weight than 
the common standard; viz. if a raw 
hide of eighty pounds produces forty 
pounds of leather to a common tan- 
ner, he is satisfied; but, under my 
new process, such hides will weigh, 
on an average, forty-eight or fifty 
pounds when tanned, which is one- 
i 28 fourth 
