376 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



from Cape Eeykiawas in Iceland. This was attended by the ejection of such an immense 

 quantity of pumice, that the surface of the ocean was covered with it to the distance of a 

 hundred and fifty miles, and the spring ships were considerably impeded in their course. 

 The island consisted of high cliffs, and emitted fire, smoke, and pumice from two or three 

 different points. It was claimed by the King of Denmark, who denominated it Nyo'e, or 

 the New Island, but before a year had elapsed, the sea resumed its ancient domain, a 

 rocky reef remaining under the surface at the spot where this portentous production had 

 appeared. The submarine eruption was a prelude to some of the most violent convul 

 sions that have marked the annals of Iceland. After repeated shocks of earthquakes, the 

 Skaptar volcano was roused into terrific activity, and threw out the largest body of lava 

 ever witnessed since the period of authentic records. The quantity of ashes was so Teut 

 as to affect the whole European atmosphere with obscurity, and in the Faroe Islands the 

 ground was everywhere covered' with particles of sand and pumice. The great earth 

 quake in Calabria which occurred in the same year the luminous meteors observed in 

 England, Holland, and various parts of the continent the fog which covered Europe 

 from north to south, rising above the summits of its highest mountains, and continuing 

 upwards of a month render 1783 one of the most remarkable years of modern times, 

 and drew from Cowper the Expostulation in his " Task :" 



" Fires from beneath, and meteors from above, 

 Portentous, unexampled, unexplained, 

 Have kindled beacons in the skies ; and the old 

 And crazy earth has had her shaking fits 

 More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. 

 Is it a time to wrangle, when the props 

 And pillars of our planet seem to fail, 

 And nature, with a dim and sickly eye, 

 To wait the close of all ' " 



Such was the destruction of pasturage, corn-fields, and property in Iceland, caused by its 

 physical convulsions at this period, as to bring upon its inhabitants the additional 

 miseries of famine, so that in the short space of two years, not fewer than 9,336 

 human beings, 28,000 horses, 11,461 head of cattle, and 190,488 sheep perished on the 

 island. 



The most recent instance of new formations of this class, which excited extraordinary 

 interest from its locality, occurred off the coast of Sicily in the year 1831. The first 

 notice of it was published in the following terms, in the Messager des Chambrcs : 

 " Towards 11 o'clock on the 10th of July, 1831, Captain John Corrao, commander of 

 the brig Theresine, going from Trapani to Girgenti, in Sicily, at the distance of about 

 twenty miles from Cape St. Mark, perceived at the distance of a gun-shot a mass of 

 water, which rose 60 feet above the level of the sea, and presented a circumference of 

 nearly 400 fathoms ; a smoke proceeded from it, exhaling an odour of sulphur. The 

 preceding day, in the Gulf of Trois Fontaines (Three Fountains) he had seen a great 

 quantity of dead fish and of black matter floating on the water, and he heard a noise like 

 that of thunder, which the captain attributed to a volcanic eruption. He continued his 

 voyage to Girgenti ; and all the time that he was occupied in lading his ship, he saw a 

 thick smoke rise incessantly from the same point, before which he arrived on the 16th, 

 on his return from Girgenti. A new spectacle was then presented to him. namely, a 

 tract of land, of the same circumference as that of the mass of water which he had 

 observed on his first voyage. This island, which we shall call Corrao, 1'rom the name of 

 him who saw it formed, is elevated twelve feet above the level of the sea ; it has in the 

 middle a kind of plain, and the crater of a volcano, whence a burning lava is seen to 



