24 MOUNT HECLA. 



" Solid ridges were then seen of what looked like hard, black, brittle 

 stone, or rather like what smiths and iron founders call clinkers. 



" The main stream of lava was about fifty feet wide on an average. It 

 ran for more than a mile, and had not the eruption ceased and stopped at 

 its fountain head, even in the direction it had taken, it would have soon 

 destroyed a beautiful district between Vesuvius and the sea." 



MOUNT HECLA 



Is situate on the southern side of the Island of Iceland, at a distance 

 of a few miles from the sea coast; and though neither so grand as a 

 mountain, nor so terrible as the centre of volcanic action, as some of its 

 neighbours, Hecla has been more celebrated than any of them, because, 

 from its position, it has been more frequently seen by strangers, and 

 because it has been more frequently in a state of eruption, than any of 

 the other volcanos. The height of Hecla, from the level of the sea, is 

 between four and five thousand feet. From some points of view, its 

 summit is divided into three peaks, of which the central peak is the 

 loftiest and most acuminated: from other directions it seems to terminate 

 in a single massy cone, like the volcano of ^Etna. 



One of the most singular features of Hecla, as compared with other 

 volcanos, is the remarkable manner in which immense heaps of lava 

 that have flowed from the mountain during different eruptions, are 

 ranged round its base; so as to form a sort of rampart, from forty to 

 seventy feet high. All travellers have been struck by the continuity and 

 bright glazed appearance of these walls. Von Toil calls them " high 

 glazed cliffs," " lofty glazed walls," not to be compared to any thing he 

 had ever before seen; and they are described by another writer, as 

 "immense rugged vitrified walls," going all round the base of the 

 mountain. To explain part of this appearance, it may be necessary to 

 say, that when the lava passes from its liquid state, and cools, it some- 

 times retains a shining vitreous coat, not unlike glazed bricks, or some 

 of the refuse from the glass works. Beyond and above this immense 

 rampart little more lava occurs ; the rest of the mountain being composed 

 almost entirely of sand and slags. 



In 1772, the late Sir Joseph Banks, and another gentleman, ascended 

 Mount Hecla ; they found the whole country for more than two lea^u-'s, 

 wholly destitute of vegetation, the soil consisting of red and black 



