]88 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S. 



the snow is various, as is also its size. Hail is roundish; the largest is only of 

 the size of hail-shot, that we kill fowl with. 



Of meteors, I have observed the ignis lambens, the draco volans, and 

 frequently two mock suns, with three rainbows passing through them and the 

 true sun. There are no stated winds. — ^The depth of our sea is various: the 

 greatest about the coast is 80 fathoms. The sea water in clear nights, being 

 struck with oars, shines like fire bursting out of a furnace. The tides observe 

 the motion of the moon. The sea swells about the moon's rising and setting; 

 and it falls when she is to the south and north. The ordinary highest tides are 

 not above ] 6 feet, except in autumn, when it is very tempestuous, and then they 

 rise sometimes to 20 feet. About the full and new moon are the highest 

 spring tides, and the lowest neap tides. — ^There are many lakes, and most of 

 them on high mountains, which are stored with salmon. Innumerable springs 

 gush out of rocks. Also many hot springs; of which, some are so hot, that in 

 a quarter of an hour they will sufficiently boil great pieces of beef; which is 

 done in this manner: they hang the kettles with cold water over them, in which 

 they put the meat to be boiled; for fear of either burning or throwing up the 

 meat by the fervent and vehement ebullition of the hot waters. These waters 

 harden and petrify about the brims of the springs. The highest hills are not 

 above a quarter of a German mile high. There is a whole ridge of mountains 

 through all the island. The people live only in the valleys, and towards the 

 sea shore. There are other volcanoes besides Hecla; and all covered with snow. 

 — The declination of the load-stone is here to the north-west; (but how much 

 he notes not.) — ^The soil is clayey for the most part; in some places sandy; no 

 where chalky. No tillage is used; all their commodities being imported; of 

 which the chief are, barley, wheat, linen, iron. — ^They have great numbers of 

 various birds in summer. In winter, ravens, eagles, wild ducks, swans. They 

 are pretty well stored with horses, oxen, cows, sheep, dogs, and in some places 

 with hens. There are foxes in the mountains ; and the Greenland ice brings 

 with it those terrible guests, the bears. The oxen and cows live in winter on 

 hay ; but the horses and sheep make a shift to live on the grass under the snow, 

 and coralline moss called muscus marinus. — There are no minerals that are 

 known; only store of brimstone, of which they export every year two ships 

 lading.— In the year l642, on the 13th of May, all the sea which beats on the 

 promontories was for two days so pellucid and shining, that shells and the 

 smallest stones could be seen at- the bottom, where the sea was 40 fathoms 

 deep.* 



* For more particulars concerning this northern part of Europe the reader is referred to Von 

 Troil's Letters on Iceland, published in 1780. The water of the hot- springs was analysed by the 



