ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 171 



rocks, situate 10 to 12 miles off the south-west point of 

 Reykjanes. Nine eruptions, the earHest in 1211, are known 

 to have taken place in the bottom of the sea near these islets. 

 In 1783, during the Skapta eruption, an island called Nyey 

 (New Isle), about 10 to IG square miles, appeared near the 

 Eldeyjar, about 150 miles distant from the seat of the 

 eruption. This island Avas taken possession of by the Danes. 

 The next year it had disappeared. The Geirfuglasker (or 

 Skerrie of the Great Auk), one of these islands, was reported, 

 in 1884, to have sunk into the sea. 



Eldborg (Fire burgh, the fortress of fire) is a crater 

 179 feet high, and iSoii feet in diameter, in the middle of a flat 

 plain, from which a lava tract, now called Borgarhraun, 

 issued. It is the first crater mentioned in history in a state 

 of eruption (Landnama, about A.D. 900). From afar it looks 

 like an old feudal castle rising in the midst of the plain, 

 with battlements, alone and isolated. It rises gently till 

 Avithin about 80 feet of the summit, when it shapes itself 

 into a steep and precipitous wall of black, glazed lava, 

 ■croAvned with lofty battlements. 



Katla or Kdtlugjd, in the eastern part of Myrdalsjokull, 

 is a volcanic chasm covered with ice betAveen the eruptions. 

 It has burst thirteen times, Avith prodigious inundations from 

 894 to 1860. These "glacier leaps" haA^e carried down 

 masses of pulverized lava and alluvial detritus, filling up 

 fjords and bays, altering the coastline and causing the land 

 to encroach upon the sea. The first eruption of Katla (894) 

 laid Avaste tAvo districts. Ruins of the farms, destroyed that 

 year, Avere found at the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century. During its third eruption, in 1245, glacier slips 

 overran Solheimasandur. The layers of ashes Avere half a 

 foot thick. In 1311, fifth eruption, fifty-one homesteads Avere 

 destroyed, and a Avhole district laid Avaste. In 1625, eighth 

 eruption, ashes fell in NorAvay, inundations Avith icefloes, 

 earthquakes and columns of fire, lightnings lit the darkn-^ss 

 of ashes. Pasture land Avas tAvo feet deep covered Avith 

 pumice. 16(30, ninth eruption. Such Avas the quantity of 

 stones and detritus borne down Avith the glacier-slide that 

 a dry beach Avas formed, Avhere formerly people fished in 

 a depth of 120 feet. The coastline Avas pushed over 6,000 

 feet out into the sea. The ice-blocks swept a church aAvay, 

 and it sailed out to sea in the midst of them. 1721, tenth 

 eruption. The ice-blocks of the glacier-slip Avere grounded in 

 a depth of 400 to 500 feet, 13 to 14 miles out at sea ; a grassy 



