]72 HERR JON STEFANSSON, PH.D., ON ICELAND: 



ridge of land was swept away and in its place Avas left a 

 polished slab of rock 6,750 square fsithoms. The ashes fell so 

 thick that at farms 115 miles distant from the crater, light 

 was obscured so as to make the reading of print impossible. 

 1755, eleventh eruption. Rocks of the size of a house Avere 

 embedded in ice-blocks carried to sea. Fire and water 

 issued from three craters, accompanied Avith such terrific 

 explosions, that people thought the country was being 

 bloAvn up. A hail of burning stones and balls of fire fell. 

 In the night everything seemed on fire and the air was 

 filled Avith a sulphurous smell ; fifty farms were destroyed. 

 The south part of the country was covered Avith a layer of 

 ashes half to four feet thick. The Solheima-glacier seemed 

 to rise and sink violently. It sometimes seemed to be 

 raised double its height from the ground. 



Eruptions of a magnitude unparalleled on earth in historic 

 times took place from a chain of 100 craters, 20 miles long, 

 about the valley of Varmardalur, near the sources of the 

 Skapta, to the north-east of Myrdalsjokull. The lava 

 coA^ered an area of 220 square miles and the volume of lava 

 ejected is estimated by Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, to 

 be equal to that of Mont Blanc. Thoroddsen puts it at 

 15 million cubic metres. The eruption lasted from June, 

 1783, to .lanuary, 1784. The greatest length of \h.Q lava 

 stream, Avhich passes down the channel of the Skapta and 

 reaches Hnausar in Medalland, is 47 miles, greatest breadth 

 15 miles, the length of the second lava stream in the 

 channel of Hverfisfljot is over 40 miles, breadth 9 to 

 10 miles. In places it fills valleys and chasms of a depth 

 up to 600 feet, yet its average depth here is only 20 to 

 30 feet. It is said that 37 farms Avere destroyed and 

 400 people lost their shelter. Famine and scorbutic 

 diseases raged, and animals died in great numbers ; 9,336 

 persons perished, about one-fifth of the population. The 

 loss of horses is reported to have been 28,013, or 77 per 

 cent, of all horses in Iceland, that of cattle 11,461, or 53 per 

 cent., and that of sheep 190,488, or 82 per cent. The mass 

 of matter ejected is computed at 50,000 millions of cubic 

 yards. 



Along the borders of Vatnajukull volcanic eruptions 

 have often taken place. Its greatest A'olcano is Oraefajokull, 

 Avhich has broken out three or four times Avitli formidable 

 glacier slips. In the middle of the fourteenth century — the 

 annals disagree as to the date — the ice covering the top of 



