Th. Thoroddsen— Volcanic History of Iceland. 459. 
up of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, which, within historical 
times, have occurred in Iceland. And of these phenomena I beg to 
offer a short review, being an abstract of a larger work on the 
subject, which I have in preparation, wherein each eruption and 
each earthquake will be carefully and minutely described, and the 
authorities critically tested on which the evidence rests. 
The following is a list of volcanos which within historical times 
have been in a state of volcanic activity, and of earthquakes which 
have occurred within the same period. 
Exppore (Fire-burgh, 64° 47’ north lat. 34° 54’ west long. mer. 
Copenhagen’) in the district of Myrasysla (Fen-bailiwick, Bailiwick 
of the Fen country), the first crater mentioned in history in a state of 
eruption in Iceland. It is about 200 feet highs situated in the 
midst of a plain, and surrounded on all sides by lava. 
Hexta (The Mantle; the name doubtless derived from its shape 
at a distance reminding the beholder of a bemantled corpuleut 
woman, 63° 59/ n.1. 82° 19’ w.lo.), the most famous of all Icelandic 
volcanos ; seven geovraphical miles inland from the nearest point of 
the coast. It is 4956 feet high, piled up of blocks of lava, masses 
of pumice-stone and ashes. Parallel with this somewhat strongly 
longitudinally shaped mountain, there run from 8.W. to N.E. ridges 
of other mountains, composed of palagonite breccia and tufa. All 
around Hekla vast stretches of lava, produced by countless successive 
eruptions, extend in every direction. On the mountain itself, as well 
as in its immediate neighbourhood, a great number of craters may 
be observed. This is the most widely and most accurately known 
of all Icelandic volcanos. 
Ravu%Su-KAMBAR (Red Combes, 64° 12’ n.1. 32° 25’ n.lo.), a ridge 
of mountains following the direction of the line of Hekla, has, so far 
as is historically known, erupted only once, a.p. 1545. The land all 
about this range is covered with sand and ashes. 
Reyxksanes (Reek [=Smoke or Steam ]-ness), volcanic through- 
out; it consists of alternate layers of tufa and trap, rising up to 
plateaux of 400 feet high, on the surface of which there is a long 
series of volcanos rising even to the height of 2000 feet, but now 
mostly extinct. This series of volcanic peaks takes the same 
direction as the line of Hekla. A number of volcanic springs and 
earthquake chasms are to be found all about this neighbourhood. 
Purrir-HrRavun (Dry-river lava, 64° nl. 83° 55’ w.lo.), the out- 
come of an eruption which happened a.p. 1000, on the upland 
plateau called Hellis-heiSi (= Hollow-heath, i.e. the cavernous heath; 
even to-day it sounds cavernous in certain places, as the traveller 
rides over it); it took an easterly current over the plateau, and issued 
finally through a pass on the eastern, somewhat precipitous, side of 
it into the lowland plains below. 
TroLLA-pyne@sa (Trolls’ bower, 63° 56’ n.1. 34° 14’ w.lo.), one of 
the many peaks that stud the volcanic ridge of Reykyjanes, is situated 
to the N.W. of the sulphur mines of Krisuvik. Six eruptions from 
1 The meridian of Copenhagen is used because it is the meridian employed in 
Gunnlégsen’s Map of Iceland, the largest, fullest, and most correct existing. 
