ICELAND. 



EXTENT AND SITUATION. 

 Miles. 



Length 300 > , C 63° and 67° north latitude . 



Breadth 23 j 5 tWeen I 16° and 25° west longitude. 

 lining 43,00u square miles, with somewhat more than one inhabitant to each. 



Name.... Iceland evidently derives its name from the great masses 

 of ire which float in the ocean that surround its shores. 



Mountains, volcanoes, lakes, RivEas....The mountains of Ice- 

 land range generally from the south-east to the north-west. The. 

 principal summits, covered with perpetual snow, are called Yokuls j 

 and of these, Snscfials, which projects over the sea in the south-west 

 part of the island, is esteemed the loftiest : its height is computed at 

 above 6800 feet. Almost all the Icelandic mountains either are, or 

 appear to have been, volcanic. Of these, Heckla is most known to 

 foreigners. This mountain is situated in the southern part of the 

 island, about four miles from the sea-coast, and is divided into three 

 points at the top, the highest of which is that in the middle, which is 

 computed to be above 5000 feet higher than the sea. This mountain 

 has frequently sent forth flames, and a torrent of burning matter. Its 

 eruptions were particularly dreadful in 1693, when they occasioned 

 terrible devastations, the ashes being thrown all round the island to 

 the distance of 180 English miles. An eruption of Mount Heckla 

 happened in 1766. It began on the 5th of April, and continued to the 

 7th of September following. Flames proceeded from the mountain 

 in December, 1771, and 1772; but no streams of lava. 



But the greatest of the eruptions of Iceland, and in fact the most 

 tremendous of any recorded in history, was that in 1783, which, we 

 are assured by the abbe Spallanzani,* who cites the authority of Mr. 

 Pennant, extended ninety-lour miles in length, and fifty in breadth, 

 dried up twelve rivers, and overwhelmed not only all the villages it 

 found in its way, but likewise many hills. The perpendicular height 

 of the sides of this cuirent was from eighty to a hundred feet, so that 

 the entire surface of the country was in a state of fluidity, and form- 

 ed a lake of fire, resembling a mass of melted metal. 



" In June, 1783," says the abbe Ordinaire, in his Natural History 

 of Volcanoes, ' ; it "as feared that this island (Iceland) would fall to 

 pieces ; and it was £ ven reported for some days that it had been swal- 

 lowed up, so dreadful and multiplied were the convulsions produced 

 by its volcanoes and intei A thick sulphureous smoke ren- 



dered the island absolutely invisible to mariners at sea, while the 

 people on shore were all in danger of being suffocated by it. The 

 lor/, which about that time spread over all Europe, was considered as 

 an effect of these exhalations. Frightful hollow roarings proceeded 

 from the bottom of the sea. From Mount Shapton Gluver, a seventh 

 volcano in the island, there poured a terrific torrent of fire, which 

 flowed for six weeks. It ran a distance of sixty miles to the sea; its 



* See Spallanzani's Travels in the Two Sicilies^ vol- ir. 

 Vol L 



