different kinds of Dry Fogs. 241 



In Calabria and Sicily, says Toaldo, the earthquakes be- 

 gan in February and continued till the end of March. The 

 outline surface of Calabria was completely changed ; upwards 

 of a hundred mountains were torn up, turned over, and trans- 

 ported ; an equal number of deep pits were opened and re- 

 mained unfilled. Fifty lakes were produced by the stoppage 

 of rivers, and the number of victims to this calamity ex- 

 ceeded a hundred thousand men. 



In Iceland the same disasters happened. Before the 

 flame broke out, the atmosphere of the island was so filled 

 with smoke, vapour, and dust, that the ground appeared red. 

 Near the mountains it was night at mid-day. The earth- 

 quakes and eruptions began on the 1st June 1783. The 

 smoke and vapours issuing from the earth formed three 

 columns visible for 55 kilometres. On the 8th June the dark- 

 ness was complete. On the 11th the river Skapta disappeared, 

 dried up in twenty-four hours. Its source was in the moun- 

 tain called Klofajokull ; previously it was lost in a gulf 

 named Skaptargliufur, and ran in a canal eight kilometres 

 in length by sixty metres in depth, between very high rocks. 

 This canal was filled by a stream of lava, which by degrees 

 overran the banks and covered all the country, except the 

 high mountains. Its breadth, from the centre, was twelve 

 kilometres towards the east, and much greater towards the 

 west. Arrested by mountains on the south, it ended by sur- 

 mounting this obstacle, and spread itself over the plain. This 

 sea of fire boiled in a fearful manner, carrying everything 

 along with it. In the plain its depth was still from thirty 

 to forty metres. Throughout the whole track of the incan- 

 descent lava the herbage was burned, the rivers dried up, 

 villages destroyed, men and animals suffocated. After these 

 details we may form some idea of the torrents of smoke which 

 must have risen into the air, along with the vapours and 

 gases escaping from the bowels of the earth. 



At the beginning of October the ground of Iceland was 

 still agitated ; flames and smoke issued from the ground in 

 the centre of the island. At length, in November, these ter- 

 rible phenomena ceased, but a volcanic island which had been 



