36 



of the year named, the usual preliminary noise began in the neigh- 

 borhood of the mountains, and on the eighth of the month a great 



Ikapta overflowed with fetid water and then suddenly disappeared. 

 Fire broke out on the mountain, and two days later a stream of lava 

 came oozing down the dried bed of the river. Notwithstanding that 

 the channel was six hundred feet deep and two hundred wide, the 

 lava overflowed the banks and inundated the Meddalland country, 



stream finalfy flowed int.. the Mrddalland lake, tilling it up, and then 

 divided into two streams, one of them again seeking the course of the 

 river and finally leaping, maddened and hot, into the sea over the 

 great cataract of Stapafoss, whose brink is three hundred feet above 

 the sea level. The other stream, after traversing a wide section of 

 lowland country, found a line of least resistance in the Hverfisfliot 

 river bed. This last stream of lava, as far as it has been surveyed - 

 there is much of it, how much no one knows, in a country over which 

 no man has ever been — is forty miles in length and seven in width. 

 That which went over the cataract is.fifty miles long and fifteen broad. 

 The lava ceased to flow in August, and the convulsion ended with a 



dust, and thousands of acres of grass land were buried and withered 

 under the hot showers. It is estimated that 190,000 sheep, 28,000 

 horses, 11,000 cattle and 9,000 men died as a result of the eruption. 

 So much for the wonders of Iceland. Having taken on a fresh supply 

 of coal at Reykjavik Ave sailed away for Hammerfest, the most north- 

 ern city in Europe, and on the way we had a view of the great North 

 Atlantic sea serpent. 



I have never, in all my experience of smooth water, seen such a 

 calm sea as we steamed through on the morning of the twentieth of 

 July in latitude 69° 32', longitude 2° 30' east. The surface of the sea 

 was as smooth as the face of a plate of French glass ; not a breath of 

 wind ruffled it, and, standing on the bows, it was hard to believe that 

 we were making our way to Norway at the rate of seven knots an 

 hour. The sky was clear, without a fleck of cloud. This minuteness 



that skeptical people may not say that what was seen fronfthe ship's 

 deck was the result of obscured sight, or what not else that may be 

 convenient to interpose as an argument against belief. It was eleven 

 o'clock ; the breakfast table had just been cleared away, and all hands 

 were settling down to enjoy such amusement as cards can afford, when 



