TRAVELS IN ICELAND. 



117 



abdomine glauco\ Podura tola argenteo-aurata, lanuginc 

 supra cazrulea, 6^c. ; Podura obscure cairuka, antennis crassis, 

 £$c; Acarus albus corpore spinoso; Acar us petr arum ruber ; 

 Aniscus fuscus, crusta carinata macula in thor ace alba ; and 

 several varieties of the Aniscus niger. 



EXTRAORDINARY ROCKS. 



In this part of the country there are a number of rocks, orlarge 

 masses of stone of a spherical form, which are heavy, com- 

 pact, and frequently ignescent : they may be seen in all the 

 mountains of the western quarter, and their spherical surface 

 appears as if rising out of the summits of the mountains. Some 

 of them are two, four, and even six fathoms in dia- 

 meter. Nothing is more singular than this spectacle, since it 

 cannot be conceived how these rocks have attained their situation* 

 They have every appearance of having been moved from some 

 high spot; though there are no mountains near them more ele- 

 vated than those on which they stand, while no inundation, how- 

 ever considerable, could have had the power to move them: so that 

 we can only suppose that they were always in the same situation, 

 and that the earth which once covered them has been carried off 

 by water. It is, nevertheless, possible that a great overflowing 

 of the sea, together with the large quantities of floating ice con- 

 veyed from Greenland, may have thrown the masses of stone to 

 the height at which they are seen; since it Is known that the 

 force of such causes has carried off small peninsulas,, rocks^ and isles. 



POPULATION OF GREENLAND. # 



The Landnama-Saga and other ancient histories contain an 

 account of the first establishments formed on this coast, which 

 took place at a very early period, and the isles soon became 

 fully inhabited ; but their population was considerably diminished 

 by the removal of a colony to Greenland, though historians erro- 

 neously assert that that country was originally peopled by the 

 Norwegians. It is nevertheless true, that Eric the Red was a 

 Norwegian, born at Joederen: but he did not go thence directly 

 to Greenland ; having previously come with his father to Iceland, 

 where he passed a great part of his life, and he was still young 

 when his father established himself on the coast of Cape Nord» 

 Before this time Greenland was discovered by a person named 

 Gunbiorn Ulfsen, in the same voyage during which he found the 

 rock called Gunbiom-Skiair. His account gave Eric the 

 Red the idea of proceeding thither, on his being obliged to 

 quit the former country for a homicide which he had committed. 

 At this period, which was about the year 982, Iceland had been 

 inhabited upwards of a century, Greenland was not occupied 



