BKINE SPRINGS. 
655 
without intermission for a considerable time, and was also very high, and 
larger tiian the former. O eor both of these islands have since been 
swallowed up. All the time of this great eruption, and fora considerable 
time after, the whole atmosphere was loaded w ith smoke, steam, and sul- 
phureous vapours. The sun was sometimes wholly invisible ; and when 
it could be seen, was of a reddish colour. Most of the fisheries were 
destroyed ; the banks where the fish used to resort being so changed, 
that the fishermen could not know them again, and the smoke was so 
thick that they could not go far out to sea. The rain-water, falling 
through this smoke and steam, was so impregnated with salt and 
sulphureous matter, that what had escaped the destructive effects of 
the fire became poisonous, so that the cattle died for want of food, or 
perished by eating those unwholesome vegetables. Nor were the 
irjhabitants in a much better situation, many of them having lost their 
lives by the poisonous qualities of the smoke and steam with which 
the whole atmosphere was filled. 
Before the fire broke out in Iceland, there is said to have been a 
very remarkable eruption in the uninhabited parts of Greenland, and 
that in the northern parts of Norway the fire was visible for a long 
time. A considerable quantity of ashes, sand, and other volcanic 
matters, fell at Fars, which covered the whole surface of the ground 
whenever the wind blew from Iceland, though the distance is not less 
than four hundred and eighty miles. Ships sailing betwdxt Copen- 
hagen and Norway were covered with ashes and sulphureous matter, 
which stuck to the masts, sails, and decks, besmearing them all over 
with a pitchy substance. 
Brine Springs. 
These are fountains which flow with salt water instead of fresh. 
Of these there are a great number in South Britain ; but though not 
peculiar to this island, they are far from being common on the conti- 
nent. There is a remarkable one at East Chermock, in Somersetshire, 
about twenty miles from the sea. There is another at Leamington in 
Warwickshire, very near the river Learn ; which, however, is but weak. 
A third runs into the river Cherwell in Oxfordshire ; and there are 
several more in Westmoreland and Yorkshire ; but as they are weak, 
and the fuel in most of those counties is scarce and dear, no salt is 
prepared from them. At Borrowdale, near Grange, seven miles 
from Keswick in Cumberland, a pretty strong spring rises in a level 
near a moss ; sixteen gallons of water of which, yield one of pure salt; 
which is remarkable, as the same quantity of salt cannot be obtained 
from less than twenty-two gallons of the waters of the German ocean. 
At Salt-water Haugh, in Durham, there are a multitude of salt springs 
which rise in the middle of the river Weare, for the space of about 
forty yards in length and ten in breadth ; but particularly one out 
of a rock, which is so strong, that in a hot summer’s day the surface 
is covered with a pure white salt. At Weston, in Staffordshire, there 
are brine springs which afford about a ninth part of very fine white 
salt. There are others at Enson, St. Thomas, and in the parish of 
Ingestre, but so weak that they are not wrought, though it is believed 
