110 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
infinitely more terrible phenomena which attended the 
eruption of another volcano, called Skapta JokuL 
Of all countries in Europe, Iceland is the one which 
has been the most minutely mapped, not even excepting 
the ordnance survey of Ireland. The Danish Govern¬ 
ment seem to have had a hobby about it, and the 
result has been a chart so beautifully executed, that 
every little crevice, each mountain torrent, each flood 
of lava, is laid down with an accuracy perfectly 
astonishing. One huge blank, however, in the south¬ 
west corner of this map of Iceland, mars the integrity 
of its almost microscopic delineations. To every other 
part of the island the engineer has succeeded in 
penetrating; one vast space alone of about four 
hundred square miles has defied his investigation. 
Over the area occupied by the Skapta Jokul, amid 
its mountain-cradled fields of snow and icy ridges, no 
human foot has ever wandered. Yet it is from the 
bosom of this desert district that has descended the 
most frightful visitation ever known to have desolated 
the island. 
This event occurred in the year 1783. The pre¬ 
ceding winter and spring had been unusually mild. 
