380 
Mr. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley’s Researches 
turbances, beginning on the 6th or 7th of March 1830, and con¬ 
tinuing at intervals for about a twelvemonth, disappeared com¬ 
pletely below the surface; so that now no part of it is visible, 
though it is said that its situation is occasionally revealed by 
breakers. Further out again, perhaps some six-and-twenty 
English miles from Reykjanes, rises another tall stack, called by 
Icelanders Geirfugladrangr, and by Danish sailors Greenadeer- 
huen (theGrenadier’s Cap). All these rocks have been long re¬ 
markable for the furious surf which boils round them, except in 
the very calmest weather. Still more distant is a rock to which 
the names Eldeyja-bodi or Blinde-fuglasker have been applied 
by Icelanders. This is supposed to have risen from the sea in 
1783, the year of the disastrous volcanic eruption in Skaptafells- 
sysla, and soon after to have sunk beneath the waves*. 
Icelandic records show that, at the beginning of the thirteenth 
century, various changes took place among the islands off Reyk- 
janes just enumerated. It is stated that a rock, then known as 
Eldey, disappeared ; but another being thrust up close by, the 
old name was transferred to the new-comer, and has since been 
borne by it. No notice is taken in manuscripts of that remote 
time of the birds found on these islands; but doubtless they were 
even then, weather permitting, visited by the inhabitants of the 
adjoining coast. Indeed, it is asserted in Wilchin’s ‘ Maldaga- 
bok’ (which dates from 1397,and has not, I believe, been printed), 
that half the Geirfuglasker belonged to Mary Church in Vogr, 
now represented by Kyrkjuvogr, and one-fourth to St. Peter’s, 
Kyrkjubolu, of which the church at Utskala is the modern equi¬ 
valent—claims which were still looked upon as extant until the 
submergence of the skerry put an end to them. It has been 
suggested that the remaining quarter was shared by the church 
of Stabr in Grindavik; but most likely it was left to reward the 
bold adventurers who resorted thither. In 1628, twelve men 
were drowned at the Geirfuglasker, no doubt in a fowling expe- 
* I should have wished to have given, in explanation of the above 
description, a sketch map of these localities, but I have not the means of 
doing so accurately. From our own observations, Mr. Wolley and I had 
reason to doubt whether the bearings of these islands have been correctly 
laid down either in Gunnlaugsson’s map or the Danish Admiralty chart. 
