VOLCANOES. 
403 
of Mount Hecla where the most dreary so¬ 
litude and silence the most profound reigned all 
around them, and they could discover no traces 
either of fissures in the rock or falls of water, and 
* Sir Joseph Banks thus describes his ascent of the same 
hill: we ascended Mount Hecla with the wind blowing 
“ against us so violently that we could with difficulty proceed. 
t( The frost too was lying upon the ground, and the cold ex- 
(e tremely severe. We ourselves were covered with ice in 
“ such a manner that our clothes resembled buckram. On 
“ reaching the summit of the first peak, we here and there 
“ remarked places where the snow had been melted, and a 
ff little heat was arising from them, and it was by one of 
“ these that we rested to observe the barometer, which was 
“ 24. 838. Th. 27. The water we had with us was all 
frozen. Doctor Lind filled his wind-machine with warm 
(C water: it rose to 1 .. 6 and then froze into spiculae, so 
cc that we could not make observations any longer. We 
<c thought we had arrived at the highest peak, but soon saw 
one above us, towards which we hastened. Doctor So- 
lander remained with an Icelander in the intermediate 
valley j the rest of us continued our route to the summit 
of the peak, which we found intensely cold 5 but on the 
ff highest point was a spot of three yards in breadth, whence 
< f there proceeded so much heat and steam that we could 
not bear to sit down upon it.—H. 9.. 25. Bar. 24,722. 
Th. 38. The last eruption of 1766 broke out on a sudden 
attended by an earthquake. A south wind carried a quan- 
“ tity of ashes to Holum, a distance of an hundred and 
f<r eighty miles ! Horses were so alarmed as to run about till 
ft they dropped down through fatigue, and the people who 
