PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF ICELAND.
§ 1. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
“Iceland owns its existence wholly to submarine volcanic agency”--such
is the statement generally made by travellers and accepted by readers.
The genesis of this “Realm of Frost and Fire;” this “fragment of earth
white with snow, black with lava, and yellow with brimstone;” this
“strange trachytic island, resting on an ocean of fire in the lone North
Sea,” where the “primary powers of nature are ever at war with one
another,” is compared with the efforts, vastly magnified, which in 1811
threw up from the waters Azorean Sabrina to a height of 480 feet above
sea-level. And many have assumed as its exemplar the three-coned Nyöe
(Nýey) that rose during the Skaptár eruption (1783), some thirty miles
south-west of Reykjanes, and sank into a subaqueous reef before the end
of the same year.[52]
This is true, but not the whole truth. The basis of Iceland was
recognised by Baron Sartorius Von Waltershausen to be the Palagonite[53]
which forms the foundation of volcanic tufas on Etna, the Azores,
Tenerife, the Cape Verds, and other Plutonic regions. It is known to
the people as “Mó-berg,” the _saxum terrestre-arenosum_ of Eggert
Olafsson, translated by the dictionaries Clay-soil, but generally used
in contradistinction to Stuðlaberg,[54] hard stone, the basalts,
basaltites, dolerites, and others of their kind. By the
older travellers, as Henderson, it is termed sandstone, and
_conglomérat-basaltique_, while not a few have confounded it with
trachyte. In Iceland this mineral substance, rather than mineral, is a
far more important feature than even in Sicily.
By virtue of its composite character and different colour, this
hydrosilicate of alumina is a Proteus; massive and amorphous;
crystalline, muddy, sandy, and ashy; friable, porous, and spongy like
lava and pumice; granular, silicious, and arenaceous; heavy and compact
like slatey clays; vitreous and semi-vitreous with the lustre of
pitch-stone. It is as various in tint as in texture; usually ferruginous
brown, dark brown or dun yellow; grey and slate-coloured; dark with
hornblendic particles; pure white where it is converted into gypsum,
clay marl, and limonite with the aspect of chalk, by exposure to the
action of sulphurous acid; green tinged with olivine; garnetic-red;
ochreous, the effect of iron; and at times showing a ferreous coat of
pavonine lustre. Palagonite lava is often “of so deep a brick-red colour
that it resembles an iron slag, were it not for its superior lightness.”
Here, this Palagonite degrades to the yellow sand which contrasts so
remarkably with the black Plutonian shore; there, in the lowlands it
shows fissile strata horizontal like sandstone, and at times marly
couches. It paves the soles of valleys and the floors of rivers; and it
rises on the surface of the loftiest Heiðar (highland heaths), where
earth is worn down to the very bone by rains, snows, and winds. Now it
towers in huge cliffs and scaurs, irregular masses of rock overlying or
underlying the traps; then it bulges into high belts of country, sierras
and detached mountains, like Herðubreið and others which will afterwards
be mentioned. Consolidated and in places crystallised by heat and high
pressure, this produce of submarine volcanoes was elevated by the long
continued action of quietly working forces, but it still displays its
subaqueous origin. Firstly, it is a hydrate containing 17 to 25 per
cent. of water; secondly, it is stratified as if formed of hardened
ashes and modified lavas; and, thirdly, it contains broken mollusks[55]
of marine types still existing, and the silicious skeletons of
infusoria: a negative proof is that we never meet with it among volcanic
tuffs subaërially deposited. In places it becomes an acute-angled
breccia, enclosing basalts and lavas varying from the size of a pin’s
head to that of a man, or rounded conglomerates suggesting that the
foreign matter was deposited in a shallow sea. The fresh appearance of
the shells and the presence of infusoria also tend to prove that it was
deposited in a heated, at least not in a gelid sea.
Professor Tyndall finds in Palagonite the first stage of the fumarole:
“If a piece be heated with an excess of aqueous sulphuric acid, it
dissolves in the cold to a fluid, coloured yellow-brown by the presence
of peroxide of iron. On heating the fluid, the peroxide is converted
into protoxide; a portion of its oxygen goes to the sulphurous acid,
forming sulphuric acid, which combines with the basis of the rock and
holds them in solution.” But the resultant springs show no trace of
oxide of iron which has been dissolved and has disappeared. “The very
rock from which it was originally extracted, possesses the power of
re-precipitating it, when by further contact with the rock, the solution
which contains it has its excess of acid absorbed, and has thus become
neutral. In this way, the aqueous sulphurous acid acts as carrier to the
iron, taking up its burden here, and laying it down there; and this
process of transference can be clearly traced to the rocks themselves.”
Upon this Palagonite floor, the “Protogæa,” or oldest formation, were
laid immense tracts of sand and stratified ejections of “trap.”
According to Macculloch, “the word is a cloak for ignorance which saves
the trouble of investigation.” But it is still a general term for the
older, lighter, less earthly and basic, and more crystalline forms than
the basalts, containing intercalated pumice-tuffs deficient in shells,
whilst the cavities abound in zeolites and amygdaloids.[56] Concerning
the strike and dip of the trap-strata, which rise sheer from the sea, in
grades and layers, steep, angular, and bare, and which outline the mural
copings and stepped cones of the old coast and the jaws of the
river-gorges, there are many conflicting opinions. Some hold that the
strata all incline gradually and quaquaversally, more or less, towards
the centre of the island; whilst others find that as a rule, they are
horizontal. The expedition led by Prince Napoleon (1857) recognised
convergence, and often a slope of 15° towards the grand foci of eruption
that form the respective systems; for instance, the _inclinaison
rayonnante_ towards Snæfellsjökull. The author could lay down no rule,
except that the steps, viewed in profile, especially from the gashes and
torrent-beds, appear to recede rather than to project, to dip inland
rather than seawards. The strata vary in number to a maximum of fifty;
they are perpendicular courses separated by débris, and sometimes footed
by déblai and humus, disposed at the natural angle--this regularity
again suggests submarine deposition, and everywhere attracts the
stranger’s eye.
Professor Bunsen divides the rocks of Iceland, and probably those of
most other volcanic systems, into two great groups: (1.) _Normal
Pyroxenic_, the basalts and dolerites, whence silica is almost absent;
and (2.) _Normal Trachytic_, abounding in that mineral. The basalts[57]
are of two kinds, the true, rich in, and the basaltite, which notably
wants, olivine. Both are either honey-combed with drusic cavities, or
perfectly compact and fine-grained; the water-rolled pieces are soft,
and smooth as marble. The basalts pass by almost imperceptible degrees
into dolerites (green-stones) coloured by admixture of chlorite, and
often containing iron pyrites. Of less importance as a geological
feature, are the masses, veins, and crests of trachyte which pierce the
Palagonites, the traps, and the basalts. The rock which is compared with
the chain of the Puys (Auvergne), occurs, however, in an altered form at
many places unsuspected by old travellers, and every explorer adds to
its importance. From Reykjavik appear two gold-yellow and white-streaked
peaks, associated with jasper and other forms of quartz. The
Snæfellsjökull peninsula is also for the most part trachytic. The
celebrated Baula (the cow), a cone rising 3000 feet high, contrasts the
mechanic neatness of its whitey-grey pillars[58] with its red neighbour,
Little Baula, and with the surrounding chaos of darkness; and
heat-altered trachytes are found about Hekla and the Geysir. The green
trachyte of Viðey, apparently tinted by chlorite, was found to contain
silica, alumina, iron, and traces of magnesia. Daubeny, and a host of
writers, assumed that a trachytic band, disposed upon a rectilinear
fissure 200 kilometres long, bisects the island from south-west
(Reykjanes) to north-east (Langanes), and represents the original
Iceland, as the Longmynd and Stiper Stones are the nucleus of England.
Moreover, the great centres of eruption, igneous and aqueous, were
disposed upon this diagonal, flanked by the earlier Plutonic masses.
Lastly, the modern volcanic chimneys were all theoretically opened in
the old and new trachytic domes. M. Robert (1835) especially sought and
failed to find the “trachytic band,” and, since Von Waltershausen’s
visit, it has been determined that the material is the Palagonite floor
traversed by the Geysir and by most of the active volcanoes.
The peculiar contrasts of the island are thus noticed by an old writer:
“The king of Denmark is still master of Iceland, which is supposed to be
the _Ultima Thule_ of the ancients. The surface, though it is covered
with snow, nevertheless contains burning mountains, whence issue fire
and flames, to which the Iceland poets compare the breasts of their
mistresses. It has also smoking lakes, which turn everything thrown into
them to stone, and many other wonders which render this island famous.”
Iceland, like Tenerife, owes its present general contour to subaërial
volcanic action of the post-Tertiary period, the secular growth of the
detached regions overlying the pockets and foci of eruption, as
explained by Von Buch, together with the gradual accretion, the gift of
exit-chimneys and dejections from the Plutonic cauldrons. The normal
pyroxenic was followed by the felspathic formations, trachytic, acid and
pumiceous, which, though comparatively modern, still date from immense
antiquity. The distribution into fire-vents (true volcanoes) and
sand-vents (pseudo-volcanoes), will be noticed in a future page.
The lava is composed of trachytic (silicious) and doleritic (basic)
ejections, varying in weight;[59] the stone averages about half the
specific gravity of granite, and in a molten state it flows at the rate
of 50 to 100 yards per diem. When first cooled, the ejections are
lamp-black; they are then tarnished by oxygen to brown; they become grey
with lichens; and finally, the lapse of ages converts them into humus.
To the latter process, Brydone, on Etna, assigned 14,000 years, and
greatly scandalised our grandsires, who held sound opinions upon the
date (B.C. 4004) empirically assigned to creation. We can hardly forget
poor Cowper’s poor verse, and poorer sense:
“Some drill and bore
The solid earth, and from the strata there,
Extract a register, by which we learn
That He who made it, and revealed (!) its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age.”[60]
The following is a list of the principal orographic features,
Jökulls,[61] Fells (mountains), volcanoes, masses of Palagonite,
snow-peaks, and true glaciers, which are rare. Gunnlaugsson’s
astronomical positions are given in Danish feet, and the former are
reduced to the meridian of Greenwich by assuming Copenhagen to lie east
12° 34´ (Rafn, 12° 34´·7). The Danish foot is calculated at 12·356
inches English, or about 67:69.
The north-eastern quarter numbers fifteen points, ranging from 1000 to
3000 Danish feet, and the following ten exceed the latter:
Dan. Eng.
feet = feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)=Greenwich.
Lambafell, 3459 3562 64° 58´ 28´´ 26° 39´ 19´´ 14° 5´
Herðubreið, 5290 5447 65° 10´ 39´´ 28° 58´ 55´´ 16° 25´
Gagnheiðarhnúkr, 3009 3098 65° 13´ 35´´ 26° 53´ 42´´ 14° 20´
Beinageitarfjall, 3517 3621 65° 27´ 37´´ 26° 42´ 2´´ 14° 8´
Dyrfjöll, 3606 3713 65° 31´ 20´´ 26° 35´ 17´´ 14° 1´
Smjörfjall, 3859 3973 65° 36´ 40´´ 27° 24´ 6´´ 14° 50´
Heljarfjall, 3991 4109 65° 48´ 26´´ 31° 31´ 56´´ 18° 58´
Rimar, 4020 4139 65° 52´ 45´´ 31° 7´ 33´´ 18° 33´
Ólafsfjarðarfjall, 3272 3369 65° 58´ 34´´ 31° 31´ 8´´ 18° 57´
Kaldbakr, 3699 3810 66° 0´ 24´´ 30° 48´ 58´´ 18° 15´
In the south-eastern quarter, nine heights range from 1000 to 3000
Danish feet, and eleven rise higher, viz.:
Dan. Eng.
feet = feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)=Greenwich.
Stórhöfði, 4509 4643 63° 55´ 34´´ 29° 17´ 7´´ 16° 43´
Staðarfjall, 3782 3894 63° 57´ 55´´ 29° 12´ 51´´ 16° 39´
Öræfajökull,[62] 6241 6426 64° 0´ 48´´ 20° 20´ 16´´ 16° 46´
Thverártindsegg, 3668 3776 64° 11´ 14´´ 28° 46´ 12´´ 16° 12´
Birnudalstindr, 4300 4428 64° 14´ 54´´ 28° 34´ 1´´ 16° 0´
Bakkatindr, 3316 3414 64° 20´ 50´´ 28° 50´ 22´´ 15° 47´
Afrèttartindr, 3842 3956 64° 31´ 4´´ 27° 33´ 54´´ 15° 0´
Búlandstindr, 3388 3488 64° 41´ 54´´ 27° 3´ 4´´ 14° 31´
Snæfell,[63] 5808 5964 64° 48´ 1´´ 28° 11´ 43´´ 15° 38´
Kistufell, 3499 3602 64° 51´ 18´´ 27° 11´ 16´´ 14° 47´
Lambafell, 3459 3561 64° 58´ 28´´ 26° 39´ 19´´ 14° 5´
In the north-eastern quarter, twenty points range from 1000 to 3000
Danish feet, and only three rise higher, viz.:
Dan. feet=Eng. feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)=Greenwich.
Illviðrahnúkr, 3476 3579 66° 8´ 14´´ 31° 37´ 4´´ 19° 4´
Hvammsfell, 3785 3897 65° 39´ 18´´ 31° 48´ 21´´ 19° 14´
Mælifellshnúkr, 3476 3579 65° 23´ 30´´ 31° 59´ 10´´ 19° 25´
In the south-western quarter, thirteen points range from 1000 to 3000
Danish feet, and again only three rise higher, viz.:
Dan. feet=Eng. feet. N. lat. W. long. (C.)=Greenwich.
Snæfellsjökull, 4577 4713 64° 48´ 4´´ 36° 25´ 8´´ 23° 51´
Hekla,[64] 4961 5108 63° 59´ 2´´ 32° 19´ 2´´ 19° 45´
Eyjafjallajökull,[65] 5432 5593 63° 37´ 2´´ 32° 16´ 18´´ 19° 42´
From these tables we see that the north-eastern and south-eastern
quarters contain not only the greatest number of heights, respectively
twenty-five and twenty, exceeding 1000 Danish feet, but also the apex of
Iceland. The north-western, though generally a high level, has only
three master peaks, and the traveller’s eye soon determines the
south-western to be the lowest of all. It may here be remarked that the
islanders have names for the mountains, peaks, and even blocks, as well
as for the valleys, whereas the Arabs, as a rule, name only their wadys.
Upon the points above named,
“Nix jacet et jactam nec sol pluviæque resolvunt
Indurat Boreas, perpetuamque facit.”
The snow-line above the tableland (1500 to 2000 feet) varies according
to position and formation of ground from 2000 to 3500[66] feet over
sea-level. The mean has been laid down at 2830 feet. Iceland, as far as
it is known, contains few true glaciers. The best known of the
Skriðjöklar, _glaciers mouvants_, the “vacillating jökuls” of Henderson
(i., pp. 237, 265), protruded by the thrust from behind and above, are
the southern offshoots of the great Klofajökull. Two have been often
described--the Skeiðarárjökull and the Breiðamerkrjökull. Concerning
these ice masses, which are confined, as far as is known, to the
southern and the south-eastern shores, and which slope gently to the
sea, it is generally believed in Iceland that the congealed tracts are
diminishing. Professor Tyndall observed the same in the Mer de Glace,
and Mr Freshfield on the Caucasus, where the excess of consumption over
supply threatens to make the “gletchers” mere spectres of their former
selves.
We now approach the modern formations, the volcanic tracts which overlie
the plateaux of Palagonite, trap, and trachyte, and the valleys of
elevation and erosion which cleave their masses. As usual throughout the
world, the fire-vents are confined to the neighbourhood of the sea and
lakes: the centre of Iceland is the Sprengisandur (bursting sand),[67] a
black “Ruba’ el Kháli.” In many places the trap terraces have become a
wall, over which great gushes of modern lavas have poured down towards
the ocean--stone models of the waters which stream down the valleys, and
which spring in cataracts from step to step.
Again, it is asserted, with premature generalisation, that the volcanic
vents trend, as a rule, from north-east to south-west--a corollary of
the “trachytic-band” theorem. The principal systems, which are the
following, do not bear out this disposition, and it is probably true
only of the south-western part of the island, which was first examined
by travellers. Beginning from the north-west, we have the following list
of eight great systems.
1. The Dranga[68]-Glámu system in the great palmated projection, the
former lying north-east of the latter.
2. The Leirhnúkr, Krafla, and Heiðarfjall, near the Mý-vatn Lake. They
anastomose, by the Ódáða-hraun, with the Vatnajökull and the
Skaptár--the direction being north to south.
3. The Snæfellsjökull (Western Jökull) runs distinctly from west to
east, ending at the sea-shore.
4. The Hofsjökull, including the Arnarfells branch to the east, and the
Blágnýpujökull to the south-west. Occupying the centre of the island, it
approaches the Túngnafellsjökull, an outlier of the Vatnajökull system
to the south-east; and westward, it almost touches the north-eastern
extremity of the long Reykjanes line.
5. The Hekla system, which the old theory of fissures connected with
Etna. It lies on a parallel, a Palagonite ridge about 2000 feet high,
extending from west to east through the Torfajökull, to the banks of the
Skaptá.
6. The Vatnajökull, whose apex is Öræfa, the whole measuring some 330
miles in circumference, and occupying an area of 3000 to 4000 square
geographical miles: stretches upon a parallel, and is connected by a
meridian of lava-run with No. 2.
7. The Katla, or Kötlu-gjá system, again, is not linear, but disposed in
a group at the southern extremity of Iceland. The principal items are
the Mýrdals, Eyjafjalla, Merkr, Goðalands, and Tindfjalla Jökulls. This
great mass is generally known as the Eastern Jökull, opposed to the
Western or Snæfells.
8. The Reykjanes system is apparently the only diagonal which extends
from the Fire Islands north-eastwards to Skjaldbreið, and to the snow
mountains, whose northernmost point is Eyriksjökull. Its items are the
Láng, the Ball, the Bláfells, the Geitlands, and the Ok.
Mr Keith Johnston, sen., and other authorities, give the following list
of volcanic eruptions which have occurred during the present
century.[69]
1. Aust-Jökull (an indefinite term for the great Eyjafjalla system), in
December 1820 to June 1822, and January to June 1823.
2. Mýrdals Jökull (or rather Kötlu-gjá) in 1823, from 26th June, covered
about a hundred square miles with sand and ashes.
3. Skeiðar Jökull began to erupt February 13, 1827, and did considerable
damage. No record of this outbreak is to be found.
4. The submarine eruption off Cape Reykjanes took place in 1831.[70]
5. Hekla, in September 2, 1845 (-46), broke out the twenty-sixth time,
according to popular writers, throwing up ashes, which fell in the
Orkneys, and which gave the first intelligence of the event.
6. Kötlu-gjá again was slightly active, vomiting ashes and water in May
1860, its thirteenth eruption.
7. It has been generally assumed that on March 23, 1861, the Öræfajökull
broke its long rest, and the smoke is said to have tarnished silver at
the distance of fifty miles. But Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín, who was in Iceland
during that year, denies having heard of any convulsion, nor was it
mentioned by the island papers. He adds, “What is spoken of in
Metcalfe’s book was a ‘Jökul-hlaup.’”
An ash-eruption from Trölladýngjur is recorded in 1862, but accounts of
it greatly vary. Mr Keith Johnston chronicles nine eruptions extending
through nearly five centuries and a half--namely, the submarine volcano
in the middle of Breiði Fjörð (A.D. 1345), Trölladýngjur (1510),
Herðubreið (1716-17), “Krabla” (1724-25), Leirhnúkr (1730), Síðu Jökull
(1753), Öræfajökull (1755), Hnappafellsjökull (1772), and Skaptárjökull
(1783). And he further informs us that two great groups are
active--Leirhnúkr, “Krabla,” Trölladýngjur, and Herðubreið,[71]--all
nearly on a parallel of latitude to the north-east; and Hekla, Aust
Jökull, Mýrdals, and Öræfa, placed in a right-angled triangle to the
south.
Concerning the unvisited volcano in the snows of the Vatnajökull, all
procurable details will be found in the Journal. The author was
surprised to find that not one of the known centres was in a state of
activity, although every preconceived idea suggested that the summer of
1872 would be one of unusual perturbation.[72] Two days before the
outbreak of Vesuvius (January 1, 1872), shocks began in the north-east
of Iceland. On the afternoons of 16th and 17th April, Húsavík, a small
comptoir to the east of Skjálfandi Fljót, suffered severely, as will
appear in a future page. This immediately followed the fearful cyclone
at Zanzibar (April 15), a phenomenon unknown in former times, which
destroyed part of the town, and which sank most of the foreign and
native craft,[73] doing damage estimated at £2,000,000. The earthquake
at Húsavík also took place only thirteen days after the earthquake at
Antioch (morning of April 3), which shook down two-thirds of the houses,
and killed nearly one-third of the people. Moreover, shocks were
reported at Accra on the Gold Coast, a town which had been almost
destroyed some ten years before.[74] Followed (May 1) by the cyclone at
Madras, which breached the pier, severely injured the city and suburbs,
and wrecked eleven merchantmen, drowning many of the crew. Lastly came
the report that the unseen crater in the untrodden snows of the
Vatnajökull, whose smoke was first seen in August 1867, had again begun
to “vomit flames.”
Meanwhile the eruptions of Vesuvius continued till April 26, when a new
crater built a hill in the Atrio del Cavallo, where only a fissure
before appeared. Professor Palmieri, who stuck staunchly and gallantly
to his observatory on the banks of the new Styx, reported that the
mountain was sweating fire at every pore, and that after the showers of
ashes and red-hot stones, and the discharges of lava and “boiling
smoke,” storms not less dangerous had begun to rage. These meteors, as a
rule, occasion great floods, which, sweeping down the ashes and
_rapilli_ that cover the slopes, complete the ruins of the lands spared
by the lava. During this eruption, a report was spread that the crater
of Vesuvius had become an electric pile; that strong currents,
generated by the violent ejections of the crater, showed themselves in
lightnings, flashing with a dry and hissing sound from the great trunk
of smoke and ashes; and, finally, that an earthquake might at any moment
shake Naples to its foundation. This abnormal electricity may explain
the meteorological peculiarities of the spring of 1872, even in England,
where May behaved itself with the leonine violence of March. The great
Pacific earthquake (August 1867) and the tremendous and unusual storm
which simultaneously visited the eastern coast of South America, to
quote no other instances, showed that, whilst similar effects usually
are of limited extent upon solid ground, they stretch to great distances
at sea, and they may influence the atmosphere in the furthest regions of
the world. Though we may accept only as provisional the geological
theory which places volcanoes upon fissures or solutions of continuity
in the earth’s surface,[75] we must remember that on October 17, 1755, a
fortnight before the earthquake which shook down Lisbon, the Kötlu-gjá
fissure began the terrible eruptions that lasted for a year: at the same
time the waters of Loch Ness were agitated; the British Isles were
rocked by repeated oscillations, and shocks extended to Asia and to
America. Again, in 1783, the Upper Calabrian earthquake (February 5 and
7, and March 28) was closely followed by the fearful phenomena of the
Skaptárjökull.[76] Thus Nature appeared to have made in the summer of
1872 every possible arrangement for a grand pyrotechnic display; yet the
author can positively assert that during the whole of his stay in
Iceland not one of the twenty-seven to thirty great vents showed a
symptom of activity. Indeed, only one was ever reported to be in
existence, and that one has never been visited.
Professor Bunsen has shown that active volcanoes whose temperature is
high, discharge sulphurous acid, whilst the dormant give forth
sulphuretted hydrogen; hence the irregular and simultaneous appearance
of these two gases which play a most important part in Iceland. “Let a
piece of one of the igneous rocks be heated to redness, and permit the
vapour of sulphur to pass over it. The oxide of iron is decomposed; a
portion of sulphur unites with the iron which remains as sulphuret; the
liberated oxygen unites with the remaining sulphur, and forms sulphurous
acid. Let the temperature of the heated mass sink just below a red heat,
and then let the vapour of water be passed over it: a decomposition of
the sulphuret before formed is the consequence; the iron is reoxydised,
and the liberated sulphur unites with the free hydrogen to form
sulphuretted hydrogen. Thus the presence of two of the most important
agents in volcanic phenomena is accounted for. These are experimental
facts capable of being repeated in the laboratory, and the chronological
order of the gases thus produced is exactly the same as that observed in
nature.”
The most remarkable features of the island, after the volcanic, are the
Fjörðs,[77] or firths proper, conducting streams and admitting the sea;
opposed to Víks and Vágrs, bights and bays, mere indentations of the
coast. Though of igneous origin, they are compared with the granitic
features of Norway, where a volcano is unknown, and yet where the shape
becomes that of an _arête_, a fish’s dorsal bone with regular ribs on
both sides: this flat snow-capped ridge is “the keel” of the maritime
population. The popular theory (Students’ Manual of Geology, Jukes and
Geikie, Blacks, Edin. 1872) is that the Fjörðs are glens once submerged,
raised above water, and hollowed out by glaciers and by the various
influences which come under the name of “weather.” Glacial action is, we
must own, distinctly traced in most parts of the island. But in many
places, Berufjörð for instance, there is no room at the head of the
dwarf amphitheatre for a glacier of any magnitude. As in the Færoe
archipelago, these ravines are the rents and fissures which divided and
fractured the first upheaval; and in Iceland they were bound together by
the action of earthquakes and eruptions, ice and snow, wind and rain.
The greater gorges are found chiefly on three sides of the island. The
south-western shore, like that of Ireland, is digitated by gales,
currents, and Greenland ice, and it abounds in “Út-ver,”[78] the
narrow-necked peninsulas of Norway. The Síða, or sea-“side” to the
south-east, is a long, narrow strip of habitable land between the
mountains and the waters: here the Fjörðs were obliterated by the
combined action of the Jökulls. Under the name “Fjörðs” are also
included immense bays, as the Faxa Fjörð, sixty-five miles across; the
Breiði Fjörð, forty-five miles wide; and the Húnaflói, into which the
Arctic Sea sends its unbroken swell, running forty-six miles deep and
twenty-seven in diameter. The western features are, as a rule, broad,
with shallow sag: here, according to some,[79] was deposited the
Surtarbrand[80] or lignite, and, like the driftwood of Kerguelen Island,
it escaped incineration by subsequent eruptions from causes analogous to
the operation of charcoal burning. The northern firths are long and
deeply indented, and the eastern are sharp and narrow, encased in walls
of Palagonite, trap, and basalt.
The archipelagoes and solitary islands outlying Iceland are invariably
small; and in places, as will be seen, the “stacks” and “drongs” form a
“skerry-guard,” almost a false coast.
Concerning a common feature of the interior, the Gjá (pron. _Geeow_, or
like _ow_ in fowl), rent, chasm, or fissure, details will be given in
the course of the Journal. Here it may be mentioned that it perfectly
resembles the “Ka’ah” of the Lejá and the Haurán, and the Lava Fields in
the Far West of North America, which lately sheltered the “Indians,” and
gave so much trouble to the Federal troops.
The surface of Iceland, where free from snow, and over which men travel,
may be reduced to four general formations.
1. Loose, volcanic ashey sand, grey above and black below; often mixed
with pulverised Palagonite; barred with white lines of salt and potash,
and either erupted subaërially or formed under water, as the rolled
stones and pebbles show. This feature is found best developed in the
central and the north-eastern parts of the island; the Sprengisandur and
the Stórisandur (Sahará or Great Sands) being the great examples. The
hills and terraces are utterly barren, because they will not hold water:
the lower levels, fed by percolation, bear the normal growth, and
especially the wild oat.
2. Stone; chiefly Palagonite, trap, basalts, trachyte, lavas, and
obsidians, the Μαῦρα λιθάρια of the modern Greeks. It is, however, far
safer travelling than the polished limestone of the Libanus, and an
hour’s ride over calcareous Kasrawán is more troublesome than a day in
Iceland. Its greatest inconvenience is perhaps the sun: during a clear
day it becomes, in Icelandic phrase, “hot enough to make a raven gape.”
A fair specimen of the stone-country may be found between Reykjavik and
Krísuvík.
3. Clay and humus, the former generally disposed in horizontal strata,
the latter deposited by decayed vegetation upon the surface. These
formations, the Geest-lands of Denmark, mostly extend round the hill
feet, dividing them from the deeper levels of bog. They form essentially
“rotten” ground; drilled with holes by frost, rain, and sun, and cut by
gullies of all sizes, a plexus of wrinkles or gashes and earth-cracks,
radiating from the highlands to the lowlands. When the path becomes a
hollow way, sunk too deep for riding, rut-tracks straggle, as in the
Brazil, over wide spaces and, after the vernal thaws, the traveller will
find the “corduroys” of America and the “glue-pots” of Australia; whilst
in places scattered stones are so many traps for careless horses. Yet
these clays and humus are the best paths and, after the sands, give the
fairest chance of a gallop.
4. Bog in Iceland clothes the hill-sides, as well as the bottoms and the
“flats,” that is, any low alluvial land: it is easily discovered from
afar by the dull-red tint of iron-rust and the snow-white spangles of
cotton-grass. There are two forms of profile: one lumpy, tussocky, and
what one traveller calls “hassocky,” like the graves of a deserted
churchyard; the other a plane, the swamp pure and simple; often flooded
after rains, and in the dries provided with two or three veins, into
which animals plunge, struggle, and fall. These channels change so
frequently that none but local guides are of use, and often the best
path leads to the place which has lately become the worst. Instinct and
experience do something, but not much, for man and beast: both naturally
prefer running water to stagnant, and when the foremost is bogged, the
followers seek a better place either higher up or lower down. On
frequented lines the impassable places are provided with “Brúr,” dykes
or causeways of peat or stone, traversed by rude arches and flanked by
shallow ditch-drains.
The Heiði, or high divide separating two river-valleys, is a “dry-land
wave” (κῦμα χερσαῖον), varying from 1500 to 2000 and even 3000 feet in
altitude. These ridges, especially during the mist and fog, snow and
hail, wind and rain, are the horror of native travellers, and few
venture upon the passage in foul weather. The profile is a harsh
caricature of our Scotch and Irish moors and mosses, bogs and swamps,
combining all the troubles of sand, stone, clay, and slush; whilst the
marshes and drains are most troublesome to cross. “Carlines,” or old
women (Vörður and Kerlingar),[81] are built in places where transit must
be made at all seasons; but they are often useless, as the streams shift
their bottoms, and permanent paths cannot be traced on what is neither
water nor good dry land. At the beginning and end of the travelling
season, snow-_fonds_ and veins, based upon compressed ice, streak the
slopes and dot the hollows, whilst natural arches and bridges, under
which savage torrents gnash and foam, must be crossed on horseback.
Concerning the behaviour of the snow, details will be found in the
course of the Journal.
Roads are made in Iceland, like those of Syria, by taking off, not as in
Europe by putting on, stones. In the more civilised parts of the island
they are represented by horse-paths, which are occasionally repaired,
and by sheep-paths, which are left to themselves: they humbly suggest
the “buffalo” track of the prairie, and the elephant tunnel of the
African forest. Not a few show worse engineering and tracery than those
of olden Austria; hence we find upon the map such pleasant titles as
Höfða-brekka[82] (head-brink or slope), Hálsavegr (neck-or-nothing
way), Íllaklif (evil cliff), and Ófæra or Úfæra, Úfærð (the
untravellable)--the latter often applied to short cuts over the
sea-sands where the wayfarer is exposed to a cannonade from the heights.
§ 2. HYDROGRAPHY.
The hydrography of Iceland has several peculiarities. A glance at the
map shows that the Sprengisandur is the keystone of the flattened arch,
which, averaging 2000 feet in altitude, forms the centre of the island.
From this point the main lines diverge quaquaversally, except to the
south-east, where the huge white oval, denoting the Vatnajökull, bars
the way, and forms a drainage-system of its own. Hence none of the
streams are navigable above the mouth, and their magnitude, as well as
the dimensions of their basins, are out of all normal proportion to the
area of the island. The four head rivers--Hvitá,[83] Thjorsá, Jökulsá
(western), and Skjálfjandifljót (shivering or waving flood)--range from
100 to 160 miles in length. The Thjorsá is 150 miles long, and falls
2000 feet in twenty leagues, carrying more water than the Hudson of New
York. “White River” is a common local name, the effect of glacier
detrition giving the milky aspect familiar to every traveller in
Switzerland, and hence, probably, the muddy White Nile, as opposed to
the clear Blue River. A more unusual feature is the Fúli-lækr (foul or
stinking stream); the iron pyrites, where the stones are ground to
powder, part with their sulphur, and the latter, uniting with the
hydrogen, accounts for the unsavoury name. The Jökulhlaup, or
“Snow-mountain leap,” is the sudden débâcle and exundation which spring
from the congealed masses, often with the irresistible might and the
swift destruction of the true avalanche.
The streams in the south-eastern corner are the shortest and the most
perilous, rising full grown from the glaciers, and sweeping down
fragments and miniature floes of ice. Henderson is the first English
traveller who forded and described the Skeiðará and the network called
the Gnúpsvötn. We may here acquit him of excessive exaggeration: the
natives of the eastern coast, when travelling to Reykjavik, prefer the
immense round by the north to the short cut along the southern shore;
and when asked the reason, they invariably allege the dangers of the
snow-drains. In the course of the Journal we shall cross two of the four
head streams, and observe a water-power amply sufficient for the wants
of a first-rate European people. The principal cataracts are the Oxará,
the Seljaland Foss, the Goða Foss, and the Dretti Foss, first visited by
Baring-Gould. All have been described by travellers, and the highest is
the Hengi Foss which we shall pass on the road.
Of the lakes (Vötn), we shall inspect the two largest, the
Thingvalla-vatn[84] and the Mý-vatn; and we shall sight a multitude of
tarns and ponds, single and grouped. One peculiarity is noticed in many
of the minor waters. In Iceland it is emphatically untrue that lakes
without drains are salt or briny--a rule apparently applicable only to
the temperate and tropical zones. Whether the phenomenon in the north
arises from subterranean drainage through the fissures of the bed, or if
it be due to absence of saline matter in the area of drainage, which is
often modern lava too hard to be sensibly degraded, we have no means of
determining: perhaps there is a union of both causes.
A remarkable feature is the abundance of warm water laid on by the hand
of Nature; the map shows upwards of two hundred; and here perhaps the
hottest springs of the Old World are found. Suffice it to say at present
that they are divided into two main groups. The acidulous and
acid-silica, which redden litmus-paper, depositing gypsum and sulphur,
do not erupt: these are the “Öl-keldur” (ale springs) mentioned in the
“Royal Mirror” of the twelfth century, and they are still locally and
popularly distributed into three species. Some, like “martial” waters,
inebriate from the abundance of carbonic acid gas; others when allowed
to stand, part with their stimulating property; and others again when
filled in rise elsewhere. The second class is the alkaline-silica, which
restores the colour of litmus paper; it is often explosive, and it
contains chiefly sodium and silica. In the valley of the Yellowstone
River the springs are either (1.) Calcareous (alkaline), depositing
carbonate of lime with sulphates of magnesia and soda, chloride of
calcium, and a little silica; or (2.) Silicious (acid), containing
85:100 silica, chloride of magnesium, and only a trace of lime.
The Geysir (gusher)[85] is a spouting spring; the Reykirs (reekers) give
forth steam; the Laug is a warm fountain which may serve as a bath; the
Náma[86] (hole of hot water) is sulphurous and gaseous; the Hverr
(cauldron), like its smaller congener the Ketill (kettle), is a
tranquil, hot, and even boiling well or pool, it is also applied to mud
springs; and the Makkaluber (the Italian “Salsa,” or “Hofetta,” and the
American “Mud-puff”) is a miniature volcano of hissing, boiling bolus.
Further details concerning the names and natures of these features will
be given in the Journal.
§ 3. CLIMATE.
The “cold of Iceland” is as proverbial as the “deserts of central
Africa,” and both sayings are equally based upon unfacts. “Iceland,
where the cold and winter are perpetual, and the cold scarce to be
endured,” is what we read. But those who travel in the island find--(1.)
that even in winter the temperature is rarely severe; (2.) that there
are two distinct climates, on the north coast and in the southern
country; and (3.) that the air, however unpleasant, is exceptionally
wholesome.
1. The isotherms by no means follow the circles of latitude. The cold
lines swerve away from, instead of passing through, Iceland, and show
none of that severity which characterises Greenland and the northern
parts of British America. As has long ago been observed,[87] the
isotherm of F. 32°, the freezing point of water, which is that of
Akureyri, varies 14° between southern Asiatic Russia (N. lat. 56°) and
northern Norway (N. lat. 70°).
The mildness of the insular climate, and that of the easterly winds,
which are too clear to come from warmer waters, are popularly attributed
to the “great Gulf Stream.” This sea-river, we are told, “sweeping up
from the south, brings with it a store of heat to bless the islanders,
and so materially affects the island that in the south of Iceland the
winter is not more severe than in Denmark.” The Gulf Stream is generally
supposed to strike the south-western angle, and to flow along the
southern shores; while others make it bifurcate off Reykjanes, hence one
part subtends the north-western point or Land’s End of Iceland, where it
meets the Polar and Arctic current, the other half embraces the southern
shore, and both meet in the north Atlantic arm separating Iceland from
Norway. Dufferin’s map shows the popular belief: the true Florida
current, sweeping past the southern shore of Iceland, forks about
Spitzbergen, sending off a branchlet to the west, and ends south of
Novaya Zemlja. On the other hand, Dr Carpenter contends that the real
“River in the Ocean” dies out in the mid-Atlantic. According to Dr
Joseph Chavanne of Vienna (Mittheilungen, No. vii., 1874), the northern
arm of the Gulf Stream, which flows between Bear Island and Novaya
Zemlja, touches the northern coast of Asia, and eastward of the New
Siberia Islands joins the western drift of the Kurosiwo. The other
northern branch, which subtends the western coast of Spitzbergen and the
Seven Islands, is submerged between the Polar currents, to reappear at
the surface farther northward, and thence to lave the shores of the
Arctic continent: the latter is thus washed by two warm streams,
rendering the existence of perennial ice a sheer impossibility.
We may fairly question the existence of the Gulf Stream along the
southern Icelandic shore, and doubt its bifurcation and subsequent
reunion. This is not the place to discuss the subject of ocean
circulation, a “discovery equal to that of the circulation of the
blood,” first made by Professor Lenz of St Petersburg in 1845, based
upon the second voyage of Kotzebue in 1823-26, and independently by Dr
Carpenter during the cruise of the “Porcupine” (1869). Their aqueous
movement corresponding with the aërial; and the mass of thermal
equatorial waters travelling towards the poles, whilst the counter
current sets in the inverse direction, would account for many phenomena
yet unexplained, but it is still _sub judice lis_.[88] We may remark
that the comparatively shallow seas between the British Islands and
Iceland must accumulate heat, and that this fact perhaps suffices for
what has been attributed to the Gulf Stream and to the general
circulation. Thomas Bartolin (Acta Medica Havn. ad annum 1673)
mechanically explains away the necessity of the former: “Aqua Insulas
Ferroenses allabens, quamquam per se frigida sit, salsitudine tamen suâ,
ex perpetuo motu, plerumque producit hyemem temperatam.” Hence the
waters of Niagara are colder above than below the falls, and the ocean
is warmer after a storm.
Practical men, especially mariners, in Iceland vigorously deny the
existence of the Gulf Stream.[89] Captain Tvede, an intelligent and
observing Dane whom we shall meet in the eastern regions, considers that
the theory, like judicial phrenology and a host of pseudo-sciences,
became popular because it generalises, formalises, and simplifies facts.
He declares that a Gulf Stream, if it existed, would entangle the
Greenland icebergs, and carry them to the southern coast of Iceland,
which never happens. He asserts that a few miles south of Ingólfshöfði
the Sea River is still warm, but that instead of striking the shore it
trends directly north-eastwards to western Norway, sweeps round the
continental North Cape, and here meets the icebergs from Spitzbergen and
Jan Mayen. He has found himself in an ice-dock floating in water which
showed 35° F.
Captain Tvede kindly gave me the following series of observations:
1. June 19, 1867: thermometer in water 46° F. outside of
Hrollaugseyar, 6 miles east of Ingólfshöfði, 48° F. 3 miles
south-east of ditto, and 47° F. 20 miles west of ditto.
2. June 20: thermometer 47° between Portland and the
Vestmannaeyjar, 47° F. 12 miles west of the Vestmannaeyjar.
3. June 23: thermometer 46° in the Breiði Fjörð, off Stykkishólm.
4. June 24: 43° outside of the Dýrafjörð, and 43°-43°·50 outside of
the Ísafjörð.
5. June 25: 38° off the Húnafljói, and 43° off Cap Nord.
6. July 1: 40° off the Axarfjörð.
7. July 4: 39° off the Langanes (north-eastern point of Iceland).
8. July 6: 40° off Viðivik, and 42° outside of Borgarfjörð.
9. August 4: 46° 16 miles south-east of Langanes.
10. August 6: 42° in the Testilfjörð, western side of Langanes.
11. August 10: 38°·50 off Hornnes, and 39° same day off Gerpir, 4
miles south of Hornnes.
12. August 19: 44° off Dalataur, entrance of Sydisfjörð.
13. August 21: 44° off Héradsflói.
14. August 22: 42° to north, with Kollumúli bearing south-west, 44°
at sea.
15. September 1: 41° off Berufjörð.
The subjoined figures are the means of observations taken every fourth
hour on board the “Jón Siggurðsson” steamer, in which the author voyaged
(June 26 to August 5, 1872) between Hafnarfjörð and Grafarós:
Air. Water.
1. 12° (C.=53°·6 F.) 10° (C.=50° F.) at Reykjavik.
2. 11° (C.=51°·8 F.) 8°·5 (C.=47°·3 F.) at Flatey.
3. 13° (C.=55°·4 F.) 9° (C.=48°·2 F.) at N. lat. 66°30´, W. long. (G.) 24°.
4. 9° (C.=48°·2 F.) 5°·8 (C.=42°·4 F.) at N. lat. 66°10´, W. long. 23°12´.
5. 14°·5 (C.=58°·1 F.) 8°·8 (C.=47°·8 F.) at Borðeyri.
6. 14°·5 (C.=58°·1 F.) 8°·3 (C.=46°·9 F.) at Grafarós.
7. 11° (C.=51°·8 F.) 6°·8 (C.=44°·2 F.) at Cap Nord.
8. 11° (C.=51°·8 F.) 8°·5 (C.=47°·3 F.) at N. lat. 65°8´, W. long. 23°24´.
Both series tend to show the capricious variation of temperature (from
38° to 48° F., and from 48°·2 to 58°·1 F.), where the summer sea is
subject to the influx of a little snow-water, and none of the regularity
which might fairly be expected from a “gulf-stream.”
2. Every book of travels from Horrebow and Mackenzie to the present day,
has given notices of the climate of Iceland.[90] The mean temperature of
the Iceland year between 1828 and 1834, has been laid down at 3°·42
Reaumur (= 39°·7 F.). The annual average of Copenhagen is assumed at
46°·8 (F.); the maximum, observed in the shade, being 94°, and the
minimum about 19° (F.). That of Montreal stands at 6°·30 Reaumur (=
46°·2 F.). The winters in Iceland are colder than in Montreal in October
and November (both included); warmer from December to March, and again
cooler from April to December. Eyjafjörð (N. lat. 65° 40´) is more
genial than Cumberland House (N. lat. 53° 57´), and much warmer than any
place in its own parallel. The almost nightless summers from June to
August, which must affect the respiration of plants, gather caloric, and
the sun at that season fails to heat only at a very obtuse angle, when
the rays are intercepted by a thicker column of air. The equatorial
current which prevails in occidental England for eight or nine months
during the year, as the south-wester in Iceland, must greatly modify the
climate. Old travellers assure us that the sub-surface is frost-bound
throughout the year; this takes place only after a succession of hard
winters and ungenial summers--even the cellars are rarely frozen in
winter if care be taken to close the doors. Mr Vice-Consul Crowe (first
Report on Iceland, 1865-66), asserts that “the average temperature of
the earth is about 4½° Reaumur all the year round.”
Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland (N. lat. 64° 9´), enjoys a more
genial climate than any place whose temperature is recorded between the
parallels of 55° and 85° (N. lat.), except only St Petersburg (N. lat.
59° 56´) and Sitka Sound (N. lat. 57° 3´). The mean of the year is but
1° (F.) less than that of St John’s, which lies 16° farther south. The
winter corresponds with that of Illukuk, 10° to the south, and the
summer is much hotter. Humboldt’s mean temperature, 40° F., is generally
adopted, although some reduce it to 39°·4, and even to 39°. He makes
February, the coldest month, average 28°·22, and July, the hottest,
56°·3--a difference of over 28°, which others reduce to 27°. He fixes
the winter mean at 29°·1; the spring at 36°·9; the summer at 53°·6 (in
Berghaus’ Atlas, 50°); and the autumn at 37°·9. Dillon (pp. 167, 168),
during the severest season of half-a-century, saw the mercury as low as
10° (F.), in February; and Pliny Miles (p. 55) declares that the
thermometer seldom falls below 12° or 18°.
It will be remembered that the annual mean of climates, where
civilisation is highest, represents in Europe 52° (F.), and the zone is
15° north and south of N. lat. 40°, an undulating belt of 30° arching
towards the equator and the poles. Including its protraction eastward
and westward, it contains 95/100ths of the white races, and almost all
the greatest development.
Certain valuable “notes on the distribution of animals available as food
in the Arctic regions,” compiled by Herr Petermann, and published in the
Journal of the R. Geog. Society (vol. xxii.), enable us to compare the
thermometer in the south and in the north of the island. “Reykiavig” (N.
lat. “64°·08´´) is placed between New Herrnhut and Fort Reliance, whilst
Eyjafjörð (N. lat. 66° 30´), stands between Fort Hope and Winter Island.
The figures are as follows:
Annual Difference
Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter. mean. Sum. & Wint.
1. New Herrnhut, 26°·15 39°·28 26°·50 14°·30 26°·83 24°·48
_Reykjavik_, 37°·04 53°·54 37°·94 29°·18 39°·43 24°·36
Fort Reliance, ” 12°·21 ” -16°·97 16° (?) “
2. Fort Hope, -4°·73 39°·59 13°·93 -25°·09 5°·96 64°·68
_Eyjafjörð_, 28°·10 45°·80 34°·46 20°·84 32°·30 24°·96
Winter Island, 6°·35 31°·80 17°·58 -20°·47 8°·82 52°·27
Ranged according to seasons and months, the figures stand:
SPRING.
New Herrnhut in February (coldest), 22°·10 in March 21°·65 in April 24°·80
_Reykjavik_ ” 28°·31 ” 29°·86 ” 36°·46
Fort Reliance ” -18°·84 ” -6°·14 ” 8°·23
Port Hope ” -26°·68 ” -28°·10 ” -23°·95
_Eyjafjörð_ ” 18°·50 ” 20°·66 ” 27°·50
Winter Island ” -23°·99 ” 10°·72 ” 6°·48
SUMMER.
New Herrnhut in May, 32°·0 in June, 40°·10 in July, (hottest), 40°·33
_Reykjavik_ ” 44°·80 ” 51°·58 ” 56°·19
Fort Reliance ” 36°·03 ” ” ” “
Fort Hope ” 17°·88 ” 31°·38 ” 41°·46
_Eyjafjörð_ ” 36°·14 ” 43°·52 ” 46°·94
Winter Island ” 23°·29 ” 23°·17 ” 35°·36
AUTUMN.
New Herrnhut in August 37°·40 in September, 34°·03 in October, 32°·90
_Reykjavik_ ” 52°·86 ” 46°·45 ” 36°·91
Fort Reliance ” ” ” ” ” 20°·70
Fort Hope ” 46°·32 ” 28°·57 ” 12°·56
_Eyjafjörð_ ” 46°·94 ” 43°·16 ” 34°·34
Winter Island ” 36°·86 ” 31°·61 ” 13°·25
WINTER.
New Herrnhut in November, 15°·80 in December 11°·75 in January 9°·05
_Reykjavik_ ” 30°·45 ” 29°·41 ” 29°·82
Fort Reliance ” 13°·44 ” -17°·07 ” -25°·00
Fort Hope ” 0°·68 ” -19°·27 ” -29°·32
_Eyjafjörð_ ” 25°·88 ” 18°·32 ” 25°·70
Winter Island ” 7°·88 ” -14°·24 ” -23°·17
Dr Joseph Chavanne, before alluded to, gives the following table of the
wind temperature at Reykjavik, showing the deviations from mean:
WINTER.--Mean Temperature -1·8.
N. N.E. E. S.E. S. S.W. W. N.W. Max. Min. Diff.
3·6 -2·2 +1·3 +4·1 +3·7 +1·1 -1·4 -2·9 E. 68, S. +4·4 N. -3·6 8·0
SUMMER.--Mean Temperature +11.0.
0·0 +0·5 +0·1 +0·2 +0·3 -0·7 -1·0 -1·3 E. 30, S. +0·7 W. 35, N. -1·6 2·3
Thus the climate of southern Iceland is insular and not excessive. We
have a notorious instance of the same disposition in England. With us
Devonia represents the south-western coast of Iceland, and justifies
Carrington’s high praise:
“Thou hast a cloud
For ever in thy sky; a breeze, a shower
For ever on thy meads. Yet where shall man,
Pursuing spring around the globe, refresh
His eye with scenes more beauteous than adorn
Thy fields of matchless verdure?”
The northern climate of Iceland, distant only 3° or 180 direct
geographical miles, is distinctly continental; the difference ranging
between 14° and 17° (F.). This is easily accounted for by the Arctic
current, by the proximity of Polar ice, and by the prevalence of
northern and north-western winds, which, in south Iceland as in
Palestine, drive away rain. Whatever discrepancy of opinion there may be
concerning the Gulf Stream, there can be none about the cold drift
which, between Greenland and Iceland, measures some fifty miles in
breadth, and many hundred feet in depth. Hence the north-western
digitations are more subject to floes and bergs than the Breiði Fjörð,
which again is oftener invested than the Faxa Fjörð, the latter being
rarely beset more than once during the century. According to Uno Von
Troil, the sea-ice, now so rare, came regularly in January with the
north-eastern gales, and was never far from the north-east coast. At
present the season is about April and even later.
In the north, according to Metcalfe (p. 152), the winter is much keener,
and the summer is proportionally milder than in the south; some
observers deny the truth of the latter part of the proposition, and make
the hot months average about the same figure. The snow often begins with
October and lasts till mid-May when the temperature stands at a mean of
35° (F.). For Akureyri Baring-Gould (quoting the Almanak um Ár 1863),
gives the year as 32° (F., freezing point = Eyjafjörð), the winter as
20°·7, and the summer 45°·5. He therefore determines that, while the
mean of Reykjavik is very nearly that of Moscow, Akureyri almost
corresponds with Julianshaab in Greenland.
At Stykkishólm on the mid-west coast (N. lat. 65° 4´ 44´´, and W. long.
(G.) 22° 43´ 17´´), observations have been taken by Hr A. O. Thorlacius
for nearly thirty years. The gross results are given in the following
table, taken from the Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society,
iii. 148-304:
MEAN TEMPERATURE OF THE MONTHS AT STYKKISHÓLM,
during the Years 1845-71.
Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | April | May. | June
28·1 | 26·9 | 27·8 | 33·1 | 39·8 | 45·6
Highest mean, 38·0 | 34·7 | 40·1 | 41·9 | 43·8 | 50·5
Lowest mean, 17·2 | 13·3 | 12·4 | 19·8 | 31·4 | 41·5
July. | Aug. | Sept. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | Aver.
49·1 | 48·2 | 44·0 | 37·7 | 33·1 | 30·4 | 37°·0
Highest mean, 53·1 | 51·8 | 48·7 | 43·9 | 38·4 | 37·4 | 39°·8
Lowest mean, 44·2 | 43·0 | 37·2 | 32·5 | 26·4 | 24·0 | 29°·7
Mr A. Buchan, the learned Secretary of the Scottish Meteorological
Society, has printed in the same Journal (1873, pp. 304-307), the
following highly interesting notice on the climate of Iceland, and
especially of Stykkishólm, which appear to have great differences of
temperature in the same months of different years.[91]
“The mean annual temperature of the twenty-six years (1845-71) is
37°·0. The highest annual mean of any of the years was 39°·8 in
1847, and the lowest 29°·7, giving thus the enormous difference of
10°·1. This very low annual mean of 29°·7 occurred in 1866 under
very exceptional circumstances, which were detailed by Mr
Thorlacius in a letter 15th October 1866. Spitzbergen ice
surrounded Iceland on the north and north-east coast from January
to the close of August in a greater or less degree, and did not
wholly disappear till about the middle of September. Its effect on
the temperature of the summer was therefore perceptible. What
enormous masses of ice filled up the ocean north of Iceland may be
conceived from the fact that, in clear weather, its gleaming
appearance could be observed from Stykkishólm twenty geographical
miles, not only during the day but also at night. The depression of
temperature which followed was very great, amounting on the mean of
the year to 7°·3; of the nine months from January to September to
8°·1, and of February and March to 14°·5. Leaving, then, this
exceptional year out of account, the next lowest annual mean was
33°·6 during 1859. Hence the coldest year fell short of the mean
annual temperature to the extent of 3°·4, and the warmest year
exceeded it by 2°·8.
“With 1859 began a marked diminution of temperature. For the
previous thirteen years the annual mean was on each, except 1848
and 1855, above the average--the mean of these thirteen years being
38°·2, or 1°·2 above the average. For the next thirteen years the
mean was only 35°·8. Thus the first half of the period was 2°·4
warmer than the last half.
“As regards the annual mean of temperature, the lowest (26°·9)
occurs in February, and the highest (49°·0) in July--the difference
between the coldest and the warmest months being thus 22°·1. The
three coldest months are January, February, March, the mean
temperature of which is 27°·6, that of December being 2°·8 higher.
In the northern part of the British Isles, and at the western
station of the Atlantic, these are also the three coldest months,
but the difference between their mean temperature and that of
December is comparatively small, whereas in the south-east and
interior of Great Britain, December, January, and February are the
three coldest months.
“In the extreme north of the British Isles, the warmest month is
August, and the temperature of September, if it does not exceed, is
nearly equal to that of June. But at Stykkishólm, July is the
warmest month, and the temperature of September is 1°·6 colder than
that of June. Another point of difference between Iceland and
Scotland is that at Stykkishólm, the mean temperature of April and
that of November are the same, viz., 33°·1, whereas in Scotland
April is 44°·7 and November 40°·3, or April is 7°·4 warmer than
November.
“Hence the striking peculiarity of the climate of this part of
Iceland is: During the cold half of the year the seasons are longer
delayed than in any part of Great Britain. At Greenwich the mean
temperature of April, as compared with November, being 6°·5 warmer;
at York, 4°·9; at Aberdeen, 3°·9; at Bressay, Shetland, 0°·8; but
at Stykkishólm, 0°·0. On the other hand, during the summer months
the seasons at Stykkishólm are not delayed as in Shetland and
Orkney, but resemble in this respect the eastern district of Great
Britain.
“The great annual increase of temperature takes place from April to
June--the increase of April being 5°·3, of May 6°·7, and of June
4°·8, and the great annual decrease from September to November--the
decrease of September being 4°·2, October 6°·3, and of November
4°·6.
“But the most remarkable feature in the Icelandic climate is the
great differences which occur in the temperature of the same month
from year to year. This is seen in the highest and lowest
temperature of each month during the twenty-six years. Thus, as
regards March, the mean temperature in 1846 was 40°·1, but in 1866
it was only 12°·4, thus showing a fluctuation of 27°·7 in the mean
temperature of March. The mean monthly fluctuation in the first
four months of the year amounts to 22°·9, and for the whole twelve
months 14°·9. As regards Scotland, the largest difference for any
month during the past fifteen years was 11°·4--the temperature of
December 1857 being 44°·9, and of the same month 1870 being 33°·5.
In Scotland, the average of the whole twelve months is only 7°·1,
or less than half of Iceland. These singular fluctuations of
temperature are readily explained by the position of Iceland with
respect to the Arctic regions on the one hand, and to the Atlantic
with its warm currents on the other. As more than usual prevalence
of easterly winds rapidly and greatly depresses the temperature by
bringing to its coasts the cold, if not also the frozen regions. On
the contrary a prevalence of south-westerly winds disperses the
cold, and pours over the island the genial warmth of the Atlantic.
This fluctuating character of the season is frequently very
disastrous, it being evident that such summers as that of 1866,
whose mean temperature was only 42°·9, will well-nigh altogether
prevent the growth of vegetation.”
The veteran observer Hr Thorlacius has laid down the following rule:
“The great and sudden diminution of pressure which characterises the
winter months is the outstanding feature of the meteorology of
Iceland.”[92] The barometric mean during twenty-five years at 37 feet
above the sea is 29·602. There are two annual maxima of pressure, the
greater in May and the lesser in November; whilst the minima are in
January and October. The average yearly rainfall closely agrees with the
lower parts of the Scottish Lothians--between 1856-68 the mean was 26·81
inches; the maximum (1868) being 34·23, and the minimum (1867) 21·28.
The greatest amount fell in autumn and winter--in October 3·16 inches,
and in May 1·41. The amount of melted snow, annually registered, ranges
from 4 to 12 feet; the mean of twelve years is 7·43; the maximum (1863)
is 12·21, the minimum (1867) 4·76. The snowy days average 82 per annum,
and the greatest falls are in January, 1·40; in February, 1·34; in
December, 1·24; and in March, 1·18. During seven of the twelve years no
snow appeared in June; during ten none in July; during eleven none in
August; and during five none in September. The severest storm remembered
was in 1868; snow began on January 15, and lasted till the end of March,
making 7·14 inches. With one or two exceptions, Greenland ice annually
showed itself at Stykkishólm between 1859-69. Thunderstorms were very
variable. None were registered between February 1860 and August 1861
(included), but sixteen during the six months between November 1853 and
April 1854. Of 111 thunderstorms in twenty-three years nearly half were
in December (twenty-five) and January (twenty-seven); two occurred in
May and July, none in June and August. In the Færoes, also,
thunderstorms are wintry, not summery: the reason seems to be that when
the peaks are bare, electricity is equally distributed; but when they
are invested with snow, a bad conductor, the local congestion relieves
itself by discharges. Thunder is said to sound, as we might expect,
unusually loud, the effect of rocky hill and stony dale.[93]
3. The climate of Iceland, if not pleasant, is assuredly one of the most
wholesome. All the English travellers upon the island in the summer of
1872 agreed that Anglo-Indians on “sick leave” should prefer a tour in
the north to the debilitating German Bäder, or to the fantastic
hydropathic establishments which are best suited to riotous health.
Consumptive patients, and those suffering from constitutional and
nervous debility, have of late years been diverted to the dry, cold, and
bracing air of Canada, instead of the parts preferred by their
fathers--Montpelier, with its dreadful _Vent de bise_; Pau, where the
people describe their year as eight months of winter and four of
_l’enfer_; Pisa, where Johannum and Barahút--the hot and cold places of
punishment--seem to meet; and bilious Madeira, with its enfeebling, warm
milk-and-water air, which may relieve the one-lunged, but is sadly
trying to those with two. In Iceland throughout summer the stimulus of
light is never wanting; rich, oily fish can always enter into the bill
of fare; and the evidence is in favour of “free ozone,” whose absence
has accounted for the presence of cholera.[94] Hence phthisis hardly
appears amongst the diseases of the islanders, although, when
transported to warmer regions, they are as liable to it as natives of
more genial climes. And whilst in Russia an overcoat may be necessary
during the height of summer, in Iceland tourists walk about bare-headed
at midnight.
There is a regular tide round the island, ebbing (Icel. fjara) and
flowing (Icel. flóð) according to the rule of six hours. It sets into
the Fjörðs, but in the offing it subtends the shore. According to old
observers, these movements are stronger at the full and change, and
strongest at the equinoxes. As every wind must blow more or less from
the sea, those which pass over the least expanse of land bring rain
condensed by the cold heights. Upon the coast there is a kind of daily
trade following the summer sun’s course, like that known in Norway.[95]
Cyclones are apparently wanting, but history records the most violent
volcanic hurricanes; mountain squalls are the rule, and the smoke-gale
of water-dust reminds us of the Continental Gauskuld, caused by the
Finn-Lapp Magician sending forth his fly. In Iceland, as all the world
over, the uplands are warmer than the lowlands--a fact well known to the
ancients, but apparently puzzling to the modern traveller. “What is
remarkable,” says Henderson (i. 104), “I found the temperature of the
atmosphere twelve degrees warmer in this hyperborean region than it was
below in the valley.” Yet it is easy to understand that whilst heated
air rises, cold sinks; moreover, that, as a rule, there is more water,
and consequently more evaporation, in lowlands than in highlands.
The mists (Mistar) are of the three kinds described by the Rev. G. Landt
(Færoe Islands, London, Longmans, 1810): (1.) Skadda, or white cumulus
on the hill-tops, supposed to show wet weather; (2.) Bolamjorkie, the
vapour-belt which girdles the mountain flanks; and (3.) Mokyer (Icel.
Thoka), the common fog of England.[96]
The Aurora Borealis, which the pagans held to be an emanation of the
Deity--a nimbus encircling some mighty brow--and in which Greenland sees
ghosts playing with walrus’ heads, is expected to appear in mid-August,
but of course not so splendidly as in winter. The author never saw
either streamers or zodiacal light. Uno Von Troil (p. 54) makes the
former show from all quarters, but especially from the southern horizon.
Metcalfe (p. 385) asserts that it ranges from north-east to south-west,
and there is a popular idea that the focus is more easterly than it was
a decade ago. In the Færoes it flashes either from west and north-west
to east, or from east and north-east to west. The streamers are
bluish-yellow, gold-coloured, and red; rarely blue, green, and scarlet.
The latter are called Lopt-eldr[97] or lift-fire, which shows the sky
aflame. It comes with strong winds and drifting snows, and, as in most
hyperborean parts, it betokens great carnage over the place where it
rises. Icelanders can no longer make the aurora draw nearer by whistling
to it.
The Alpen-glow, also called the evening aurora, is often a glorious
spectacle when the reflection of the blood-red west, showing that the
sun has just set, falls upon craggy hill and lowland slope, lighting up
every house and field to a distance of five or six miles, and washing
colour over the daguerrotyped outlines, usually so hard and sharp. When
distant objects seem near in most countries men predict rain, here the
rule apparently fails. The “Vetrar-braut,” or course of winter (Milky
Way), is by no means so bright as some travellers have described it. In
heathen times its appearance was used to forecast the hard months,
especially as fortune-telling was part of the great autumnal feasts and
sacrifices. The author never saw in Iceland the phosphorescent water
supposed to betray the presence of electricity and ozone, nor the
_fulgor brutum seu spurium_ of romantic meteorologists. The rainbow
(Icel. Regnbogi Nikuðs,[98] or of “Old Nick”) is of course common; the
twilights strike the stranger from the northern temperates as being
unimportant like those of the tropics; and there is a name for the
mirage or heat-reek, Hillingar, or Upp-hillingar, when rocks and islands
look as if lifted (“up-heaved”) from the level of the sea. The common
meteors are the Moorild or moor-fire of Norway (_ignis labentes seu
fatui_), here called Hrævar-eldr[99] and Snæljós. Castor and Pollux in
Christian times either became Saint Elmo’s (San Telmo’s) flames, or
connected themselves with Saints Nicholas and Clare; hence the Corpo
Santo, and hence our “corpusance,” frequently observed by the
circumnavigator Pigafitta (A.D. 1519-1522). The old English sailor
regarded them as Will-o’-the-wisps intimately related to a certain Davy
Jones. The others are the Gýgjar-sól (gow-sun) or Auka-sólir, mock sun
(parabolia); and paraselenæ or lunar halos, with Rosabaugr, or
storm-rings, literally “sleet-rings,” the effect of minute ice spiculæ,
or, perhaps, metallic particles, in the upper air refracting the light,
and producing rainbow-hued circles and ovals, which often bisect one
another. Water-spouts, the typhons of the Greeks, caused by the suction
of clouds highly charged with electricity, have been observed. We read
of fire-balls or shooting-stars (Viga-hnöttur or Stjörnuhrap); of
electric flames and red-hot globes (volcanic bombs) discharged with loud
detonations during eruptions; and the people still believe in the
“fire-vomiting” of their craters. Modern science explains the phenomenon
by the reflection of the brilliant, glowing, glaring lava and the
red-hot scoriæ, upon the dust and ash column, and upon the
“smoke-clouds,” which are really steam and other vapours. Yet M. Abich
declares that in the Vesuvian eruption of 1834, he distinctly saw the
flame of burning hydrogen, and this, indeed, might be expected.
As has been observed, the year of grace 1872 was exceptional. It opened
with the finest weather till the equinox, after which it broke and
strewed the ground with four feet of snow. Rain endured till the last
quarter of June, but the rest of the travelling season was absolutely
delightful. Mild east winds prevailed at Reykjavik, and the warmth of
the “sirocco,” as it was called, set the citizens speculating upon the
possibility of an eruption in the interior. After July 11th the sky was
that of Italy for a whole fortnight. The autumn was rough, with heavy
gales from north-east to east, and from south-east to south-west; there
were also hard frosts about mid-November, after which the weather became
as mild as in 1871. Dr Hjaltalín, Land-Physicus or Physician-General of
Iceland, was inclined to think that the summers were waxing warmer in
Snowland, as they are growing, or are supposed to grow, colder in
Scotland.
The travelling season of 1873 was very raw and dry. From the 20th of
June to the 20th of July strong north winds prevailed, and from the 16th
to the 18th of July there was a considerable fall of snow. August was
tolerably rainless, but cold, and winter set in in earnest about the
20th of September.
§ 4. CHRONOMETRY.
In these hyperborean regions the light season and the dark season
represent the “dries” and “rains” of the tropical zone. The gradual
changes from winter to summer, and _vice versâ_, known as spring and
autumn, can hardly exist when the frost often binds the ground till
mid-June, and reappears in latter August.[100] Thus the Edda of the old
Northmen (Vafthrûðnismál, Thorpe’s trans., st. 27) very rightly
distributes the year into only two parts:
“Vindsval hight he
Who Winter’s father is,
And Svâsud Summer’s.”[101]
The ancient heathen year contained 364 days (12 × 30 + 4 Auka-nætr, or
Eke-nights):[102] the remaining day, with its fraction, was gathered up
into an intercalary week, called Summer-eke, or Eke-week, introduced by
Thorstein Surt (the black) about the middle of the tenth century. Of old
it was inserted at the end of summer every sixth or seventh year, which
then numbered 191 days. The Gregorian style inserts it every fifth or
sixth year. Thus 1872 is marked the “first year after Sumar-auki;” the
years 1860, 1866, and 1871 being years with “Sumar-auki.” New style was
not adopted till A.D. 1700.
The light months technically began with the Thursday preceding April
16,[103] O. S., = April 26, N. S. On that day children received their
Sumar-gjöf (summer presents), which take the place of our Easter gifts.
The season consisted of 184 days (30 × 6 + 4 Auka-nætr); the eke-nights
being inserted before midsummer, which parts the season into two halves,
each of three months. Thus in the Iceland almanac for 1872,
Sumar-dagr-fyrsti (first summer day) fell on Thursday, April 25; the
Auka-nætr ranged between July 24 to 27; Mið-sumar was on July 28; and
Sumar-dagr-síðasti (last summer day) happened on October 25. In modern
usage the time from April to October is reckoned by the Sumar-vikur
(summer weeks), the first, second, seventh, and twentieth; and the
calendars mark every Thursday, during the light season, by the current
number of the week. The “travelling time” extends from the Invention of
the Cross (May 3) to St Bartholomew’s Day (August 24). Meteorologically,
summer opens with July. The winter, or dark half of the year (Vetr),
began on the Saturday before St Luke’s Day (O. S.), or that Saint’s Day
if a Saturday; and, like the summer, lasted twenty-six weeks. The
Vetrar-dagr-fyrsti (first winter day) for 1872 and 1873 corresponds with
Saturday, October 26. The following are the names of the months (Mánuðr
or Mánaðr):
1. JANUARY--Icelandic, _Mörsugr_, “fatsucker;” Anglo-Saxon, _Æftera_
(second) _Giuli_ (Yule), from the turning or tropic of the sun; Old
Danish, _Julemaaned_.
2. FEBRUARY--Icel., _Thorri_; A. S., _Sol monath_, from offerings made
to the sun; O. D., _Blidemaaned_, or “blythe month.”
3. MARCH--Icel., _Gói_;[104] A. S., _Rhed-monath_, “travel-month,” or
“month of the goddess Rheda,” to whom warlike sacrifices were offered;
O. D., _Törmaaned_, or “Thor’s month”--hence Lucan (Phars., lib. i.):
“Et Taranus Scythicæ non melior ara Dianæ.”
4. APRIL--Icel., _Einmánuðr_; A. S., _Eostre monath_, “Easter month,”
from the goddess Eostre; O. D., _Faaremaaned_, “fair month,” or “sheep
month.”
5. MAY--Icel., _Harpa_, or _gaukmánuðr_,[105] “cuckoo month,” or
_saðlid_, “sowing season;” A. S., _Trimilchi_, because the sheep were
milked thrice a day; O. D., _Maimaaned_, taken from the classics.
6. JUNE--Icel., _Skerpla_, or _egglið_, “egg-season,” or _stekklið_; A.
S., _Ærra_ (first) _Liða_, “serene sea;” O. D., _Hömaaned_, or “hay
month.” The 3d to 5th of June are called _Fardagar_, “flitting-days,”
because then householders change their abodes.
7. JULY--Icel., _Sólmánuðr_, “sun-month,” or _Selmánuðr_, “saeter
month;” A. S., _Æftera Liða_; O. D., _Ormemaaned_, or “worm (lumbrici)
month.”
8. AUGUST--Icel., _Hey-annir_, or “time of haymaking,” which ends about
the middle of next month; A. S., _Weide monath_, “pasture month,” or
_Wenden monath_, “tare month;” O. D., _Hoestmaaned_.
9. SEPTEMBER--Icel., _Tvímánuðr_; A. S., _Haleg monath_, or “holy
month;” O. D., _Fiskemaaned_.
10. OCTOBER--Icel., _Haustmánuðr_, “harvest or autumn month,” or
_Garðlagsmánuðr_, “the month for building fences;” A. S.,
_Winterfyllath_, or “winter-full;” O. D., _Sædemaaned_, “seed-month.”
11. NOVEMBER--Icel, _Gormánuðr_, “gore-month,” or “slaughter-month;” A.
S., _Bloth monath_, “sacrifice-month;” O. D., _Slagtemaaned_, “slaughter
month.”
12. DECEMBER--Icel., _Frermánuðr_, “frost month,” or _Ýlir_, “howler,”
from the howling storms; A. S., _Ærra Giuli_ (first Yule); O. D.,
_Julemaaned_.[106]
There is a quaint way of numbering the month-days by the knuckles of the
closed fist, which denote the longer, while the intervals represent the
shorter divisions, a _memoria technica_, thus taking the place of our
mnemonic lines, “Thirty days hath September,” etc. This “Dactylismus
Ecclesiasticus,”[107] concerning which Bishop Jón Arnason wrote, is
possibly what Uno Von Troil means (p. 118), “They make use of an art to
discover the sun by their fingers.”
The heathen week consisted of “Fimts” (pentads), whence, probably, the
sacred pentagonal star of Odinism; and six of these formed the month.
Thus the year was composed of seventy-two weeks, a holy number (= 2 ×
36, or 6 × 12). This old style lingered long after the introduction of
the planetary heptad, and lasts in such expressions as “There are many
turns of the weather in five days (a fimt), but more in a month.” Yet
the week (vika) was already in use about the middle of the tenth
century. Bishop John, who died in A.D. 1121, induced Iceland to adopt
the hebdomadal division, and the ecclesiastical names of the days, as
they survive in Spanish and Portuguese, _e.g., Feria secunda_, etc. Here
we recognise, with the exception of the two first, the familiar Quaker
custom:
SUNDAY is _Sunnu-dagr_, or _Drottins-dagr_, “the Lord’s day.”
MONDAY--_Mána-dagr_, modern Icel. Mánu-dagr.
TUESDAY--_Thriði_, or _Thriðju-dagr_, “third day.”
WEDNESDAY--_Miðviku_, contracted to _Miðku-dagr_, the Germ. _Mittwoch_.
THURSDAY--_Fimti-dagr_, or “fifth day.”
FRIDAY--_Föstu-dagr_, “fast-day,” the O. Swed. _Vor Frudag_, “_le jour
de Nôtre Dame_,” who took the place of Freya.
SATURDAY--_Laugar-dagr_, “bath day,” as in the times of England before
“tubbing.”
The old Icelandic names of the week days were: Sunnudagr, Mánadagr,
Týsdagr (from Týr, Tuisco, the one-armed god of war), Óðinsdagr,
Thórsdagr, Frjádagr, and Laugar or Thvátt dagr (“washing-day,” _i.e._,
Saturday).
Both Iceland and the Færoes have preserved the classical and Oriental
system of dividing into watches (Icel. Dagsmark, _plur._ Dagsmörk,
“day’s marks”[108]), corresponding with the “Pahar” still used
throughout Hindostan. They ignored the hour, which would have been too
troublesome and minute. Wanting timepieces, they used sundials
(Sólskifa) and sand-glasses. The rudest form was the peak or cairn,
whose shadow noted the time: the same system still prevails amongst the
Bedawin. By the sun also they learned to calculate the periods of ebb
and flow, and the southern altitude of the luminary denoted the
meridian. In winter evenings time was marked by the position of the
Pleiades, called, _par excellence_, the Stjarna (star). The other
constellations found useful at night were Örvindals-tá (toe of Orwendel,
= Rigel Orionis?); Thjaza augu (the eyes of Thiassi, = Castor and
Pollux?); Reið Rögnis (Charles’ Wain, the Wain of Rögn or Odin; whence
also Ragna-rök, the twilight of the gods and doom of the world); and
Loka-brenna (Sirius, Loki’s fire, also referring to the final Odinic
conflagration).
The Færoese divide the day into eight öktur (Icel. eyktir) and sixteen
half-öktur, the word Okt being shortened from octava.[109] The
Icelanders reckon nine like our seamen, the additional one being a
“dog-watch,” formed by dividing the 180 minutes into two. Their names
are:
1. _Nátt-mál_, or night-meal to 9 P.M.
2. _Miðnætti_, to midnight.
3. _Ótta_, from midnight to 3 A.M.: “hana-ótta” is cock-crow.
4. _Miður-morgun_, also called _Hirðis-rismál_, “the rising time of the
shepherd,” to 6 A.M.
5. _Dagmál_, day-meal to 9 A.M. (_hora tertia_.)
6. _Hádegi_, or _Hiðr-dagr_, “high-day” till noon.
7. _Mið-mundi_, first dog-watch from noon to 1.30 P.M.
8. _Nón_, in olden times also _Eykt_, second dog-watch from 1.30 P.M. to
“nona,” or 3 P.M.
9. _Miðr-aptn_, or mid-afternoon to 6 P.M.
The shortest day in the south averages five hours,[110] and the longest
is everywhere twenty-four.
As will appear in the Journal, Iceland preserves the Hebrew style of
beginning the civil day with evening, not with midnight like the rest
of Europe. So Tacitus (cap. ii.) of the Germans: “Nec dierum numerum, ut
nos, sed noctium computant;” and the older ecclesiastical law reckoned
the greater feasts from the nones or evenings of the preceding days. The
hours are fractioned after the English-Norwegian, not the German
fashion: thus 3.30 would be called “half (after) three,” instead of
“half (to) four” (halb vier). Similarly our seamen when heaving the lead
sing out, “And a half three,” _i.e._, three fathoms and a half.
§ 5. SUMMARY.
Iceland has the general contour of Ireland with the eastern side turned
round to face the Arctic Pole. It is a square, cut, furrowed, and
digitated by the violence of the northern, the north-eastern, and the
south-western winds and waves; and its shape is regular, and unsupplied
with ports only in the south, where, like Sicily, it is least exposed to
weather.
The “little white spot in the Arctic Sea” is the epitome of a world
generated by the upheaval and the eruption; dislocated and distorted by
the earthquake, and sorely troubled and tortured by wintry storms,
rains, snows, avalanches, fierce débâcles, and furious gales. The far
greater portion, the plateau above the seaboard, has a weird and
sinister aspect; verging on the desolation of Greenland, and lacking the
sternness and grandeur of nature in Norway. And nowhere, even in the
fairest portions, can we expect the dense forest on the Alp, “up to the
summit clothed with green;” the warbling of birds, the murmurs of
innumerous bees, the susurrus of the morning breeze, or the melodious
whispering of the “velvet forest:” their places are taken by black rock
and glittering ice, by the wild roar of the foss, and by the mist-cloud
hung to the rugged hill-side. We may not look for that prodigality of
colour with which sun and air paint the scenery of the happier south.
The first impressions recorded by travellers are the astonishing
transparency of the atmosphere, the absence of trees, the metallic green
of the grass-fields, the pink and purple sheen of the mountain heaths,
the sharp contrast of Ossas and warts, of ice and fire-born rock; and
the prevalence of raw-white and dull-black hues, like gulls’ feathers
strewed upon a roof of tarred shingles, in fact the magpie suits of
snowy jökull and sable fell.
Despite the almost hyperborean latitude, the frequent oases--Wadys or
Fiumaras--of admirable verdure, soft and secluded from the horrors of
loose sand and black lava, have suggested reminiscences of the Arabian
wildernesses, whilst the caravans of ponies, the “dromedaries of the
glacial desert,” add a special feature of resemblance.
The “general glance” of southern travellers is perhaps too gloomy. It
was hardly fair of the ancient Icelandic poet (tenth century) to call
his native island a “gallows of slush,” or for the modern Icelandic
parson to describe it as “nothing but bogs, rocks, and precipices;
precipices, rocks, and bogs; ice, snow, lava; lava, snow, ice; rivers
and torrents; torrents and rivers.” Cleasby crudely assures us that “the
whole of Iceland may be said to be a burnt-out lava field, from
eruptions previous to the peopling of the country.” Henderson says
rudely: “The general aspect of the country is the most rugged and dreary
imaginable;” he quotes Jeremiah about a region “where all life dies,
death lives, and Nature breeds all monstrous, all prodigious things;”
and he dwells with apparent gusto upon the “doleful and haggard tracts,”
through which it was his “privilege” safely to pass. Baring-Gould
repeats: “The general aspect of Iceland is one of utter desolation.”
Forbes gives an even more gloomy picture of repulsive deformity. One
might be reading in these travellers a description of St Magnus’ Bay:
“For all is rock at random thrown,
Black waves, blue crags, and banks of stone;
As if were here denied
The summer sun, the spring’s sweet dew,
That clothe with many a varied hue,
The blackest mountain side.”
The harsh name “Iceland,” which took the place of the far more
picturesque and correct “Snæ-land,” predisposes the wanderer to look
upon this northern nature with unfriendly glance; but it is strange how
her beauties grow upon him. Doubtless the scenery depends far more upon
colour and complexion than in the genial lands of the lower temperates.
But, during the delightfully mild and pleasant weather of July and
August, seen through a medium of matchless purity, there is much to
admire in the rich meads and leas stretching to meet the light-blue
waves; in the fretted and angular outlines of the caverned hills, the
abodes of giant and dwarf; in the towering walls of huge horizontal
steps which define the Fjörðs; and in the immense vistas of silvery
cupolas, “cravatted” cones, and snow-capped mulls, which blend and melt
with ravishing reflections of ethereal pink, blue, azure, and lilac,
into the grey and neutral tints of the horizon. There is grandeur, too,
when the Storm-Fiend rides abroad; amid the howl of gales, the rush of
torrents, the roar of water-falls; when the sea appears of cast-iron;
when the sky is charged with rolling clouds torn to shreds as they meet
in aërial conflict; when the pale-faced streams shudder under the blast;
when grim mists stalk over the lowlands; and when the tall peaks and
“three-horns,” parted by gloomy chasms, stand like ghostly hills in the
shadowy realm. And often there is the most picturesque of contrasts:
summer basking below, and winter raging above; peace brooding upon the
vale and elemental war doing fierce battle upon the eternal snows and
ice of the upper world.
Finally, there is one feature in Iceland which assumes a grandeur of
dimensions unknown to Europe--the Hraun or lava stream. The “rivers of
stone,” like those of water, bear no proportion to the size of the
island. The western arm of the Skaptárfellshraun, for instance, is
nearly forty-eight miles long by ten of breadth at the lower end; and
there are thousands of square miles covered by the Ódáða-hraun or
Terrible Lava Stream. Every fantastic form, save of life, is there, and
we cannot wonder if the peasant peoples them with outlying men or
brigands. In a word, the student of Vulcanism must not neglect Iceland.