districts. The stream that flowed down the Skaptaá is calculated at
about fifty miles in length, by twelve or fifteen at its greatest
breadth: that in the Hverfisfliot at forty miles in length by seven in
breadth. In the narrow channel of the Skaptaá it rose to 500 or 600
feet; but in the plains its extreme height does not exceed 100, and in
many places is only eight or ten feet. From its immense thickness, it
was a long time in cooling, being so hot in July 1784, twelve months
after the eruption, that Mr. Stephenson could not cross it, and even
then sending up a thick smoke or steam. In the year 1794 it still
retained an elevated temperature, emitting vapours from various places,
and many of its crevices being filled with warm water. This long
retention of heat will appear more extraordinary, when we consider the
numerous globular cavities and fissures it contained, permitting a free
circulation of the water and atmosphere.
“The destructive effects of this volcano were not confined to its
immediate vicinity, vast quantities of sand and ashes being scattered
over the remoter parts of the country, and some were conveyed to the
Faröe islands, a distance of nearly 300 miles.[34] The noxious vapours
that for many months infected the air were equally pernicious to man and
beast, and covered the whole island with a dense fog which obscured the
sun, and was perceptible even in England and Holland. The steam rising
from the crater, or exhaled from the boiling waters, was condensed in
the cooler regions of the atmosphere, and descended in floods that
deluged the fields and consolidated the ashes into a thick black crust.
A fall of snow in the middle of June, and frequent showers of hailstones
of unusual magnitude, accompanied with tremendous thunder-storms,
tearing up huge fragments of rock, and rolling them down into the
plains, completed the scene of desolation. The grass and other plants
withered, and became so brittle that the weight of a man’s foot reduced
them to powder; and even where the pastures seemed to have recovered,
the cattle refused to touch them, dying of actual starvation in the
midst of the most luxuriant herbage. Small unknown insects covered many
of the fields, while other portions of the soil, formerly the most
fertile, were changed by the ashes into marshy wastes overgrown with
moss and equiseta. A disease resembling scurvy in its most malignant
type attacked both men and cattle, occasioned in the former no doubt by
the want of food, and the miserable, often disgusting, nature of that
which alone they could obtain. Many lived on the bodies of those animals
which had perished from hunger or disease, whilst others had recourse to
boiled skins, or substances still more nauseous and unwholesome. The
numerous earthquakes, with the ashes and other matter thrown into the
sea, caused the fish to desert many parts of the coast; whilst the
fishermen, seldom daring to leave the land enveloped in thick clouds
during most of the summer, were thus deprived of their usual stock of
winter provisions. We cannot better conclude this frightful catalogue of
evils, than by the following summary of the numbers of men and cattle
more or less immediately destroyed by it in two years. The most moderate
calculation makes these amount to 1300 human beings, 19,488 horses,
6,801 horned cattle, and 129,937 sheep.” Stephenson makes these numbers
still higher and says, “9,336 men, 28,000 horses, 11,461 cattle, and
190,488 sheep.”[35]
Fine dust and vapour from this terrific eruption overspread Asia,
Europe, and America during the whole summer. Franklin speculated on the
cause of this haze, and Dr. Mackinlay reminded me that Cowper, who
frequently refers to it in his letters, has, in the second Book of the
“Task,” a beautiful allusion to it, and also to the earthquake in
Calabria which occurred nearly at the same time as the Skaptár
eruptions:
“Fires from beneath, and meteors from above,
Portentous, unexampled, unexplained,
Have kindled beacons in the skies; and th’ old
And crazy earth has had her shaking fits
More frequent, and foregone her usual rest.
Is it a time to wrangle, when the props
And pillars of our planet seem to fail,
And Nature, with a dim and sickly eye,
To wait the close of all?”
A.D. 1784, the year after the outbreak of Skaptár, which left the whole
island in mourning, was almost as memorable for earthquakes, not only in
Iceland, but in many parts of the world widely separated from each
other, as 1755 had been in connection with the eruption of Kötlugjá.
Most of the Icelandic mountains are volcanic, and, from the native
history, we learn the frequency with which they have manifested this
character. Let us glance at the following brief sketch of their
VOLCANIC HISTORY,
chiefly compiled by the author of “Iceland, Greenland, and the Faröe
Islands.”
Of these mountains, this writer says, “most of them seem now to be in
the state of intermittent activity, in which more or less violent
paroxysms occur at intervals of longer or shorter duration; and, but for
the uncertainty of these periods, we might consider some as in a state
of complete repose. These alternations of movement and rest seem common
to the separate members and to the whole system; there being many years
in which the island remains undisturbed, whilst at other epochs it
appears as if entirely devoted to the fury of contending elements. The
most terrible of the volcanoes known in ancient times were Hekla,
Oræfa-Jökul, and the Kötlugjá; to which have recently[36] been added
Krabla, Leirhnukr, and Skaptáfells, which commenced only in the 18th
century. The earliest record of such an occurrence is that of
Eldborg,[37] in the western part of the island, said to have happened in
the 9th or 10th century. This was followed by the eruption from the
mountains in Guldbringu syssel in the year 1000, at the time when the
althing was deliberating as to the reception of the Christian religion.
In the 11th century Hekla appeared in a state of violent commotion,
which extending, in the middle of the 12th, to many others, devastated
the land from north to south, and was accompanied by destructive
earthquakes. In the beginning and at a later period of the 13th century,
the south-western quarter was particularly excited; whilst in the middle
of the succeeding one, the island was desolated by the most terrible
convulsions, concluding in 1391 with a violent earthquake, felt over the
whole country. From this date till the beginning of the 16th, the
volcanoes were comparatively quiet; but at that period, and in the end
of the century, they raged both in the south and the north. The 17th was
again an interval of repose, in which only the southern ones were
active; but the eighteenth age proved that their energies had undergone
no diminution, by eruptions even more violent than those of the
fourteenth. Between 1720 and 1730 the same mountains were in incessant
action, accompanied by earthquakes; whilst in the north, Krabla and
Leirhnukr began their devastations. In the years 1753 and 1755 the
Skeidará and Kötlugjá Jökuls poured out every variety of volcanic
matter. In 1766 Hekla again commenced, and the destructive outbreak of
the Skaptár in 1783 closed these frightful scenes. From that time till
1821, with the exception of some slight agitations, and probably a few
inconsiderable eruptions in the desert part of the country, no displays
of volcanic action occurred.”
Eyafialla Jökul continued in eruption from A.D. 1821 till 1822. In July
1823 it again began to burn. In the same month Kötlugjá, covered nearly
100 miles of ground with sand and ashes. “In July 1825, both sides of
the island were visited by earthquakes, accompanied by destructive
hurricanes and floods; whilst on the 13th of February 1827, there was an
eruption of the Skeidará Jökul.”
The subjoined list of Icelandic volcanoes, with the dates of their
eruptions, is transcribed from the same source, and presented to the
reader, not by any means as complete, but as the best to which I at
present have access. It will aid him in realizing the fearful results of
these terrific energies so frequently at work.
“Hekla, 1004, 1029, 1105, 1113, 1157, 1206, 1222, 1294, 1300,
1340, 1374, 1390, 1436, 1510, 1554, 1583, 1619, 1625, 1636,
1693, 1728, 1754, 1766.
Guldbringu Syssel, 1000.
Eyafialla Jökul, 1821.
Solheima Jökul, about 900, 1245, 1262, 1717.
Kötlugjá or Myrdals-Jökul, 894, 1311, 1416, 1580, 1625, 1661,
1721, 1727, 1755, 1823.
Skaptár-Jökul, 1783.
Sida-Jökul, in tenth century, and in 1753.
Skeidarár-Jökul, 1725, 1727, 1827.
Oræfa-Jökul, 1362, 1720, 1727, 1755.
Hnappafell’s-Jökul, 1332, 1772.
Heinaberg’s-Jökul, 1362.
Trolladynger, 1151, 1188, 1340, 1359, 1475, 1510.
Herdubreid, 1340, 1510, 1717.
Krabla, and Leirhnukr, 1725-1730.
Grimsvatn, 1716.
Eldborg, end of ninth or beginning of tenth century.
Submarine eruption, Breida fiord, 1345.
Submarine Reykjanes, 1211, 1226, 1238, 1240, 12—, 1340, 1422,
1583, 1783, 1831.”
Here are records of nineteen vents and seventy-seven
eruptions. “These have occurred in about ten centuries, or,
on an average, one in thirteen years. The most violent
paroxysms seem to have occurred in 1340, 1362, 1725-1730,
and 1754-1755. To complete this view of internal activity,
we may add, that the following years were distinguished by
violent earthquakes; 1181, 1182, 1211, 1260, 1261, 1294,
1300, 1311, 1313, 1339, 1370, 1390, 1391, 1552, 1554, 1578,
1597, 1614, 1633, 1657, 1661, 1706, 1755, 1784, 1789, 1808,
1815, 1825.”
-----
Footnote 18:
“Iceland, Greenland, and the Faröe Islands,” p. 37.
Footnote 19:
Since our visit, there has been another eruption of Kötlugjá in 1860,
the particulars of which have been collected by Lauder Lindsay, Esq.
M.D., F.L.S. &c., and published in the Edinburgh “Philosophical
Journal” for January. From his interesting and admirable scientific
paper, which treats the subject largely, we learn that this eruption,
like that of 1823, was “mild and innocuous.” It began on the 8th, and
continued to the 28th or 29th of May, and was preceded for several
days by earthquakes. On the morning of the eighth a dark cloud was
seen to rise from the mountain, which at the same moment sent forth an
enormous flood of water, with very large pieces of ice, running with
the water-stream into the sea. Some of the pieces of ice were so large
that they were stranded at a twenty fathom depth in the sea. On the
12th of May the flames could be seen from Reykjavik, although this
town is no less than about eighty English miles distant. During the
evenings flashes of lightning were seen in the same direction. On the
16th May, the smoke was about twenty-four thousand (?) feet high; it
was sometimes of a dark colour, but at other times it resembled steam.
At this time the fire was seen from several places at a distance of
about 80 English miles. The wind being northerly during the eruption,
the sand and ashes fell chiefly in Myrdals-sand, which was the
direction also taken by the water-floods. Sulphur was found floating
in the sea, and the fish disappeared from certain parts of the
neighbouring coasts. A large quantity of cinders was mixed with the
water-floods. Cinders and balls of fire, as well as smoke, were thrown
up; but the cinders and ashes, from being carried by the wind partly
into the sea and partly to the neighbouring snow-fields, did
comparatively little damage to the lowland farms; although the
well-known devastations of former eruptions, especially those of 1665
and 1755, gave rise to extreme alarm and the most serious
apprehensions among the poor inhabitants.
Footnote 20:
Longest interval.
Footnote 21:
Shortest interval.
Footnote 22:
Most important eruption.
Footnote 23:
‘In estimating the seriousness of such a loss, it is necessary to bear
in mind that the hay harvest is, so far as the vegetable kingdom is
concerned, the _only_ harvest in Iceland; and that hay is almost the
sole provender for horses, sheep, and cattle during three-fourths of
the year.’
Footnote 24:
Founding his statements on the manuscript of the Surgeon Sveinn
Pálsson, and on Horrebow’s Natural History of Iceland—p. 12: London
1758.
Footnote 25:
From the Greek επι and ζωον—a term applied to diseases among animals;
_e.g._ _murrain_, in which cattle are preyed upon by parasites.
Footnote 26:
‘The celebrated agitation of the waters of our own Loch Ness occurred
contemporaneously with the great earthquake of Lisbon, here also
referred to.’
Footnote 27:
Stukesley’s “Philosophy of Earthquakes,” 3d ed., London 1756, 8vo, pp.
9-30.
Footnote 28:
“Journal of a Tour in Iceland in the Summer of 1809,” 2d ed., 2 vols.,
London 1813, by Sir William Jackson Hooker, K.H., D.C.L., L.L.D., &c.,
the present distinguished Director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew.
Footnote 29:
See Dasent’s admirable translation of “Burnt Njal,” since published.
Footnote 30:
Mr. Brynjúlfsson had the following lines—intimating the hopelessness
of searching for the treasure concealed below—repeated to him, when
recently visiting the locality. They are thus literally rendered by
him into English.
“Thrasa kista audug er “Thrasi’s chest wealthy is
Under forsi Skoga Under foss of Skogar;
Hver sem thángad fyrsti fer Whosoever thither first goes
Fiflsku hefir nóga.” Foolishness has enough.”
Footnote 31:
There was a slight eruption of this mountain on March 23, 1861, which
only lasted a few days. The smoke and sulphurous gases which it
exhaled tarnished metal at 50 miles distance.
Footnote 32:
See illustration, p. 160.
Footnote 33:
See illustration p. 134, where Skaptár is represented as rising in the
distance, over a hill-range on the other side of a level plain, which
in the wood-cut resembles and might be mistaken for water.
Footnote 34:
This also happened during the eruption of Hekla in 1693.
Footnote 35:
“Greenland, Iceland, and Faröe,” pp. 38-42: chiefly abridged from
Stephenson’s “Account of the Eruption,” published at Copenhagen in
1785, which will be found translated in Hooker’s Journal, vol. ii.,
124-261. See also Henderson, vol. i., pp. 272-290; and Gliemann, pp.
107-109.
Footnote 36:
Second ed. published in 1841.
Footnote 37:
Should be Kötlugjá. A.J.S.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO REYDARFIORD.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE EAST COAST. BREIDAMERKR—SEYDISFIORD.
Sailing north-east along the coast, we see the Breidamerkr ice-plains,
and the mouth of the river Jökulsá, which is only a mile or two long.
Dr. Mackinlay informs us that the most dangerous rivers in Iceland are
the shortest. They spring, full formed, from the bosom of the
thick-ribbed ice. The Jökulsá, which crosses Breidamerkr-sandr, is one
of the most dreaded of these. It springs from Breidamerkr-Jökul, which,
however, is not a snow-mountain, but only a high field of ice projected
southward into the plain from the great snow-range to the north. Some
years it is eight or ten miles from the sea, in others only one; the
length of the river varies accordingly. It is half a mile broad.
Sometimes this river gets dammed up, then bursts from caverns of ice
with a noise like thunder, carrying along with it masses of ice with
uncontrollable fury to the sea. Sunshine melting the ice swells such
rivers more rapidly than rain. The near view of this cold icy region—so
dreary, lone and still—made one almost feel cold, although the sun was
bright and the thermometer, at noon, stood at 100 degrees.[38] The
dazzling whiteness of the snow and the ice-blink, made our eyes ache. It
was literally
“A waste land where no one comes
Or hath come since the making of the world.”
[Illustration: NEAR THE ENTRANCE TO HORNAFIORD.]
As we approach Hornafiord the character of the mountains changes;
instead of great white massive ranges, many isolated, sharp-pointed,
rugged peaks, called horns, now rise. They are almost free from snow,
and of richly varied tints, chiefly lilacs and browns, glowing in the
sunshine.
The general character of the mountain-ranges at this point, and indeed
along the entrances to the fiords of the east coast, as far as
Seydisfiord, resembles Goatfell and the Holy Island in Arran—firth of
Clyde—only it is higher, wilder, even more serrated, and, in addition,
exhibits many curious fantastic pointed rocks or _drongs_. Fleecy clouds
often rested on the peaks, or rolled, incense-like, among them.
The western half of the island is diversified by a great network of
lakes, on whose lonely waters, Dr. Mackinlay remarked, “thousands of
milk white swans sport in the summer sunshine,” while the eastern half
is broken up by isolated volcanoes whose smouldering fires are capped
with snow.
The western coast is scooped out into two enormous gulfs, the Faxa and
Breida fiords; while that portion of the east coast, to which we have
referred, viz.: from Hornafiord to Seydisfiord, is all along closely
indented with little fiords or arms of the sea. These run inland for a
distance of from ten to eighteen miles, and average say about two miles
in breadth. They are separated from each other by lofty mountain ridges,
such as we have described, running far out into the sea, and ending in
sheer precipitous headlands or lofty horns. Let the reader lay his hand
flat down on this page with his fingers stretched apart, let him then
suppose each of the fingers to represent a mountain range, and the
interspaces fiords, and he will be able to form an idea of the way in
which the coast is indented. At Reydar and Berufiords, these ridges
appear to be about 2000 feet high, with many sheer precipices, half that
height, from which a stone could be pitched into the sea. It will thus
be seen, that the fiords are shut in on both sides by steep mountain
ridges like walls of rock, the summits of which are often veiled in dark
clouds, and in some places are covered with perpetual snow. These rocky
heights are as bare as if they had newly been splintered—not a tree or
shrub on their sides—and the lone stillness of the fiords is only broken
by the wild “water lapping on the crag,” the cataract roaring and
leaping down rock gulleys, or the streamlet trickling down the broad
stair-like ledges of the trap, dripping from step to step like a white
glassy fringe. These fiords appear to have been rents formed when the
island was first heaved up; and, where the arm of the sea terminates,
they are continued further into the interior as green valleys down which
rivers flow. In places where mountain-tracks are utterly impracticable,
these river-courses serve for bridle-paths in passing from one valley or
fiord to another.
The tender herbage affords delightful pasture for sheep; fish, chiefly
cod, are to be had in abundance in the fiords, and the streams abound in
trout. Vessels can sail up and find sheltered havens in which to lie,
thus affording water carriage for the exchange of commodities, and
bringing the advantages of the coast to the interior.
In the country one never meets anything approaching to a village. It is
a populous district where you see a farm in a valley, another group of
turf hovels, called a _thorpe_, a few miles further up, and perhaps, a
homestead of some kind perched on the green slope of a neighbouring
hill-side. Should there be, in addition to these, a black wood building
near the edge of the water, with a white flagstaff before it—it is a
merchant’s factory and gives to the place the importance of a
market-town.
It was now between 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning, but as the sky was
clear and lovely, and we were sailing along a coast, the striking
features of which, although singularly picturesque, we had never seen
described in books, I remained on deck most of the night, and only, from
a forced sense of duty, lay down for a short time without undressing.
These fiords on the east coast are very similar in character; most of
the features we have noted being common to them all. I shall therefore
simply enumerate, in their order, the names of those we passed between
Hornafiord and Seydisfiord, a distance of about 100 miles, for the first
75 of which the steamer’s course lay north-east, and for the remaining
25 nearly due north:—Skardsfiord, Papafiord, Lonfiord, Altafiord,
Hamarsfiord, Berufiord, Stödvarfiord, Faskrudsfiord, Reydarfiord,
Nordfiord, and Mjofifiord.
On Saturday morning, between 5 and 6 o’clock, we entered Seydisfiord,
sailed up to the head of it and dropped anchor, having now reached the
extreme point of our destination.
This lonely fiord on the north-east of Iceland, is land-locked like
Lochgoil or Teignabraich in Scotland. The valley at the head, with hills
on either side, makes a bend to the north, so that there are high hills
all round us. Those on the south—our left hand side—sweep round, forming
an amphitheatre, till they are apparently met by those of the
north-side; the fiord is thus shut in on the west, and the continuation
of the valley, beyond it, shut out.
The hill-sides are terraced with sixteen or eighteen trap-steps, which
run in regular horizontal layers and yet further complete the
resemblance of the head of the fiord to a great amphitheatre. From these
steps, water, glassy-white, may be seen trickling down, every little
way, all round; with here and there a mountain cataract which has made a
deep gully for itself. The hill-range on the left, which sweeps round
and bounds the view, is capped with a series of singular rocky cones,
occurring at regular intervals, and in shape resembling the chimneys of
a glass work. They are mottled with snow-patches; mist streaks float
athwart them; while in the west, not only those chimneys, but the top of
the ridge itself is now hid from view, muffled up in dense clouds which
form the curtain of the amphitheatre. A river flows into the fiord from
the valley, which, although green and yielding a hay-crop, is marshy and
much in want of draining. From the sloping nature of the ground, this
could easily be done at little expense, and would, we doubt not, prove a
highly remunerative investment.
[Illustration: MR. HENDERSON’S FACTORY AT SEYDISFIORD.]
Near the beach are three stores, or factories as they are called; two
belong to Danes, and the other to Mr. Henderson, one of the owners of
the _Arcturus_, who has been here for sometime but is going south with
us to-night. The factories are one-storey houses, built of wood. A
traffic in produce, chiefly fish and wool, is carried on with the
farmers, whose sod-covered dwellings are sparsely scattered along the
neighbouring coast, or in valleys above the fiords. Customers are
sometimes attracted from much greater distances; we saw long strings of
ponies riding down water-courses, and crossing the shoulders of bare
hills where one would think there was scarcely footing for a goat.
Before breakfast Dr. Mackinlay and I had a swim in the fiord, and found
the water much warmer than we anticipated; indeed, it was pleasanter in
this respect than the last bath I had in the sea at Teignabraich. We
then breakfasted with Mr. Henderson, who gave us a most cordial welcome.
The steamer was several days later in arriving than the time he had
expected her, so that he had almost begun to despair of her ever coming
for him, and was conjuring up gloomy visions of being obliged to winter
here, and fancying all sorts of things. Now, for him, all was changed
and bright. I tried to masticate a bit of raw dried stock-fish, which
the Icelanders commonly use, eating it as we do bread. I also tasted
“snaps,” of which the Danes are so fond, for the first and last time; it
seemed like a mixture of gin and kirchen-wasser, flavoured with
coriander seed. The breakfast before us was a most substantial one,
there being no lack either of welcome, which is the best of cheer, or of
mutton, fish, beer, coffee, milk, and stale black rye-bread. Be it
remembered that this breakfast was neither Icelandic, Danish, nor
Scotch; but, exhibiting some of the characteristics of all three, seemed
marvellously adapted to our present requirements in this distant
habitat.