M'Culloch's Universal Gazetteer.

A

DICTIONARY,

GEOGRAPHICAL, STATISTICAL, AND HISTORICAL,

OF THE VARIOUS

COUNTRIES, PLACES, AND PRINCIPAL

NATURAL OBJECTS IN THE WORLD.

BY J. R. M'CULLOCH, ESQ.

IN WHICH THE ARTICLES RELATING TO THE UNITED STATES HAVE BEEN GREATLY
MULTIPLIED AND EXTENDED, AND ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT CONDITION

OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO THE WANTS OF ITS CITIZENS.

BY DANIEL HASKEL, A.M.,

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT.

"Nec omnia dicentur sed maxime insignia "

Ellustrated with Seven large Maps.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET.

1844.

UNIVERSAL GAZETTEER,

OR

DICTIONARY,

GEOGRAPHICAL, STATISTICAL, AND HISTORICAL.

IBBERVILLE, parish, La. Centrally situated in the S. part of the state, and contains 350 sq. m. The borders of the streams only are sufficiently elevated for cultivation, where the soil is very fertile. It contained in 1840, 4901 neat cattle, 3988 sheep, 4688 swine; and produced 209,240 bushels of Indian corn, 30,924 of potatoes, 3,552,000 pounds of cotton, 3,728,000 of sugar. It had seventeen stores; one academy, 12 students, five schools, 133 scholars. Pop.: whites, 2523; slaves, 5887; free coloured, 85; total, 8495. Capital, Plaque-stroyed no fewer than 20 villages and 9000 human beings, mine.

ICELAND.

sulphur is inexhaustible; large mountains are incrusted with this substance, which, when removed, is again formed in crystals by the agency of the hot steam from below. Large quantities were formerly shipped; but latterly the sup plies sent to foreign markets have been comparatively small. By far the most remarkable phenomena of Iceland are the intermitting hot springs met with in several parts, and of all degrees of temperature. The water in some of these springs is at intervals violently thrown into the air to a great height. They have thence received the name of geysers, from the Icelandic verb geysa, to rage. The most celebrated of these springs are situated in a plain, about 16 m. N. from the village of Skalholt. The great geyser, or principal fountain of this kind, rises from a tube or funnel, 78 ft. in perpendicular depth, and from 8 to 10 ft. in diameter at the bottom, but gradually widening till it terminates in a capacious basin. After an emission, the basin and funnel are empty. The jets take place at intervals of about six hours; and when the water, in a violent state of ebullition, begins to rise in the pipe or funnel, and to fill the basin, subterraneous noises are heard, like the distant roar of cannon, the earth is slightly shaken, and the agitation increases till at length a column of water is suddenly thrown up, with vast force and loud explosions, to the height of 100 or 200 ft. And playing for a time like an artificial fountain, and giving off great clouds of vapour, the funnel is emptied, and a column of steam rushing up with great violence and a thundering noise, terminates the eruption. Such is the explosive force, that large stones thrown into the funnel are instantly ejected, and sometimes shivered into small fragments. (For an explanation of this phenomenon, see Lyell's Geology, ii., 309, 3d ed.) Some of the hot springs, near the inhabited parts of the island, are used for economical purposes; food is dressed over them; and in some places huts are built over small fountains, to form steam baths. In other parts of the island vast cauldrons of boiling mud are seen in a constant state of activity, sending up immense columns of dense vapour, which obscure the atmosphere a great way round.

That Iceland had formerly some extensive forests is apparent from authentic records, but they no longer exist: in fact, the climate seems to be now unsuitable for the growth of trees, those that are found at present being stunted and diminutive, and little better than underwood. Vast quantities of surturbrand, or fossil wood, are frequently found buried at a great depth beneath the surface.

No grain is now cultivated, though traces exist of its having been formerly raised. Agriculture is limited to the rearing of various grasses for cattle, and haymaking is consequently the most important branch of rural industry. Potatoes have been introduced with some success; and several kinds of culinary vegetables are raised, but, with the exception of red cabbage, few attain perfection. The grasses are of the sorts common in other N. climates, and keep horses and other cattle in good condition during the summer. Many of the low mountains are covered with a coarse grass, which yields pretty good summer pasturage; and the meadows and valleys through which the rivers flow produce grass in tolerable abundance, which, when the weather allows of its being harvested, is made into hay. Seaweed and moss are eagerly devoured by the cattle in winter, when other good food fails, which is often the case. In 1834 it was estimated that there were about 500,000 head of sheep; from 36,000 to 40,000 head of black cattle; and from 50,000 to 60,000 horses in Iceland: goats are kept only in the N. The number of sheep appears to be increasing; they have remarkably fine fleeces, which are not shorn, but cast off entirely in the spring. The horses are hardy and small, seldom standing more than 14 hands high. There being no carriages of any description, they are principally used for carrying burdens; and the poorest peasant has generally four or five of these animals. Rents are paid mostly in produce; on the coasts in fish, in the interior in butter, sheep, &c. Tenants who are in easy circumstances generally employ one or more labourers, who, besides board and lodging, have from 10 to 12 specie dollars a year as wages. The whole population is employed either in fishing or feeding cattle, or both; those who breed cattle being, as compared with those who live by fishing, nearly as three to one. No manufactures, of any kind, are carried on for the purpose of trade. Every branch of industry is domestic, and confined chiefly to articles of clothing, such as coarse cloth, gloves, mittens, stockings, &c. The peasantry supply themselves with such furniture as their cottages require, and some manufacture silver trinkets, and snuff-boxes, and forge implements of iron. Every man can shoe his own horse; and in this land of primitive simplicity, even the bishop and chief justice are sometimes employed in this necessary occupation! The greater part of the trade is carried on by means of barter; the quantity of money in circulation is very small, few of the peasants possessing any. The merchants receive the articles for exportation at regulated prices, according to the state of the market, and pay for them in such foreign commodities as the inhabitants may require. The peasantry of the neighbourhood assemble annually at Reikiavik and the other principal settlements, and bring down with them wool, woollen manufactured goods, butter, skins, tallow, Iceland moss (Lichen Icelandicus), and sometimes a few cattle. In return for these they take back cofwheaten flour, salt, soap, &c. The better class purchase linens and cotton goods, which have latterly come more into use. Those who live near the coasts bring to market dried cod and stock fish, dried salmon, whale, shark, and seal oils, seal skins, &c. The domestic produce has of late years, been considerable, and the export of wool amounts to from 3000 to 4000 skippunds annually.

Of the wild animals, foxes are the most numerous. Reindeer, which were introduced from Norway in 1770, in the intention of being domesticated, have increased very rapidly; but they are entirely wild, and are very difficult to kill. Bears are frequently brought down from the arctic regions on masses of floating ice; they sometimes commit great devastations, but are generally destroyed almost immediately after making the land. Nearly all kinds of seafowl in-fee, sugar, tobacco, snuff, a little brandy, rye, rye bread, habit the coasts and islands; and plovers, curlews, snipes, and a variety of game, are found in the interior. The eider duck is very plentiful; and the down taken from the nest is an important article of export. The birds are so familiar as to build their nests all round the roofs, and even inside the huts. A severe penalty is inflicted on those who kill them. The peasantry entertain a superstitious reverence, mingled with aversion, for the seal. The coasts, rivers, and lakes produce an abundance of fine fish; and it is from the sea that the Icelanders derive great part of their subsistence. Their fisheries are prosecuted with great activity; and at Niardivik, one of the fishing stations on the E. coast of the island, there are said to be 300 boats. Cod and haddock are plentiful on the coasts: of these, as well as of the other seafish, part is salted for exportation, but by far the greater part is dried for winter provision. The herring fishery is much neglected, as well as the inland fishery on the lakes and rivers.

The climate is more variable than that of the same latitudes on the continent. Great and sudden changes of temperature often occur; and it has frequently happened that after a night of frost, the thermometer during the day has risen to 70° Fahr. The intensity of the cold is much in creased by the immense quantities of floating ice, which, being drifted from the polar regions, accumulate upon the coast. Fogs are frequent; but the air, on the whole, is reckoned wholesome. Thunder is seldom heard, but storms of wind and rain are frequent; and the aurora borealis and other meteors are much more common and brilliant here than in countries further to the S. The sun is visible at midnight at the summer solstice, from the hills in the N. parts of the island. There is a prevalent opinion in Iceland, that the seasons in former ages were less unfavourable; but, there is probably no good foundation for this belief. The summers are necessarily short; but Dr. Henderson states that the cold is rarely more intense than in the S. of Scandinavia, and the winter he passed in the island was as mild as any he had experienced in Denmark or Sweden.

The Icelanders are of Norwegian origin; they are tall, have a frank open countenance, a florid complexion, and flaxen hair. They seldom attain to an advanced age, but the females generally live longer than the men. They are hospitable; devotedly attached to their native land; remarkably grave and serious; and, indeed, apparently phlegmatic, but extremely animated on subjects which interest them. They have retained, with few innovations, the ancient modes of life and the costume of their race. Their principal articles of food are fish, fresh and dried, bread, made of imported corn, great quantities of rancid butter, game, and, in some parts, a porridge made of Icelandic moss. They sometimes use the flesh of the shark or sea-fish, when it has become tender from putrescence. Their huts, though larger, are not unlike those of the Irish: their dampness, with the darkness, filth, and stench of the fish, render them uninhabitable by strangers. The Icelandic, or original Scandinavian tongue, has been here preserved in all its ancient purity. The Icelanders are extremely attentive to their religious and domestic duties, and display in their dealings a scrupulous integrity. Perhaps there is no country in which the lower orders are so well informed. Domestic education is universal; and there are very few among them who cannot read and write, and many among the better class would be distinguished by their taste and learning in the most cultivated society of Europe. Even many of the peasantry are well versed in the classics; and the traveller is not unfrequently attended by guides who converse with him in Latin! In winter nights it is customary for a whole family to take their places in the principal apartment, where they proceed to their respective

IDA.

tasks, while one, selected for the purpose, reads aloud some of their sagas (ancient tales), or such other historical narrative as can be found. Their stock of books is not large, but they lend to each other, and frequently copy what they borrow.

The island was formerly divided into four amts, or provinces, answering to the four cardinal points. The N. and E. are now merged into one, and the W. is presided over by the governor in person. This officer has the title of sliftamtman; he is sometimes a native, but more frequently a Dane. Under him are the amtmen, or provincial governors, who possess a similar jurisdiction over their quarters. Each province is divided into syssels or shires, presided over by sysselmen, with authority similar to that of sheriffs; these collect taxes, hold petty courts, regulate assessments, &c. Under the sysselinen are wepstiores, who are overseers of the poor, constables, &c. The tatsroed, or chief justice, holds, with two assistants, a criminal court at Reikiavik, but very few cases are tried in the island, and all capital punishments are inflicted at Copenhagen. Crimes are rare, petty theft and drunkenness are the most common; the latter has been introduced chiefly by the crews of the Danish vessels that visit the coasts.

The island constitutes one bishopric; the bishop's salary does not exceed £500 per annum. There are about 194 pars; but the clergy amount to upward of 300: their incomes are very small, and they are frequently among the poorest of the community. The only charitable institutions are, four hospitals, for the reception of those afflicted with leprosy, which, in the form of elephantiasis, was formerly very prevalent. Small-pox was formerly also very destructive. There are no workhouses, the sick and poor being almost universally supported by their own families. The principal school at Bessestadt, near the W. coast, has three masters, who teach classics, theology, and the Danish language; and several young men, after attending this school, go to Copenhagen to finish their studies. Reikinvik, the cap., on the S.W. coast, has little more than 500 resident inhab. chiefly Danes. Most of the villages are situated on the coasts, at convenient spots for the receipt and transport of merchandise.

ILCHESTER.

cent. of quicksilver, and is then usually abandoned in search of a better vein. The richest ore yields from 50 to 70 per cent. of metal. From 600 to 700 workmen are enployed, of whom about 500 are miners. These are enrolled in a corps, and have a regular uniform. They are divided into three sections, which relieve each other, each working below for eight hours in the twenty-four, and the work incessantly going on. Within his eight hours, the labourer is required to perform a certain measurement of work, for which he receives 17 kreutzers (nearly 7d.). If he performs less or more than this measured extent, his pay is proportionally reduced or increased; but the number of those who gain less than the fixed sum is greater than of those who gain more. Besides their money pay, the miners get an allowance of corn sufficient for themselves and their families; and in illness, gratuitous medical aid. No lodging is found them; but they may purchase at a government store a number of articles of prime necessity, at fixed charges, generally below the ordinary market prices. The miners usually enter the service ut fifteen years of age. After forty years' service, or earlier, if ill health overtake them, they are allowed to retire on full pay, and enjoy various privileges. The widows and orphans of miners are entitled to a pension, and about 35,000 florins are thus expended annually. The process of mining is said to be very unhealthy; the heat of the mine, varying from 800 up to 86° Fah., impregnates the atmosphere with volatilised mercury, which soon exerts all its characteristic effects on the constitutions of the miners. In some parts, the heat is so great, and the atmosphere so vitiated, that the workmen are obliged to relieve each other every two hours. The mine is very clean, and in its lower parts remarkably dry. In 1803, a violent conflagration broke out in the mine, destroying the whole of the works, with several of the worknem. Of the mercury produced at Idria, a small part goes to Trieste, whence it is exported chiefly to America; but by far the largest portion is sent to Vienna, partly for the plating of mirrors, but principally for the use of the gold and silver mines of Hungary and Transylvania.

Fifty years ago, Idria was notoriously a place of banishment for state prisoners and criminals, who were conThe early and successful application of the Icelanders to demned to work in the mines. It is so no longer; no coerthe cultivation of literature is an anomaly in the history of cion is used, and no convicts are sent thither; the supply learning. When most parts of continental Europe were in of labourers petitioning to be admitted is considerably greata state of rude ignorance, the inhab. of this remote island er than can be received into the service. The town and were well acquainted with poetry and history. The most disrict of Idria is a mining intendency, with its own govflourishing period of Icelandic literature appears to have ernment; consisting of a director-general, an imperial compbeen from the 12th to the end of the 14th century. During troller of accounts, a secretary-general, and four councilthe last three centuries, however, Iceland has produced lors, who superintend all the departments of the public sermany learned men, some of whom have risen to great em- vice, under the Council of Mines in Vienna. Idria has inence. The literature of the island in the present day may some German, primary, and other schools, and a small perhaps be said rather to have changed its character than theatre It had a school for instruction in mining, but it declined from its ancient fame; the inhab. now attend was abolished on the restoration of the Illyrian provinces more to solid branches of learning than to the poetical and to Austria. The aspect of the place is thus described by historical romances of the ancient Icelandic sages. Do- Turnbull: "We perceived the white church with its little mestic education is carefully attended to; there is no want steeple, perched on a small green knoll, and not far from of modern books in Icelandic; and a printing press is active- it another insulated height, crowned with an antique-lookly employed in the island of Vidoe. ing castle, erected by the Venetians during the time that they possessed Illyria, and which now serves as a resi dence for the bergrath, or director of the mines, and for the government offices connected therewith. Between these two heights, the town struggles along on very unequal ground; with a stream rushing through it, a second church in a sort of open market-place, some large buildings connected with the public adminstration, but scarcely any good however, unknown. The mine was discovered by accident in 1497; it was afterward wrought by a company of Venetian merchants, and purchased by the house of Austria, who accorded the miners considerable privileges in 1575, since which the prosperity of Idria has been generally on the increase. (See the elaborate accounts of Francke, in the Revue du Nord, vol. v., pt. ii.; Turnbull's Trav., i, 285-296; Berghaus, Oesterr. Nat. Encyc., &c.)

The discovery of Iceland by Europeans is attributed to a Norwegian pirate, about the year 860; but the earliest permanent settlement was effected by the Norwegians in 874. In little more than half a century, all the coasts were occupied by settlers; and about the year 928 the inhab. formed themselves into a republic, and established the Althing, or General Assembly of the nation, which was held annually at Thingvalla, in the S.W. and not abol-shops or private houses." Mendicancy, or abject poverty, is, ished till 1800. The Icelanders maintained their independence for nearly 400 years; but during the 13th century became subject to Norway, and on the annexation of that kingdom to Denmark, Iceland was transferred along with it. (See Sir G. Mackenzie's Travels; Hooker's Trav. in Iceland; Barrow's Visit to Iceland, 1834-5; Gaimard's Voyage en Island et Groenland, 1838; Henderson's Journal, &c.) IDA, t., Monroe co., Mich. It has two schools, 52 scholars. Pop. 251.

IDRIA, a town of the Austrian empire, k. Illyria, duchy Carniola, circle Adelsberg, in a valley of the Carnic Alps, 23 m. W. by S. Laybach. Pop. (1838), 4185. The inhabs. are principally engaged in mining; the quicksilver mines of Idria belonging to the Austrian government being, after those of Almaden in Spain, the richest and most celebrated in Europe. They yield annually from 3200 to 3500 cwt. of metal, about a sixth part of which is converted on the spot into vermilion, corrosive sublimate, and other prep arations of mercury. The mine is rather more than 1000 ft. in depth. The formation in which it is situated is transition limestone, alternating with clay-slate, in which latter rock the quicksilver is found. It exists partly pure in globules among the slate: but it is mostly found in combination with sulphur, forming veins of cinnabar, &c., which vary greatly in thickness. The cinnabar ore is considered too poor to be wrought when it contains only from 15 to 18 per

IGUALADA (an. Aquæ late), a town of Spain, prov. Catalonia, 37 m. N.W. Barcelona, and 286 m. E.N.E. Madrid; lat. 41° 40.' N, long. 10 31' E. Pop. 7731. It stands on the Noya, a trib. of the Joui, in a rich plain, abounding with corn-fields and olive-grounds. It has some wellbuilt streets, and a handsome suburb, the chief buildings being a par. church, two convents, a clerical college, hospital, and cavalry barracks. The inhab. are among the wealthiest and most industrious in Spain; and their manufactures, by which they are almost wholly supported, comprise cotton and woollen yarns and cloths, hats, and firearms, the last of which are highly esteemed. In the neighbourhood are several considerable paper-mills. Fairs, well attended, for manufactured produce, are held here in the beginning of Jan. and at the end of August. (Miñano.)

ILCHESTER, a bor., market town, and par. of England, co., Somerset, hund. Tintinhull, on the Yeo or Ivil (whence its name is derived), 18 m. E. Taunton, and 116 m. W.S.W.