Imatges de pàgina
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femarkable, fince we found there, befides, a whole field covered
with lava, which must have been liquid in the highest degree, and
Chance had directed us exactly to a
whole mountains of turf.
fpot on which we could, better than on any other part of Ice-
land, confider the operations of a fire which had laid wafte a
ftretch of fixty or feventy English miles. We spent feveral days.
here in examining every thing with fo much the more pleasure,
fince we found ourfelves, as it were, in a new world.

'We had now feen almost all the effects of a volcano, except the crater, from which the fire had proceeded. In order, therefore, to examine this likewife, we undertook a journey of We travelled between twelve days to Mount Heckla itself. three and four hundred English miles over an uninterrupted tract of lava, and had at laft the pleasure of being the first who ever reached the fummit of this celebrated volcano. The cause that no one has been there before is partly founded in fuperftition, and partly in the extreme difficulty of the afcent before the last discharge of fire. There was not one in our company who did not wish to have his clothes a little finged, only for the fake of seeing Heckla in a blaze: and we almost flattered ourfelves with this hope, fince the Bishop of Skalholt had informed us, in the night between the 5th and 6th of September, the day before our arrival, flames had proceeded from it; but now the mountain was more quiet than we wished. We however paffed our time very agreeably, from one o'clock in the night till two We were even so happy, next day, in vifiting the mountain. that the clouds, which covered the greatest part of it, difperfed towards evening, and prefented us the most extenfive profpect imaginable.

The mountain is fomething above five thousand feet high, and separates at top into three points, of which that in the middle is the higheft. The moft inconfiderable point of the mountain confifts of lava; the reft are afhes, with hard, folid ftones thrown from the craters, together with fome pumice ftones, of which we found only a small piece with a little native fulphur.

Amongst many other openings, four were peculiarly remarkable; the first, the lava of which had taken the form of chimney-ftacks half broken down; another, from which water had ftreamed; a third, all the ftones of which were red as I brick; and laftly, one from which the lava had burst forth in a ftream, which was divided at some distance into three arms. have faid before, that we were not fo happy as to fee Heckla throw up fire; but there were fufficient traces of its burning inwardly; for on the upper half of it covered over with fnow of the depth of four or five inches, we frequently observed spots without any fnow; and on the highest points where Fahrenheit's thermometer was at 24° in the air, it rose to 153° when it was REV. Sept. 1780.

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fet down on the ground; and in fome little holes, it was fo hot that we could no longer obferve the heat with a small pocket thermometer.

"It is not known, whether fince the year 1693 Heckla hath been burning, till 1766, when it began to throw up flames on the ift of April, and was burning for a long time, and destroyed the country for many miles round. Laft December fome flames likewife proceeded from it; and the people in the neighbourhood believe it will begin again to burn very foon, as they pretend to have obferved, that the rivers thereabout are drying up. It is believed that this proceeds from the mountain's attracting the water, and is confidered as a certain fign of an impending eruption. Befides this, the mountains of Myvatn and Kaltlegia are known in this country, on account of the violent inflammations of the former between the years 1730 and 1740, and the latter 1756.

But permit me, Sir, to omit a farther account of the volcano * at this time, in order to speak of another effect of the fire, which is much finer, and as wonderful as the firft; and fo must be the more remarkable, as there is not in any part of the known world any thing which refembles it; I mean the hot fprings of water which abound in Iceland.

They have different degrees of warmth, and are on that account divided by the inhabitants themfelves into Laugar, warm baths, and Heuren, or jets d'eaux: the firft are found in feve ral parts of Europe, though I do not believe they are employed for the fame purposes in any other place; that is to fay, the inhabitants do not bathe in them here merely for their health, but they are likewife the occafion for a fcene of gallantry. Poverty prevents the lover of Iceland from making prefents to his fair one; and nature prefents no flowers of which elsewhere garlands are made; it is therefore cuftomary, that, inftead of alt this, the fwain perfectly cleanfes one of thefe baths, which is afterwards honoured with the vifits of his bride.

The other kind of fprings mentioned above deferve more attention. I have seen a great number of them; but will only fay fomething of three of the moft remarkable. Near Laugervatn, a small lake of about a mile in circumference, which is about two days journey diftant from Heckla, I faw the firft hot jet d'eau; and I must confefs, that it was one of the most beautiful fights I ever beheld. The morning was uncommonly clear, and the fun had already begun to gild the tops of the neighbouring mountains; it was fo perfect a calm, that the lake, on which fome fwans were swimming, was as smooth as a

*The fubject is refumed by Dr. Von Troil, and more largely dif cuffed in the 18th, 19th, and 20th letters.

looking

looking-glafs; and round about it arofe in eight different places the fteam of the hot fprings, which loft itself high in

the air.

Water was spouting from all these fprings; but one in particular continually threw up a column from eighteen to twenty-four feet high; and from fix to eight feet diameter. The water was extremely hot. A piece of mutton and fome falmon-trouts were boiled in it; and likewife a Ptarmigan, which was almost boiled to pieces in fix minutes, and tasted excellently.

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• I wish it was in my power to give fuch a defcription of this place as it deferves; but I fear mine will always remain inferior in point of expreffion. This much is certain at least, Nature never drew from any one a more cheerful homage to our great Creator than I here paid him.

At Reikum was another spout of the fame fort, the water of which I was affured rofe to fixty or seventy feet perpendicular height fome years ago; but a fall of earth having almoft covered the whole opening, it now only fpouted between fifty-four and fixty feet, fideways. We found a great many petrified. leaves in this place, as likewife fome native fulphur, of which too the water had a much stronger taste than any where else.

I have referved the most remarkable water-fpout for the end, the description of which will appear as incredible to you as it did to me, could I not affure you, that it is all perfectly true, as I would not aver any thing but what I have seen myself.

At Geyfer, not far from Skalholt, one of the epifcopal fees in Iceland, a most extraordinary large jet-d'eau is to be seen, with which the celebrated water-works at Marly and St. Cloud, at Gaffel and Herrenhaufen, are hardly to be compared. One fees here, within the circumference of about three miles, forty or fifty boiling fprings together, which, I believe, all proceed from one and the fame refervoir. In fome the water is perfectly clear, in others thick and clayey. In fome, where it paffes through a fine ochre, it is tinged as red as fcarlet; and in others, where it flows over a paler clay, it is as white as milk.

The water spouts up from all from fome continually, from others only at intervals. The largeft fpring, which is in the middle, engaged our attention particularly the whole day, which we spent here from fix in the morning till seven at night. The aperture through which the water arofe (the depth of which I cannot determine) was nineteen feet in diameter: round the top of it is a bason, which, together with the pipe, has the form of a cauldron. The margin of the bafon is upwards of nine feet one inch higher than the conduit, and its diameter is of fifty-fix feet. Here the water doth not fpout continually,

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but only at intervals, several times in the day; and, as I was informed by the people in the neighbourhood, in bad, rainy weather, higher than at other times..

On the day that we were there the water spouted at ten different times, from fix in the morning till eleven in the forenoon, each time to the height of between five and ten fathoms. -The people who were with us told us, that the water would foon fpout up much higher than it had till then done, and this appeared very credible to us. To determine its height therefore with the utmost accuracy, Dr. Lind, who had accompanied us on this voyage in the capacity of an aftronomer, fet up his quadrant.

• Soon after four o'clock, we obferved the earth began to tremble in three different places, as likewife the top of a mountain which was about 300 fathoms diftant from the mouth of the fpring. We alfo frequently heard a fubterraneous noise, like the discharge of cannon, and immediately a column of water spouted from the opening, which at a great height divided itself into several rays, and, according to the obfervations made by the quadrant, was ninety-two feet high. Our great furprife at this uncommon force of the air and fire was yet increased, when many ftones, which we had thrown into the aperture, were thrown up with the spouting water. You can hardly conceive, Sir, with what pleasure we spent the day here. Nor am I much furprifed, that a people fo much inclined to fuperftition as the Icelanders are, imagine this to be the entrance of hell; for this reason, they feldom pafs one of these openings without fpitting into it; or, as they lay, uti fandens mun, into the devil's mouth.'

Of Mount Heckla and Geyfer Dr. Von Troil gives a more particular account in fome fucceeding letters.

The Icelandic chronicles inform us of no irruptions from any volcanos in that country before the arrival of the Norwegians in the 9th century. Since that period, they have been recorded with confiderable accuracy. Thefe chronicles give a lift of fixty-three eruptions at Heckla and other places from the year 1000 to 1766, of which twenty-three were eruptions of Mount Heckla only.

Dr. Von Troil obferves, that, in the year 1728, many farms were deftroyed near Krafte, and a large lake called Myvatn was entirely dried up, into which the ftreams of fire that rolled from the mountain flowed during fome years, and formed a tract of lava of four miles in length and one and a half in breadth. In 1755, Kattlegiaa laid wafte fix parifhes, and in the fame year, the laft eruption of Heckla ravaged a tract many miles to the North-eaft.'

In another letter to Profeffor Bergman, on the subject of volcanos, our Author remarks, that the first thing that is ufually obferved before a new eruption of fire, is the bursting of the mafs of ice on the mountain with a dreadful noife. Flames then, with lightning, and balls of fire, iffue with the smoke, which are feen feveral miles off. With the flames proceed a number of larger and fmaller ftones which are fometimes thrown to an incredible distance. I have feen a round ftone about a mile from Heckla which was an ell in diameter, and had been thrown there in the laft eruption of Heckla. Egbert Olafsen alfo relates, that at the laft eruption of Kattlegiaa, a ftone, which weighed 290 pounds, was thrown to the distance of four miles.'

The 14th letter, on Icelandic literature, is particularly curious and inftructive. Are Frode and Snorre Sturlefon, the writers of the Edda, are produced by our Author as teftimonies to the learning of Iceland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They were both natives of the country, and were educated there. It may be affirmed (fays Dr. Von Troil), that Iceland, from the introduction of the Chriftian religion in 1000, till the year 1264, when it became fubject to Norway, was one of the few countries of Europe, and the only one in the North, where the sciences were cultivated and held in efteem. This period of time hath alfo produced more learned men than any other period fince. We need only read their ancient chronicles to be convinced, that they had great knowledge in morality, philofophy, natural history, and aftronomy. They had tolerably clear ideas of divinity, and used to read the Fathers: but their poetical and hiftorical productions in particular have bid defiance to time, even when ignorance was again beginning to refume her empire.'

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Dr. Finneus, the learned Bishop of Skalholt, in his Ecclefiaftical History of Iceland, published in 1772, compares the ftate of the sciences in Iceland to the four ftages of human life, Their infancy extended to the year 1056, when the introduction of the Christian religion produced the first dawn of light. They were in their youth till 1110, when fchools were first established, and the education and inftruction of youth began to be more attended to than before. The manly age lafted till about the middle of the 14th century, when Iceland produced the greatest number of learned men. "Old age appeared towards the end of the fame century, when the fciences gradually decreased, and were almost entirely extinct, no works of any merit appearing. Hiftory now drooped her head, poetry bad no relifh, and all other sciences were enveloped in darkness. The schools began to decay, and in many places they had none at all. It was very uncommon for any one to underftand Latin,

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