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120 GUIDE TO ICELAND. eruption occurred. Fifty homesteads were destroyed, and the surrounding country was covered with a layer of ashes from six inches to two feet in depth. In 1860 there is no mention of any farms having been destroyed, although the eruption was followed by earthquakes. After the assault on the Kotlugja the exploring party will return to A'sar, and the Thirteenth Day had better he allowed as a day of rest, one will probably he needed by both men and ponies after the fatigues of an ascent of the Myrdals Jokull. Fourteenth Day.—May be pleasantly and instructively employed exploring northward the westernmost of the vast lava-floods which burst forth in the vicinity in 1783. These eruptions were of a magnitude ‘ unparalleled on the earth in historic times.’ Great eruptions of lava about the Varmardalr, the valley of a river tributary to the S/capta, began in June ; and later on others burst forth about the sources of the Hverfisfljot (Wharf-fleet), a river lying farther east. The lava that issued formed two enormous torrents of molten rock, which, according to Zurcher, ‘ spread to a distance of from forty to fifty miles, with a breadth of seven to fourteen. The depth of the lava was in places 150 yards, and it was calculated by Professor Bischoff that the mass of igneous rock which issued during these eruptions exceeded in bulk the cubic contents of Mont Blanc.’ During the eruptions ‘ a whirl- wind of ashes’ swept over the face of the country, and the rivers were charged with fetid waters; the first causing a famine, by destroying the pastures, and the latter a pestilence; and ‘these proved fatal to 9,000 human beings, 21,000 cattle, 233,000 sheep, and 36,000 horses’ (Thoroddsen). The river valleys filled in with these lava-floods now present a terribly grand sight, with a background of ice-clad mountains covering an area of over 3,000 square miles; in places the lava is known to be 500 feet thick; and where the fluid rock leaped over precipices, it presents the appearance of petrified glaciers or cataracts. Fifteenth Day.—A'sar to Kalfafell. At Buland (Home-land) church the Kldviitn (Fire-waters) will he forded, and shortly after a large sheet of water, nestling among some hills, will be skirted, and the lava-filled valley of an arm of the S leapt a. entered. A halt will probably be made at Kirkjubcer (Kirkby) for a cup of coffee, about half the distance to Kalfafell being accomplished. After leaving here the track will lie through a thickly peopled and
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Guide to Iceland

Year
1882
Language
English
Pages
216


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