ITINERARY FROM BERUFJÖRÐ TO MÝ-VATN.
Berufjörð to Thingmúli.
Wednesday, July 31, 1872.
Left Berufjörð at 10.45 P.M. Line north-west up left bank of Axarvatn stream, draining to Berufjörð; turf, sand, stones, washed from gullies. Five distinct steps, separated by undulating ground; path rough; cold mist; mountain streams to cross.
1.15 A.M. (2 hours 30 min.).—Halted at foot of fifth step, Hænu-brekka (hen-ledge), the worst.
Walked up Hænu-brekka; snow-slope, path along névé; bending to north, rough Öxarheiði, broken plain, tiers of trap, about 700 feet above sea-level. Crossed sundry wreaths and beds of snow.
2.45 A.M.—Summit of Breiðdalsheiði; path marked by three Varðas. Changed nags, 3.45 A.M.
Down valley of Múlaá, in the great Skriðdalr; watershed changes from south to north.
6.30 A.M.—Passed first farm, Stefánstaðir; little Bær on left bank of stream, and west of Skriðavatn; little lake, or rather “broad” of river. On right, falls in the eastern path over the Berufjarðarskarð. Farms every half-hour.
7.45 A.M.—Arnaholtstaðir farm; to-morrow will have cattle fair; some sixty head for sale.
8.10 A.M.—Hallbjarnarstaðir, backed by its hill; general trend, south-east to north-west.
Several farms together. At 9.30 A.M., forded Múlaá, girth-deep; rode up to Thingmúli (⊙ I.) chapel and farm, under priest of Hallormstaðir. Good property; seventy sheep, and eight cows.
Night’s work, 10 hours 45 min., halts included. Average march, 3 to 3½ miles an hour. On map, direct geographical miles, 17. Direction, north-west, bending to north.
Morning fine and sunny. Mist at 8 to 9 A.M.; heavy at 3 P.M. Night cold, raw, and foggy; about midnight, mist from north.
Paid farmer, Davíð Sigurðarson, $5; his wife wanted $3 more. Little trodden paths more expensive. People have no standard of value.
Thingmúli to Valthiófstaðir.
Friday, August 2.
Set out, 12.30 P.M. Forded river, rode down Grímsá valley; often crossed stream; best road near the bank. After 45 minutes, left Grímsá, and struck the Melar or barrens at foot of divide. To left Geirólfstaðir, small farm of civil people, where I slept August 19. Up the long green slope of Hallormstaðarháls; less abrupt than western slope. Reached summit 3 P.M. (aneroid, 29·32), and began rough and abrupt descent. At 3.15 crossed Hafursá (buck-goat river), a dwarf ravine. Trap in steps, and red-ochre fields to left. Lagarfljót Lake below; both banks easy slopes; green ledges and swamps, crossed by causeways. Bridle-path well kept, because it is road to Eskifjörð, the port. Farms everywhere; see seven on western side. Passed through the “Skóg,” forest of Hallormstaðir. General direction, north-west; direct distance, 4 geographical miles.
4.10 P.M.—(After 3 hours 40 min. slow = 2 fast) Reached Hallormstaðir. Left it at 6 P.M. Up right bank of Lagarfljót; succession of torrents, gullies, and bad stony places, which can be rounded. Rode under the Rana-Skóg (wood of the hog-shaped hill). Big sand-bar of Gilsa forms a tongue of boulders and bad torrent if the ford is not hit. Path double, summer along lake and in water; winter, higher up. Deep holes between basaltic blocks; horse sinks breast-high.
8.30 P.M.—At Hrafnkelstaðir (proper name of man), opposite Hengifoss cataract, on other side of lake.
9 P.M.—Opposite fine farm, Bessastaðir.
9.30 P.M.—Ferry below junction of two forks of Lagarfljót; swift, cold stream.; breadth, 200 yards; current, 3 knots; horses swam in 2 min. 30 sec. On return, forded it higher up, when split into three large and three small streams. Another ford, wither-deep, farther down. Paid ferry, $2.
⊙ II. 10.45 P.M.—After 20 minutes’ gallop over green plain, reached Valthiófstaðir church and parsonage. Second march (general direction, south-south-west), 3 hours 30 min. = 10 indirect geographical miles. Total day’s work, 7 hours 10 min. = 14 miles.
Aneroid, 29·94; thermometer, 76° (second observation, 29·96; thermometer, 83° in sun).
Morning gloriously clear. At 10 A.M., cloudy and sunny. 2 P.M., sun hot, and people complained. Cirri and cumuli over the Vatnajökull. Evening clear and cool.
Valthiófstaðir to Thorskagerði.
Saturday, August 3.
Started 2.45 P.M.—Took upper road to avoid túns; lower better.
3.10 P.M.—Ruined monastery, Skriðuklaustr. Delayed 15 minutes.
Crossed ugly boulder-torrent, which wetted the beds. Reached Bessastaðir farm, 3.50 P.M.
At 4.30 P.M., true start over the Fljótsdalsheiði. Map shows nearly straight line from east to west. Not travelled over now. We struck north-west-west; stiff rise for 45 minutes. Rotten ground, and cold air.
Reached first step at 5.10 P.M. Aneroid, 28·73; thermometer, 76°, on summit.
First view of Vatnajökull from Vegup (Vègúp? or Vegupp?), 6.20 P.M.
Aneroid, 27·92.
On the southern road (Aðalbólsvegr) the highest point of the divide was shown by aneroid 27·80.
7.30 P.M.—Reached midway height, water stagnates; presently the versant changed, and the Miðvegr (half-way) torrent flowed west to the great Jökulsá. Despite Varðas, lost way half-a-dozen times. Ground more and more rotten.
10.30 P.M.—Crossed boulder river, Eyvindará, and turned from north-west to south-west. Began descent.
11 P.M.—The western is the shortest, the Eastern Jökulsá being some 900 feet above the Lagarfljót. Crossed many streams divided by ridges.
N.B.—The Holkná (water of the rough stony field) is misplaced in the map. It is south of Eyríkstaðir, on opposite bank. Rode along river banks; air much warmer.
⊙ III. 12.40 P.M.—Beached Thorskagerði. Ferryman’s house newly built.
Total on road, 9 hours 55 min.; very slow work; about 7 to 8 hours’ real work. Distance measured by map, 22 to 23 geographical miles. General direction, north-west and west-south-west.
In morning, sun and strong north wind. Then clouds from south. At 5 P.M. saw a shower in the Lagarfljót. 7 P.M., drops of rain.
Thorskagerði to Möðrudalr.
Sunday, August 4.
Early in the forenoon, crossed the (E.) Jökulsá in the cage. The horses were driven to the ford, 200 yards below. Only four of sixteen swam over at first trial, in 1 hour 30 min. The rest were driven farther down, and seven passed over in 1 hour 30 min. to 2 hours 30 min. The last five were towed over with a rope. Occupied 4 hours. Ended at 12.45.
Loaded at Eyríkstaðir; left bank of, and 100 feet above, stream. Aneroid at 2 P.M., 28·98; thermometer (in shade), 60°.
Set out at 5 P.M. Up the high left bank of stream, and at once lost the road. Line not traced in map; it lies between the Möðrudalsvegr, north, and the Jökuldalsheiði to the south. Began to cross the great divide, a tableland, not a prism, between the two Jökulsás.
At 6 P.M., aneroid, 27·90; thermometer, 74°.
Passed north and along foot of Eyríks mountain. Entered a region of lakes or tarns; whole surface has been under water, and probably is so still in spring. Buðará reservoir and stream to right. Divided by dust plains, chocolate and bright-yellow; good galloping-ground.
On right, second lake, Gripdeildr, at foot of Sval-barð Hill.
8.15 P.M.—Vetur-hús farm and lakelet; 3½ Danish (14 geographical) miles from Möðrudalr. On return, rode in 4 hours 45 min.
End of first stage, which occupied 3 hours 15 min. = 4 geographical miles.
Resumed road, 8.30 P.M. On left big lake, Ánavatn (Áni proper name), not in map.
9.20 P.M.—Sænautasel (shieling of the sea-cow), a little bye, belonging to the large Rangalon (Ranga, proper name, and-lón, sea-loch, inlet, still-water) farm to north. There is also a Sænautavatn and a Sænautafjall to west. Another lakelet to left. Up rise, a regular divide; swampy region to right. Examined the “Halse of the stone wall” (Grjótgarðaháls). Lakes and swamps again; peats cut here.
10.45 P.M.—Halted near edge of last swamp or lake. This second stage occupied 2 hours 15 min. = 4 geographical miles.
Set out, 11.15 P.M. Bad descent to Rangaá (river), headwater of Hofsá, going to Vopnafjörð. Map does not prolong it so far south. Exchanged swamp for sand and snow-fonds.
Into Heljardalsfjall. Broad smooth plain of Geitirssandr.
Aneroid, 28·08.
Along hill-side to first steep descent; pyramid hill to left. Second deep descent, the Skarð leading to plain of Möðrudalr.
⊙ IV. Arrived at Möðrudalr, 3.10 A.M. Third stage, 4 hours = 12 miles. Total of day, 9 hours 30 min.; the distance, according to the people, being 25 English miles. We made it 20 geographical miles.
Aneroid, 28·50; thermometer, 70° (in room).
Grey morning; sunny noon; high north wind; then heavy clouds; but no rain till after we were lodged.
Möðrudalr to Grímstaðir.
August 5.
General direction, almost due north.
Herðubreið, 263° 30´ to 266° mag. (local variation—40°), or 223° 30´ to 226° true.
Kverkfjöll, 248° 30´ mag.
Fagradalsfjall, 244° to 246° mag.
$6 to owner, and $2 to student guide.
Set out, 2.45 P.M. Made for Geldíngafell (11° mag.), in line of tall cliffs. Sandfell, rounded cone, on left. To right (eastward) was Vegahnúkr, 45° mag., and the rocks and tumuli of Nýpi, or Núpur, 64° mag. Not in map. Soon off grass into deep sand.
At 3.45 turned back, and lost twenty minutes visiting Goðahóll.
4.45 P.M.—Crossed Skarðsá, ugly black torrent, influent of Western Jökulsá. Along a corniche, the Vegaskarð, a pass through the hills. Dun-coloured Palagonite clay upon the stones; large blocks of conglomerate and yellow basaltic rock below.
5.15 P.M.—The Miðvegr (mid-way).
Sharp riding to Víðidalr; ugly barren slope, black waters, foul stream feeding Jökulsá. Red hill on left.
6.20 P.M.—Halted at farm; two white gables; many byres. Halted..
First stage, slow work, 3 hours = 10 geographical miles.
Set out again, 7.15 P.M. On right, Grímstaða Kerling, natural pyramid of rock, used by trigonometrical survey.
8.45 P.M.—Biskupsháls.
Skirted Ytri Núpur, northern hill, bounded south-west by Grímstaða Núpur.
9.15 P.M.—Good gallop over grass; rolling ground up and down.
⊙ V. Crossed rivulet south of farm, and reached Grímstaðir farm, 9.45 P.M.
Second stage, fast; 2 hours 30 min. = 12 miles. Total, 5 hours 30 min., half-slow, half-fast = 22 direct geographical miles.
Paid guide, $1; he wanted $2. Will gallop back in two hours.
Morning hot and dry; sun oppressive; in afternoon, cool and cloudy air. About 8 P.M., cold east wind; hands numbed. In evening, dense cloud, like ice-fog, rose from the horizon and covered the sun.
Aneroid, 28·88; thermometer, 52°. Next morning, aneroid, 28·72; thermometer, 59°.
Grímstaðir to Mý-vatn.
August 6.
General direction, nearly due west. Took sights, and farmer gave names:
1. Jörundr, bare cone of Palagonite, which we shall leave to right, or north, 334° mag.
2. Búrfell, tall blue hill, south of our road, 300° mag.
3. Hvannfell, at north end of Bláfell, 293° mag.
4. Fremrinámar, at south-east end of Bláfell (from afar very like Krísuvík), 276° 30´ mag.
5. Herðubreiðarfell (not to be confounded with true Herðubreið), called by people, Dýngjufjöll; long line of low heaps and craters, partly concealing snows of Herðubreið.
Paid $4 for pasture, $2 for ferry (Henderson paid $3), and $2 for this day’s guide, who has two horses, and returns in the evening.
11 A.M.—Left farm; pricked over plain, sand-outs, and thin scrub.
12.15 P.M.—Jökulsá River; 3 miles. Aneroid, 28·90; thermometer, 63°.
Ferry made four trips. Horses swam to island in 1 min. 15 sec.; spent two hours at river.
Remounted, 2.15 P.M. Passed Hrossaborg block, and began the Mý-vatn Öræfi (Desert of Mý-vatn).
Rode slowly; loads falling. Line, lava runs (five large) and sand; many little craters studding the plain. In front, detached hills and cones, arc of circle with hollow towards lake. The Mý-vatns Sveit (district).
6.30 P.M.—Little farm, Eystrasel (in map, Mý-vatnssel), 1 hour 30 min. from Reykjahlíð; swamp to east, and stream to west. Line marked by tall Varðas, alternate layers of turf and sticks.
Up and down the Námaskarð (col of the wells), dividing Dalfjall, the northern, from Námafjall, the southern range. Pass through the heart of the solfatara.
At west end of pass sighted the Mý-vatn.
⊙ VI. 8.30 P.M.—Arrived at Reykjahlíð, our destination.
Second stage from river, 6 hours 15 min. = 17 to 18 direct geographical miles, riding fast and slow. Total of day’s work, 7 hours 30 min. = 20 miles.
Dull, grey morning; threatens glare and warmth. Wind from north-west; showers on hills. Dust clouds on plain, showing excess of electricity; signs of heat, not of rain. Sunny afternoon; gloomy evening.
CHAPTER XIV.
THREE DAYS AT THE SOLFATARA OF MÝ-VATN.
I cannot accuse myself of failing to do traveller’s duty at Mý-vatn: although the weather became raw and rainy, not an hour was wasted. The first step was to climb the nearest height and form a general notion of Midge-water, which must not be derived à micturitione Diaboli. It is said to be forty miles in circumference—you might as well measure round a spider—and the “gorgeous green isles” look like lumps of mud in a horsepond; their only use is to grow angelica; but we saw them under a dull grey sky, like an inverted pewter-pot. The mean of many observations gave for the aneroid 29·12, and the thermometer 54°: if this be correct, Midge Lake must be nearer 900 than 1500 feet above sea-level. Travellers tell you that the fair dimensions were curtailed by the great eruption of Leirhnúkr and Krafla (1724-30); that the lava is not yet thoroughly cooled; and that consequently the surface is never wholly frozen. But the Krafla, as we shall see, can never have flowed here, and there are old craters and hornitos, volcanoes in miniature, all about the edge: the whole becomes a solid sheet of ice, except where sulphur and other minerals send forth springs more or less tepid; moreover we found a depth of only 27 feet. The bottom is black and muddy; the water along shore is shallow and weedy, sedgy and spumy, whitening the coast and the island edges; it is glorious breeding-ground for the blood-drawing “chief inhabitants of the district.” Gnat terrors are emphatically noticed, and one traveller assures us that the people wear a visored cassinet of black cloth to guard head and neck. They are compared with those feræ naturæ, the midges of Maine; “No-see-ums,” the “Indians” call them. We brought
Nº 1.
THE REYKJALIÐ AND NÁMARFJALL SPRINGS.
Nº 2.
PLAN OF FREMRI-NÁMAR.
Nº 3.
PLAN OF LEIRHKNÚKR & KRAFLA (SPRINGS.)
veils, and hardly saw a “Mý”—but then, the cold weather was against the “bodies of Behemoths and the stings of dragons.” Nor did we find Mý-vatn “a place where birds and fishes abound, and where many of the wonders of Iceland are concentrated.” Every student of the avi-fauna who has sighted the pool, from the days of Proctor and Krüper to those of Shepherd[160] and Baring-Gould, makes it a very happy hunting-ground: all give lists which bring water to the sportsman’s mouth. Ten short years, however, have made the latest obsolete. We did not meet with a single Iceland falcon, once so common; the birds, with the exception of gulls, a host of sandpipers, and plucky little terns, whose sharp beaks threatened our heads and eyes, were rare in the extreme; and we found defunct chicks at every few hundred yards. Although we boated and shot over the ugly puddle, our only bag consisted of a mallard, a widgeon, a few grebes and pipers, and the Sefönd or horned grebe (Podiceps cornutus or auritus?), tufted on both sides of the head. The waters supplied trout and char; there is no salmon, as the fish cannot leap the falls twenty-five miles from the lake. Dead shells lay everywhere upon the spumy margin, and the corpse of a duck was found studded with mollusks. The soil, disintegrated volcanic rock, is of the richest; some thirty farms and farmlets are scattered about the Hlíðar or ledges between the several lava-gushes; and the pastures support some 3000 sheep.
The Mý-vatn is somewhat in the delta shape, with the apex fronting west (⊳), and with the base extending seven to eight miles: its drain, the Laxá frá Mý-vatn, escaping about the point and feeding the Skálfandi Fjörð, must be a mere torrent. North of it is the lumpy, uninteresting mound, Vindbeljarfjall, “wind-bellows hill;” the bag to the south, and the nozzle to the north-east; an African pair of bellows, i.e., one “bellow,” if such word there be. It is a trigonometrical station like the Hlíðarfjall, a bare cone north-east of Reykjahlíð. The points and promontories are most remarkable to the south, but these and other features will be better observed on the road to the Fremrinámar.
My general survey ending about noon, I set out for Leirhnúkr and Krafla under the guidance of Hr Pètur Jónsson, the farmer of Reykjahlíð. The tall, burly old man, made taller by contrast with his little Jack nag, had fenced himself against the grey mist and skurrying sea-wind by the usual huge comforter meeting the billy-cock hat behind; by “conservators” of green glass, and by a mighty paletot of the thickest Wadmal. We followed yesterday’s road, and now I carefully observed the lay of the land. Beyond the green and grassy point, Höfði (the headland), we came upon sundry veins of lava about a century and a half old, and much like slag: where Palagonite-conglomerate forms the surface, begin the Sandfell and the Hlíðarnámar (Lithewells), the latter wrongly confounded in the map with the Námar to the east of the Námafjall range. A couple of boards some six inches long were the only signs of work. The dirty-yellow mountain, striped from top to toe, as if washed by rain, with primrose, brick-red, dark blue, pea-green, light blue, and chalky-white, now stood smoking before us; and beginning the ascent, we passed the two boulders of pure sulphur, from which every traveller has carried off a bittock. Threading the Námaskarð by a decent path, we wound first to south and then to north, till we sighted the mud caldrons on the eastern slope. In Henderson’s day they numbered twelve; in 1872 apparently they were on their “last legs:” two lay to the north, four to the south; they were shaped like Sitz baths, and they ejected, with a mild puff which could not be called a roar, spirts of repulsive slime, blue-black, like mud stained by sulphate of iron. These “Makkalubers” contrasted strongly with the patches of lively citron and sprightly pink all about the slopes. One traveller finds it a “most appalling scene”—he must be easily “appalled.”
Debouching upon the eastern plain, we rode along the foot of the Dalfjall (dale-hill), which continues the Sulphur Range to the north, hugging the sides to avoid the Steiná, another bed of newish lava, an impossible mass of cinder, brown, black, and red, on our right. The path was well grown, but the “lady of the woods” (birch) is a dwarf in these parts, and looked tame beside the patches of Dryas. We flushed sundry ptarmigan, which were certainly not “absurdly tame.” After an hour and a half of “Trossacks,” which on return was covered in forty-five minutes, we halted at Skarðsel, a little Setr or summer shieling, a mere “but and ben” without tún, a heap of peat and stones grubbed out into rooms. The primitive churn found in every dairy shows that the ewes’ cream is here made into cheese, whilst the skim-milk forms the national Skýr. Of course the animals are poor and thin all the year round—the effect of continued “drain upon the constitution.”
Beyond the Skarðsel, we began to ascend and round sundry diseased and mangy hills, walking up the higher pitches, and riding over peat mounds, based upon oldish lava. After a total of two hours, we dismounted at the foot of Leirhnúkr (mud-knoll), where the horses’ hoofs flung up mere sulphur, and where warm, damp air escaped from every hole. The view from the summit convinced me that the emplacement has been poorly described by travellers. It is the northern head of a thin spine, a sharp prism about a mile broad, lying almost upon a meridian (215° mag.), and continuing the heights of Thríhyrningr, Dalfjall, and Námafjall. At some distance to the north-west rises the snowy buttress, Gæsadalsfjöll (geese-dale hills), almost concealing the Kinnarfjall (cheek or jaw mountain). Nearer lies a chain of cones and craters, with sundry outliers; they seem to have discharged a torrent nine miles long by three of maximum breadth, which inundated the north-eastern corner of the Mý-vatn with veins and arteries of fire; and the scatter of hornitos and fumaroles to the north has also aided in the work of destruction, or rather reconstruction. The map shows only a patch of lava reaching from Leirhnúkr to the Hlíðarfjall cone south-west.
The Leirhnúkr proper is composed of two hillocks trending north and south; the southern is larger than the northern, and the whole, a long oval extending some 2000 paces, is one vast outcrop. The lowland to the east is far broader than the western, a mere slip; here frequent splotches of sulphur and anaphysemata, or gas vents, lead to the Krafla springs. The aneroid showed the summit of the Mud-Knoll to be about 2000 feet above sea-level. Henderson (i., p. 167) calls it a volcano, and connects it with his other volcano, Krafla, by a non-existing ridge; but with him, omne ignotum, etc.—Hrossaborg and even Herðubreið are volcanoes. When he compares the scenery with that of the Dead Sea, one of the fairest of salt-water lakes, we must remember that his idea of “Asphaltites” was borrowed from that lively modern writer, Strabo.
We then remounted and rode over the dwarf Phlegræan fields to the Námar of Krafla,[161] the immense soufrière of M. Robert. The lowland is here studded with many inverted cones of cold, blue water; the principal feature being Helvíti Stærra (Greater Hell). It is an irregular circle, with little projections at the longest diameter, north-west to south-east, a large, tawny funnel of burnt clay and bolus, the degradation of trachyte and Palagonite, about 800 yards across. This is the famous “mud-caldron of Krabla,” a “natural phenomenon hardly inferior to the Geyser;” but Henderson’s Hell of 1815 was greatly changed in 1872; and we shall see far larger features at the Hverfjall and the Námarkoll. Instead of that “terrific scene,” the “jetting pool” of wild illustrations, a lakelet smiling in the bright sun, which burst the clouds about two P.M., a placid expanse of green-blue water, cold, and said to be deep, occupied the bottom of the hole, and the only movement was a shudder as the wind passed over it. I could not help thinking of “La belle vision d’Élie, ou un Dieu passe sous la figure d’un vent léger.” Despite the “abrupt and precipitous descent, 200 feet deep,” there is no difficulty in descending the sides of “Olla Vulcani,” now the mere dregs of a volcano.
After inspecting this poor, “abolished Hell,” we rode round it northwards, crossing sundry snow-wreaths, which on the Libanus would be called Talláját, and left our cards upon “Little Hell.” The latter is composed of two smaller lakes on a higher plane, one bearing east-south-east and the other south-east. Between the pair lie some half-dozen slimy-bordered “leir-hverar,”[162] mud-boilers of fetid smell: the ejections bubbled and spluttered, falling into their own basins, and the fumes did not prevent the growth of Fífa and bright lichens.
After seeing what you may see in almost any solfatara, we rode to the north-east, and in twenty minutes we ascended the turfy and muddy northern cone of Krafla mountain; a mass of Palagonite, pierced, to judge from the surface scatters, with white trachyte. An isolated cone appears in the map; I found that the northerly part sweeps round to the north-north-east, connecting with the Hágaung (high-goer), a long, meridional buttress of similar formation; whilst the south-eastern prolongation anastomoses with the black mass called the Hraftinnuhryggr or “Obsidian mountain.” I utterly failed to discover any sign of crater: we are told that Krafla was torn in half during the last century, and Henderson apparently makes Great Helvíti the remains of the bowl. From the apex, where the aneroid showed 27·30, we could trace the course of the Laxá; and a gleam in the north was pronounced by the farmer to be the Axarfjörð, a corner of the house where dwells Le Père Arctique. Upon the black summit, where we
“Toil and sweat, and yet be freezing cold,”
Dryas was still in bloom, and violets and buttercups were scattered over the lower slopes. I looked in vain for specimens of the plumbago or black lead, reported to be found on Krafla. There is no objection to its presence in this katakekaumene; “graphitical carbon” was found by M. Alibert in the volcanic formations of Siberian Meninski, so it is not confined, as at Borrowdale, to the “primitives.”
As we were descending the hill, my guide inspected a flock of his own sheep, and I vainly attempted to lay in a store of fresh mutton. These people would probably sell, if they could get $8 to $9 per head, some 2000 of their 3000 animals, and greed of gain would leave them almost destitute. Yet here, as at other farms, it is impossible, even with a week’s work and offering treble price, to buy a single head; excuses are never wanting, “There is no one to send! All the ewes have lambs! The lambs are not fit for food!” The latter probably means that the lamb will in time become a sheep; the wild negro of the African interior, equally logical, expects a chicken to bring the price of a hen. In Tenerife I should have shot a wether, and have left the price upon its skin.
A shallow valley led to the Hraftinnuhryggr, where previous accounts would induce you to expect a “mountain of broken wine-bottles,” all “shining with their jetty colouring.” The thin strew upon the streamlet sides and about the feet was of small fragments, which became larger as I ascended. Mostly it was black and regular, that is, not banded, and the outer coating was a reddish paste: in places it forms a conglomerate with sandstone, and on the eastern summit, where trachyte also crops out, it seems to be in situ. M. Cordier (p. 278) translates the word “pierre de Corbeau,” thus robbing the raven: he proposes “gallinace” (i.e., turkey-buzzard), for the glassy material of pyroxenic base, reserving “obsidian” for the felspathic. From this place, I believe, came the specimens lately studied by Dr Kennott of Zurich: one of them exhibited under the microscope, “numerous small, brown, hollow bodies, of globular and cylindrical shape, regularly arranged in definite series.” Obsidian has been found north-east of Hekla, passing into pumice, and old Icelandic travellers seem to confound it with pitchstone, asphalte, or bitumen of Judea, a vegetable produce. Many of the obsidians are remarkably acid. “Iceland agate” (why?) must be handled with care, as Metcalfe found to the cost of his bridle-hand. Iceland ignores the pure “stone age” of Tenerife and Easter Island; and though strangers pick up specimens, the “volcanic glass” here has never been worked, as by the natives of the Lipari group. I observed that Ravenflint ridge, which prolongs the Krafla, is itself prolonged by the Sandabotnafjöll, and by the Jörundr, which the map makes an isolated cone. The classical name of the latter suggests memories of the old anchorite of Garðar.
The day ended pleasantly. After finding what there was and what there was not to be seen, I galloped back in a fine sun and warm evening, and after seven hours thirty minutes of total
REYKJAHLID CHURCH—(miraculously preserved).
work, found my companions busy in pitching the tent, despite the cold threats of night. They complained of the stranger’s room, although it rejoiced in such luxuries as two windows, a bed and curtains, looking-glass, commode, map, thermometer, and a photograph of Jón Sigurðsson. The house, with five gables, fronts west-south-west to “Wind-bellows hill;” here the south wind is fair and warm, the norther brings rain, the easter is wet, and the wester dry and tepid. As in England, the south-wester is the most prevalent, and flowers thrive best where best sheltered from it. The house has the usual appurtenances, workshop and carpenter’s bench; smithy and furnace; byre and sheep-fold. The shabby little windmill, with three ragged sails, goes of itself, like Miss K.’s leg; there is an adjacent Laug, of course never used, and the nearness of the lake renders a Lavapés (rivulet) unnecessary. Plough, harrows, watering-pot, and hay-cart are also evidences of civilisation, but the kail-yard is nude of potatoes—probably they require too much hard labour. Shabbier than the windmill, the church, bearing date 1825, lacks cross, and wants tarring; it has no windows to speak of, and the turf walls are built after an ancient fashion, now rare, the herring-bone of Roman brickwork. The cemetery around it is indecently neglected, and bones, which should be buried, strew the ground. Baring-Gould (1863) gives an account of its chasubles and other ecclesiastical frippery, which may still be there, unless sold to some traveller. It is a lineal descendant of that “church which in an almost miraculous manner escaped the general conflagration” of 1724-30. Henderson adds the question, “Who knows but the effectual fervent prayer of some pious individual, or some designs of mercy, may have been the cause fixed in the eternal purpose of Jehovah for the preservation of this edifice?” I may simply remark that lava does not flow up hill; the stream split into two at the base of the mound, without “being inspired with reverence for the consecrated ground,” and united in the hollow farther down. Yet travellers of that age derided the Neapolitan who placed his Madonna in front of the flowing lava; and when she taught him the lesson of Knútr (Canute) the Dane,[163] tossed her into the fire with a ‘naccia l’anima tua, etc., etc., etc. Superstition differs not in kind, but only in degree.
The reason for the tent-pitching soon appeared. The burly farmer has a lot of lubberly sons, and two surly daughters; “Cross-patch” and “Crumpled-horn” being attended by half-a-dozen suitors and women friends, bouches inutiles all. If we look into the kitchen, these Lucretias make a general bolt. There is extra difficulty in getting hot-water, although Nature, as “Reykjahlíð” shows, has laid it on hard by; and even the cold element is brought to us in tumblers. The coffee is copiously flooded; this is feminine economy, which looks forward to the same pay for the bad as for the good; and cups, which suggest “take a ’poon, pig,” poorly supply the place of the pot. One of the sons speaks a little English: we tried him upon the lake, and after two hours’ rowing he was utterly exhausted. Besides, there are lots of loafers, jolter-headed, crop-eared youngsters,
“With no baird to the face
Nor a snap to the eyes,”
who are mighty at doing nothing: they peep into, and attempt to enter, the tent; when driven off they lounge away to the smithy, or to the carpenter’s bench, and satisfied with this amount of exercise, they lounge back into the house, where we hear them chattering and wrangling, cursing and swearing, like a nest of young parrots. They remind me of the Maori proverb, “Your people are such lazy rogues, that if every dirt-heap were a lizard, no one would take the trouble to touch its tail and make it run away.” They cannot even serve themselves: the harder work is done by a pauper couple, a blind man and his wife, who sleep in the hay-loft. The only sign of activity is shown by the carpenter, Arngrímr, a surly fellow, wearing a fur cap, like a man from the Principalities, and with mustachioes meeting his whiskers, like those of the Spanish Torero. “He is Nature’s artist,” says the student, meaning that he has taught himself to paint, and hélas! to play flute and fiddle. So the evening ends with ditties, dolefully sung, and the Icelandic national hymn, the latter suggesting Rule (or rather be Ruled) Britannia. We are curious to know how all these sturdy idlers live. They fish; they eat rye-bread and Skýr; they rob the nests, and at times they kill a few birds: the best thing that could happen to them would be shipment to Milwaukee, where they would learn industry under a Yankee taskmaster. I have drawn this unpleasant interior with Dutch minuteness: it is the worst known to me in Iceland.
The old farmer, Pètur Jónsson, lost no time in deserving the character which he has gained from a generation of travellers; his excuse is that he must plunder the passing stranger in order to fill the enormous gapes which characterise his happy home. Yet he makes money as a blacksmith; he owns a hundred sheep, and he is proprietor of a good farm. In his old billycock, his frock-coat and short waistcoat, he looks from head to foot the lower order of Jew; we almost expect to hear “ole clo’” start spontaneously from his mouth. He began by asking $3, to be paid down, for the Krafla trip, and $4, the hire of four labouring men, for trinkgeld to the Fremrinámar; and the manner was more offensive than the matter of the demand. His parting bill was a fine specimen of its kind. It is only fair to state that he bears a very bad name throughout the island.
Next day the north wind still blew; the heavy downpour at five A.M. became a drizzle two hours later; and at ten A.M. there was a blending of sunshine and mistcloud, which showed that we had nought to fear save a shower or two of rain and sleet. Mr Lock (fils) and I determined upon a ride to the Fremrinámar; “a field of sulphur and boiling mud,” says Baring-Gould, “not visited by travellers, as it is difficult of access, and inferior in interest to the Námar-fjall springs.” After breakfast, we set out, each provided with two nags, which we drove over the lava-field to the Vogar farm, about half-an-hour distant on the other side of the grassy point, Höfði. This “oasis in the lava”—a description which applies to all the farms of Eastern Mý-vatn—was the parsonage in Ólafsson’s day (1772); we expected to find the Jón Jónsson mentioned by Shepherd, who had learned English in Scotland—he had, however, joined il numero dei più. As sometimes happens to the over-clever, we notably “did” ourselves; the owner, Hjálmar Helgason, a very civil man over a tass of brandy, was, we afterwards found out, a son-in-law of old Pètur; he also, doubtless informed of the rixe, demanded $4, which we had to pay; he kept us waiting a whole hour whilst the horses were being driven in, and he sent with us a raw laddie, whose only anxiety was to finish the job.
Shortly after noon we rode forward, crossing the unimportant Gjá, which the map stretches in a zigzag south of Reykjahlíð; we passed the “horrid lava-track” of Ólafsson, a mild mixture of clinker and sand, and in twenty minutes we reached Hverfjall, lying to the south-east. From afar the huge black decapitated cone, symmetrically shaped and quaquaversally streaked, has a sinister and menacing look. It is not mentioned by Henderson, whose account of the Mý-vatn is very perfunctory. According to Baring-Gould, it is “built up of shale and dust, and has never erupted lava:” as the name shows, it contained a Hver, or mudspring. We mounted it in ten minutes, and found the big bowl to consist of volcanic cinder and ashes based upon Palagonite and mud: the shape was somewhat like that of the Hauranic “Gharáreh” which supplied the lava of the Lejá. The aneroid (28·70; thermometer, 83°) showed some 800 feet above Reykjahlíð; and the vantage-ground gave an excellent view of the lake, with its low black holms and long green islets, of which the longest and the greenest is Miklaey (mickle isle). This Monte nuovo was erupted in 1748-52; and a plaited black mound in the easily-reached centre shows where the mud was formerly ejected. Almost due south of it lies a precisely similar feature, the Villíngafjall. These formations are technically called Sand-gýgr, “sand craters,” opposed to Eld-gýgr, the “fire abyss;” and their outbreaks form the “sand summers” and the “sand winters” of arenaceous Iceland and its neighbourhood. I look upon the Hverfjall as the typical pseudo-volcanic formation of the island.
The real start was at one P.M., when, having rounded the western wall of the Hverfjall, we passed east of a broken line of craters based upon thin-growing grass. The whole can be galloped over, but ’ware holes! Nor did I find the skirt of a lava-flood always an “unsurmountable barrier to Iceland ponies,” although in new places it may be. On the east was Búrfell (“byre” hill), the name is frequently given to steep, circular, and flat-topped mounds; south-west of it lay the Hvannfell, long and box-shaped. Farther to the south-west, and nearly due south of the lake, rose Sellandarfjall, apparently based on flat and sandy ground; patches of snow streaked the hogsback, which distinguished itself from the horizontal lines of its neighbours. Far ahead towered the steely heights of Bláfjall, which from the east had appeared successively a cone and a bluff: it still showed the snows which, according to travellers, denote that the Sprengisandur is impassable; the last night had added to them, but the lower coating soon melted in the fiery sun-bursts. The line of path was fresh lava overlying Palagonite; and in the hollows dwarf pillars of black clay were drawn up from the snow by solar heat: their regular and polygonal forms again suggested doubts about the igneous origin of basalt, which may simply result from shrinking and pressure. This columnar disposal of dried clay, and even of starch desiccated in cup or basin, was noticed by Uno Von Troil as far back as 1770.
After an hour’s sharp ride, during which my little mare often rested on her nose, we struck a cindery divide, a scene of desolation with sandy nullahs, great gashes, down whose sharp slopes we were accompanied bodily by a fair proportion of the side: of course the ascents were made on foot. The material is all volcanic and Palagonitic; here trap and trachyte in situ apparently do not exist: as we made for a Brèche de Roland, east of Bláfjall, we passed a sloping wall of white clay; and at half-past three we halted and changed nags at the Afréttr (compascuum), to which the neighbouring farmers drive their sheep in July and August. The lad called it the Laufflesjar, leafy green spots in the barren waste. We saw little of the willow which he had led us to expect; but the dark sand abounded in flowers and gramens; the former represented by the white bloom of the milfoil (Achillea millefolium), which the people term Vallhumall,[164] or “Welsh,” that is, “foreign,” hop; and the latter by the Korn-Súra (Polygonum viviparum), viviparous Alpine buckwheat. A snow-patch at the western end of the plainlet gave us drink; and thus water, forage, and fuel were all to be found within a few hundred yards. The guide said it was half-way, whereas it is nearly two-thirds, and we rode back to it from Bláfjall, which bears 100° (mag.), in an hour.
Resuming our road we rounded the sides of the hillocks, and presently we attacked a Hraun unmarked by Varðas. Discharged by a multitude of little vents, the upper and the lower portions are the most degraded; the middle flood looks quite new, and ropy like twisted straw. We now sighted and smelt the smoke pouring from the yellow lip, which looks as if the sun were ever shining upon its golden surface, and which stands out conspicuous from the slaggy, cindery, and stony hills. At five P.M., after a ride of four hours and a half, we reached the northern or smaller vent, an oval opening to the north-north-west, and we placed our nags under shelter from the wind. The hair was frozen on their backs into “lamellæ niveæ et glaciales spiculæ;” they had no forage beyond a bite at the Afréttr, and we were on a high, bleak level, the aneroid showing 27·10, and the thermometer 40°.
When the sun had doffed his turban of clouds, we sat upon the edge of the Little “Ketill” and studied the site of the Fremrinámar, the “further springs,” because supposed to be most distant from the lake. From the Öræfi the pools seem to cluster about the yellow crater; now we see that they occupy all the eastern slope of the raised ground, the section of the Mý-vatns Sveit extending from Búrfell to Bláfjall. The northern vent is merely one of the dependencies of Hvannfell; the southern or Great Crater belongs to the “Blue Mountain.” We presently turned southwards and ascended the Great Kettle, which Paijkull declares to be “probably the largest in Iceland.” This Námakoll, “head” or “crown of the springs,” is an oval, with the longer diameter disposed north-east to south-west (true), and measuring nearly double the shorter axis (600:350 yards).[165] The outer wall, raised 150 to 200 feet, is one mass of soft sulphur covered by black sand; every footstep gives vent to a curl of smoke, and we do not attempt to count the hissing fumaroles, which are of every size from the thickness of a knitting-needle upwards. With the least pressure a walking-stick sinks two feet. We pick up fragments of gypsum; alum, fibrous and efflorescent; and crystals of lime, white and red, all the produce of the Palagonite, which still forms the inner crust; and we read that sal ammoniac and rock-salt have also been found. The rim is unbroken, for no discharge of lava has taken place; the interior walls are brick-red and saffron-yellow, and where snow does not veil the sole, lies a solid black pudding, the memorial cairn of the defunct Hver or Makkaluber. From the west end no sulphur fumes arise; south-eastward the ruddy suffioni extend to a considerable distance.
The Appendix will describe the old working of these diggings, which did not pay, although the hundredweight cost only ten shillings. At the southern end a staff planted in the ground amongst the hissing hot coppers still shows the labourers’ refuge, a shed built with dry lava blocks. If Professor Henchel characterised them correctly as “bad, because all the sulphur was taken away last year” (1775), they have wonderfully recovered in the course of a century: evidently “all the sulphur” means only the pure yellow flowers lying on the surface. The mass of mineral is now enormous. The road to the lake is a regular and easy slope, and working upon a large scale would give different results from those obtained by filling and selling basketfuls.
From the summit of the Námakoll we had an extensive view of the unknown region to the south. Upon the near ridge stood the Sighvatr rock, the landmark of the Öræfi, from which it appears a regular pyramid: here it assumes the shape of a Beco de papagaio. I now ascertained that there are no northern Dýngjufjöll, or rather that they are wrongly disposed upon the map. I wonder also how that queer elongated horse-shoe farther south, the “Askja” or “Dýngjufjöll hin Syðri,” came to be laid out; but my knowledge of the ground does not enable me to correct the shape. North of Herðubreið lay the Herðubreiðarfell, all blue and snow-white. To the south-west stretched far beyond the visible horizon the Ódáða Hraun, which most travellers translate the “Horrible Lava,” and some “Malefactors’ Desert” or “Lava of Evil Deed.” The area is usually estimated at 1160 square miles, more than one-third the extent of the Vatnajökull, which it prolongs to the north-west. Viewed from the Námakoll it by no means appears a “fearful tract, with mountains standing up almost like islands above a wild, black sea.” I imagine that most of the contes bleues about this great and terrible wilderness take their rise in the legendary fancies of the people touching the Útilegumenn, or outlaws who are supposed to haunt it. I observed that Hr Gíslason prepared a pair of revolvers in case we met them upon the Öxi; and I found to my cost that even educated men believe in them. Previous travellers may be consulted about the Happy Valleys in the stone-desert, the men dressed in red Wadmal, the beautiful women, and the hornshod horses. I can only observe that such a society has now no raison d’être; it might have had reasons to fly its kind, but a few sheep lost during the year are not sufficient proofs of such an anomaly still existing.
All I saw of the Ódáða Hraun was a common lava-field, probably based upon Palagonite. It seemed of old date, judging from the long dust-lines and the stripes tonguing out into ashes and cindery sand. The surface was uneven, but not mountainous; long dorsa striped the ejected matter, and the latter abounded in hollows and ravines, caverns and boilers. Many parts retained the snow even at a low level, and thus water cannot be wholly wanting even in the driest season. Here and there were tracts of greenish tint, probably grass and willows, lichens and mosses; possibly of the lava with bottle-like glaze over which I afterwards rode. The prospect to the south-south-west ended with a blue and white buttress, an outlier of the Vatnajökull, which might be the (Eastern) Skjaldbreið.
We proposed to return by the eastern road viâ the Búrfell, but our guide declared that the lava was almost impassable, and that the hardest work would not take us to Reykjahlíð before the morning. Having neither food, tobacco, nor liquor, and being half frozen by the cold, we returned viâ the Afréttr; we passed to the east of Hverfjall, not gaining by the change of path; and after a ride of eight hours and a half we found ourselves “at home” shortly before eleven P.M. My feet did not recover warmth till three A.M.
August 9th was an idle day for the horses, which required rest before a long march to the wilderness; the weather also was rainy, and more threatening than ever. I proceeded to examine the Hlíðarnámar, or Ledge-springs, and to see what boring work had been done by my companions.[166] The “smell of rotten eggs,” the effects of “suffocating fumes” upon “respiratory organs,” which by the by can only benefit from them, and the chance of being “snatched from a yawning abyss by the stalwart arms of the guide”—we were our own guides—had now scanty terrors for our daring souls. They have been weighty considerations with some travellers; their attitude reminds me of two Alpine climbers who, instead of crossing it, sat down and debated whether, as fathers of families, they would be justified in attempting that snow-bridge. Perhaps the conviction that the “abyss” here rarely exceeds in depth three feet, where it meets with the ground-rock, Palagonite, may account for our exceptional calmness. The reader will note that I speak only of the Hlíðarnámar: in 1874 they tell me a traveller was severely scalded at some hot spring.
The Hlíðarnámar west of the Námafjall, which Henderson calls the “Sulphur Mountain,” are on a lower plane than the Námar proper, east of the divide. They are bounded on the north by the double lava-stream which, during the last century, issued from the north-east, near the base of the Hlíðarfjall: to the south stretch independent “stone-floods,” studded with a multitude of hornitos, little vents, and foci. The area of our fragment of the great solfatara extending from the mountain, where it is richest, to the lava which has burnt it out, may be one square mile. It is not pretty scenery save to the capitalist’s eye, this speckled slope of yellow splotches, set in dark red and chocolate-coloured bolus, here and there covered with brown gravel, all fuming and puffing, and making the delicate and tender-hued Icelandic flora look dingy as a S’a Leone mulatto.
We began with the lowlands, where the spade, deftly plied by the handy Bowers, threw up in many places flowers of sulphur, and almost pure mineral. Below the gold-tinted surface we generally found a white layer, soft, acid, and mixed with alum; under this again occurred the bright red, the chocolate, and other intermediate colours, produced either by molecular change, the result of high temperature; or by oxygen, which the steam and sulphur have no longer power to modify. Here the material was heavy and viscid, clogging the spade. Between the yellow outcrops stretched gravelly tracts, which proved to be as rich as those of more specious appearance. Many of the issues were alive, and the dead vents were easily resuscitated by shallow boring; in places a puff and fizz immediately followed the removal of the altered lava blocks which cumbered the surface. In places we crushed through the upper crust, and thus “falling in” merely means dirtying the boots. Mr Augustus Völlker, I am told, has determined the bright yellow matter to be almost pure (95·68:100). The supply, which has now been idle for thirty years, grows without artificial aid, but the vast quantities which now waste their sourness on the desert air, and which deposit only a thin superficial layer, might be collected by roofing the vents with pans, as in Mexico, or by building plank sheds upon the lava blocks, which appear already cut for masonry. According to the old traveller, Ólafsson, the supply is readily renewed; and Dr Mouat (“The Andaman Islanders”) covers all the waste in two or three years.
Leaving our nags in a patch of wild oats, which, they say, the Devil planted to delude man, we walked up the Námafjall, whose white, pink, and yellow stripes proved to be sulphur-stones and sand washed down by the rain so as to colour the red oxidised clay. Here we picked up crystals of alum and lime, and fragments of selenite and gypsum converted by heat into a stone-like substance. The several crests, looking like ruined towers from below, proved to be box-shaped masses of Palagonite and altered lava; the summits, not very trustworthy to the tread, gave comprehensive prospects of the lowlands and the lake. Upon the chine we also found mud-springs, blubbering, gurgling, spluttering, plop-plopping, and mud-flinging, as though they had been bits of the Inferno: the feature is therefore not confined, as some writers assert, to the hill-feet facing the Öræfi. The richest diggings begin east of the crest, and here the vapour escapes with a treble of fizz and a bass of sumph, which the vivid fancy of the Icelandic traveller has converted into a “roar.” My companions were much excited by the spectacle of the great soufrière, and by the thought of so much wealth lying dormant in these days of “labour activised by capital,” when sulphur, “the mainstay,” says Mr Crookes, “of our present industrial chemistry,” has risen from £4, 10s. to £7 a ton, when 15 to 20 per cent. is a paying yield in the Sicilian mines, and when the expensive old system of working the ore has been rendered simple and economical as charcoal-burning. And we should have looked rather surprised if informed that all these mines were shortly to be extinguished by a scientific member of the Society of Arts.
In the evening, which unexpectedly proved the last when we three met in Iceland, the conversation naturally fell upon sulphur and sulphur-digging. The opinion expressed by Professor Jönstrüp, who in 1871 had used the six-inch boards, was also duly discussed. He was undoubtedly right in believing that for exploitation foreigners can do more than natives, and that money spent by the Danish Government would only weight the Icelander’s pocket. But he gave a flourishing account to Mr Alfred G. Lock, who, after wooing the coy party since 1866, has obtained a concession for fifty years; the only limiting condition being that he is not to wash in running waters, an absurdity demanded by local prejudices. For many years the Iceland diggings were a “bone of contention” between England and France. In 1845, M. Robert, the same who quietly proposed robbing the Iceland spar, wrote, “Aussi doît-il bien se garder de jamais accorder aux Anglais qui l’ont sollicitée, la faculté d’exploiter ces soufrières; comme on l’a fait en Laponie a l’égard des mines de cuivre.” Let us hope that under the enlightened rule of philanthropic Liberal Governments, nations have improved in 1874. But as the Iceland fisheries prove, the French rulers have ably and substantially supported their fellow-subjects, whereas ours find it easier and more dignified to do nothing, and to “let all slide.” Nothing proves England to be a great nation more conclusively than what she does despite the incubus from above. Nothing is more surprising than to see the man whom you have known for years to be well born, well bred, and well worthy of respect, suddenly, under the influence of office or of public life, degenerating into the timid Conservative, or the rampant, turbulent Radical. But the do-nothing policy of late years must give way the moment pressure is put upon it, and popular opinion requires only more light for seeing the way to a complete change.
I did not visit the House-wich of old Garðar Svafarson nor the road by which the Mý-vatn sulphur has been shipped in small quantities to Copenhagen, but Mr Charles Lock kindly sent me a sober and sensible description, which is given in his own words.
“The Húsavík line is very good, being for the most part over gently undulating downs, with basalt a few feet below the surface; crossing no streams of importance, and having a fall of 1500 feet in a distance of 45 miles.[167] It is wrongly shown in Gunnlaugsson’s map, for instead of being on the eastern side of Lángavatn it skirts the western shore of that lake, and it likewise passes on the western side of Uxahver.
“Húsavík harbour is a very good one, judging from the description given us by Captain Thrupp, R.N., of H.M.S. ‘Valorous,’ who spent some time there this summer. An old Danish skipper said it was perfectly safe when proper moorings were laid down, no vessel having been lost in it during the last thirty years. He has been trading between Copenhagen, Hull, and Húsavík for twenty-five years past, reaching the latter port each year about the end of February, and making his last voyage home in October. Between October and February there is generally a quantity of ice floating off the coast, which hinders vessels entering the harbour.”[168]
I also asked my young compagnon de voyage to collect for me, upon the spot, certain details of the earthquake which occurred in the north-eastern part of the island, and which, as was noticed in the Introduction, did some damage at Húsavík. On the afternoon of April 16, three shocks were felt; two others followed during the afternoon of April 17; the second was remarkably violent, and throughout the night the ground continued, with short intervals of repose, to show lively agitation, which on the 18th reached its culmination. All the wooden huts were thrown down, and the stone houses were more or less shaken, the factory alone remaining in any measure habitable. Some cattle were killed; there was no loss of human life, but from twenty to thirty families were compelled to seek shelter in the outskirts. Nobody remained in the dilapidated little market-town except the Sýslumaðr, whose family left for Copenhagen in the steamer “Harriet,” bringing the news to Europe—I met them on their return to Reykjavik, and they confessed having been terribly startled and shaken. During the three days after the 18th, the vibrations continued with diminished violence; they were unimportant in the immediate neighbourhood of Húsavík; they were insignificant about Krafla, and when the vessel sailed they had wholly ceased. There was also a report that the crater in the icy depths of the Vatnajökull had begun to “vomit fire.”
This much the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung had informed me: Mr Charles Lock added the following details: “During the eight days of earthquake the thermometer (R.), during the night, fell as low as-8°. The direction of the shocks was from east to west, and some of them were very severe. The inhabitants were so much frightened that they crowded on board a vessel which chanced to be in port. I was not told that the effects were at all felt in the harbour. The Sýslumaðr slept in one of the streets for several nights. Many small cracks were left in the ground when the shocks had subsided; but these have since been filled up: some naturally, others by the peasants.”
Let us now “hark back” to Mý-vatn.
As a wandering son of Israel once said to me, in my green and salad days, “Gold may be bought too dear.” The question is not whether sulphur exists in Iceland; it is simply “Can we import sulphur from Iceland cheaper than from elsewhere?” Calculations as to profit will evidently hinge upon the cost of melting the ore at the pit’s mouth, and of conveying it to a port of shipment: however cheap and abundant it may be in the interior, if fuel be scarce and roads and carriage wanting, it cannot be expected to pay. My opinion is that we can, if science and capital be applied to the mines. The digging season would be the hot season; and the quantity is so great that many a summer will come and go before the thousands of tons which compose every separate patch can be exhausted. But this part of the work need not be confined to the fine weather: it is evident, even if experience of the past did not teach us, that little snow can rest upon the hot and steaming soil. As one place fails, or rather rests to recover vigour, the road can be pushed forward to another—I am persuaded that the whole range, wherever Palagonite is found, will yield more or less of the mineral.
The first produce could be sent down in winter to Húsavík by the Sleði (sledge). When income justifies the outlay, a tramroad on the Haddan system would cheapen transit. The ships which export the sulphur can import coal to supply heat where the boiling springs do not suffice, together with pressed hay and oats for the horses and cattle used in the works. As appears in the Appendix, turf and peat have been burned, and the quantity of this fuel is literally inexhaustible. It will be advisable to buy sundry of the farms, and those about Mý-vatn range in value between £300 and a maximum of £800. The waste lands to the east will carry sheep sufficient for any number of workmen. The hands might be Icelanders, trained to regular work, and superintended by English overseers, or, if judged advisable, all might be British miners. Good stone houses and stoves will enable the foreigner to weather a winter which the native, in his wretched shanty of peat and boards, regards with apprehension. Of the general salubrity of the climate I have no doubt.
The sulphur trade will prove the most legitimate that the island can afford. Exploitation of these deposits, which become more valuable every year, promises a source of wealth to a poor and struggling country; free from the inconveniences of the pony traffic, and from the danger of exporting the sheep and cattle required for home supply. And the foreigner may expect to enrich, not only the native, but himself, as long at least as he works honestly and economically, and he avoids the errors which, in the Brazil and elsewhere, have too often justified the old Spanish proverb, “A silver mine brings wretchedness; a gold mine, ruin.”
These statements, printed in the Standard (November 1, 1872), have lately been criticised by a certain “Brimstone” (Mining Journal, August 29, and September 19, 1874). He is kind enough to say, “I have the greatest respect for Captain Burton as a traveller, but none whatever as an inspector of mining properties”—where, however, a little candour and common sense go a long way. And he is honest enough to own, despite all interests in pyrites or Sicilian mines, that the “working of the sulphur deposits in question may possibly, with great care and economy, give moderate returns on capital.” His letters have been satisfactorily answered by Dr C. Carter Blake and Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín. It only remains for me to remark that nothing is easier than to draw depreciatory conclusions from one’s own peculiar premises. “Brimstone,” for instance, reduces the working days to 150, when the road would be open all the year round to carts and sledges; he considers the use of sledges upon snow a “fantastic idea,” and he condemns the horses to “eat, month after month, the oats of idleness,” whereas they can be profitably employed throughout the twelve months either at the diggings or in transporting the ore. The statistics of Iceland emigration prove that even during the fine season a sufficiency of hands might, if well and regularly paid, be “withdrawn into the desert from fishing and agricultural operations,” which, after all, are confined to the Heyannir, or hay-making season, and which take up but a small fraction of the year, between the middle of July to the half of September. Moreover, there is little, if any, fishing on the coasts near the northern mines. The report of the Althing shows that ten, and sometimes twenty, labourers worked at the Krísuvík diggings, where fishing is busiest, during almost the whole winter of 1868-69, and the silica mining of Reykjanes was not interrupted during December and January 1872-73. The spell is from five to six hours during the darkest months, the shortest day in Iceland being five hours. About mid-March the island night is not longer than in England, and from early May there is continual daylight till August, when the nights begin to “close in.” The hands in the southern mines were paid from 3½d. to 6d. per hour. Professor Paijkull made the northern sulphur cost 3 marks per cwt., and the horses carried 3 to 3½ cwts. in two days to the trading station: Metcalfe also declares that 200 cwts. per annum were melted at Húsavík, and that the price was half that of Sicilian. “Brimstone” complains that the distance from the coast is variously laid down at 25 (direct geographical), 28⅘, 40, and 45 (statute) miles, when the map and the itineraries of many travellers are ready to set him right. He need hardly own that he has no personal knowledge of Húsavík, Krísuvík, or any part of Iceland, when he sets down “such necessary little items as loading, lighterage, harbour-dues, improving Husavik, brokerage, et cætera,” confounding the ideas of Snowland and England. After a startled glance at the cost of British labour, “and, worse still, of idleness during the greater part of the year”—a phantom of his own raising—he asks, “What about the demoralisation consequent on the latter, and on the inevitable use and abuse of the spirits of the country, in order to while away the time?” The Brazil is surely as thirsty a land as Iceland, yet my host, Mr Gordon, of the gold mines in Minas Geraes, would be somewhat surprised, and perhaps not a little scandalised, to hear that his white, brown, and black hands cannot be kept from drink. Briefly the objector’s cavils may be answered in the “untranslatable poetry” of the American backwoodsman, “T’aint no squar’ game; he’s jest put up the keerds on that chap (Sicily) from the start.” I have no idea who Mr “Brimstone” is, but I must say that he deserves a touch of his own mineral, hot withal, for so notably despising the Englishman’s especial virtue—Fair Play.
On the other hand, my notes on the Mý-vatn mines drew from a Brazilian acquaintance, Mr Arthur Rowbottom, the following note, containing an inquiry which unfortunately I could not answer:
“I read your account of the sulphur mines of Myvatn with great interest and pleasure; and from your report I should feel disposed to believe that boracic acid exists in the same district. You will, no doubt, remember the conversation we had on board the ‘Douro,’ returning from Brazil, about the very large fortune made by Count Larderel out of the boracic acid produced in the Tuscan lagoons situated near Castelnuovo. Wherever native alum and brimstone are found, there are always traces of borate of soda in one form or another. Boracic acid exists at the Torre del Greco, and in Volcano of the Lipari Islands.[169] The locality where the ‘Tincal’ is found in Thibet is reported to be plutonic; in fact, nearly all the countries from whence the borate of soda is drawn are somewhat similar to the sulphur districts of Iceland; and I should feel greatly obliged if you could inform me if boracic acid or borate of lime exists in the island.”
CHAPTER XV.
RETURN TO DJÚPIVOGR AND END OF JOURNEY.
Section I.—Ride to Herðubreið.
August 10.
We were humanly threatened with rain on the fourth day, but my aneroid gave me better news. The principal difficulty was to find a guide for the southern Öræfi. Hr Pètur’s sons shrugged their shoulders and pleaded illness—“pituitam habent” explains the student—they swore that the farm horses were not strong enough to traverse the grassless waste. After a three days’ search, I managed to secure a dummer junger, named Kristián Bjarnason of Eilífr, who had once almost reached the base of Herðubreið; and old Shylock lent him, for a consideration, two lean nags, with orders to go so far and no farther. My own stud consisted of eight, and only one of these carried the little tent and provisions—a loaf of brown rye-bread, two tins of potted meat, a diminutive keg of schnapps, and rations for my companions, the student Stefán and Gísli Skulk. The latter showed some alacrity in preparing to return home; as he had a grudge against Mr Lock, so he contrived to nobble all the ropes, and tried furtively to drive off all the baggage-horses. I looked carefully to the tethers of my nags, and personally saw them shod with good irons and new-made nails: I strongly suspect my henchman of having stolen a march upon me; he could not smash my hammer, but he managed to lose the extra nails. More than one shoe proved to be broken on the second day, and several were found fastened with only three mere “tacks,” the best contrivance in the world for permanently injuring a hoof.
The start was, as usual, painfully slow; although I rose at five A.M., the journey did not begin before 10.30. The Messrs Lock accompanied me part of the way; we were all to meet at Djúpivogr on the seventh day, but that meeting was not written in the Book of Fate. After shaking hands with the good Bowers, I pricked sharply over the plain, glad to escape the reeking valley of Mý-vatn; the cool and clear north-easter at once swept away the mournful grisaille of the charged sky; presently the sun came out, afflicting the horses, and the dust rose, troubling the riders. About half-way to the river we turned off south-eastward, and rode over the usual mounds, which resemble
“The grassy barrows of the happier dead.”
After this rough, tussocky ground came black sand, bordering black and ropy lava; the former was grown with oat-clumps seven to eight feet high, many of them dead at this season: they sheltered the normal vegetation, and extended immense roots to collect nutriment from the barren soil. The path was pitted, especially on the outskirts of the various stone-floods, with blind holes (Gjá), wearying, and even dangerous, to horses—I soon preferred the rougher riding. The floor-rock again was yellow Palagonite, barred with white waves, soda and potash. At four P.M. we crossed the Fjallagjá, a yellow wady, which might have been in the heart of Arabia Deserta; we were approaching its recipient, the foul Jökulsá. Finally, after entering broken ground of deep sand, and crossing a black hill, Gleðahús, the gled’s house, we come to our halting-ground, Valhumall-lá,[170] the “low land of milfoil,” another wady, but black with sand, and showing lava-streams to the south. The guide declared that we were on the parallel of Víðidalr, which, however, could not be seen.
The day’s work had been thirty-two miles, in six hours twenty minutes, and I was much pleased with it; no better proof was wanted to show the feasibility of travelling in the wilderness, at least wherever a river is found. All the features have names given during the annual sheep-hunts. We found tracks of the flocks and the ponies which had followed them, extending up to the Vatnajökull. To the south-west, and apparently close at hand, rose Herðubreið: viewed from the north, its summit, which is tilted a few degrees to westward, appears like a cornice perpendicular, and in places even leaning forward, whilst a solid conical cap of silvery snow ends the whole. In the evening air the idea of an ascent looked much like mounting upon a cloud; the more you craned at it, as the phrase is, the less you liked it; but I trusted that a nearer approach would level difficulties, and that the sides must be striped by drainage couloirs. The cold became biting before eight P.M., another reminiscence of the Asiatic desert, in which you perspire and freeze, with the regularity of the tides, every twenty-four hours: in both cases the cause is the exceeding clearness and dryness of the atmosphere, so favourable to the radiation of heat and to the deposit of dew. I slept comfortably in the tent pitched upon the sands, disturbed only by Stefán’s hearty snores.
August 11.
The day broke badly indeed: at early dawn (aner., 28·55; therm., 41°) a white fog lay like wool-pack on the ground, making the guide despair of finding his path: at nine A.M. it began to lift, promising a fiery noon, which, however, was tempered by a cool north breeze. The men persuaded me to leave the tent; there are no thieves in the Icelandic desert, in this point mightily different from that of Syria: they declared that we should easily reach Herðubreið in two to three hours. We presently crossed a new lava-stream, the usual twisted, curled, “tumbled together,” and contorted surface, in places metallic and vitrified by fire; here and there it was streaked with level, wind-blown lines of dust and ashes. Thence we passed into the usual sand, black and cindery, based upon tawny Palagonite, and curiously beached with pebble-beds; the rounded stones had been scattered on the path by ponies’ hoofs. This sand was deeply cracked, and our nags, panting with heat, sank in it to the fetlock. The maximum of caloric at certain hours of a summer’s day during a long series of years is far more equally distributed over earth than men generally suppose. Some have gone so far as to assert that it is “the same in all regions from the Neva to the banks of the Senegal, the Ganges and the Orinoco;” and the range has been placed “between 93° and 104° (F.) in the shade. In this island we are preserved from extremes by the neighbourhood of the sea, yet the power of the sun at times still astonishes me. The “Ramleh” (arenaceous tract) ended in a pleasant change, a shallow, grassy depression, with willows, red and grey, equisetum, “blood-thyme,” wild oats, which abhor the stone tracts, and the normal northern flora. Here, as I afterwards found, we should have skirted the Jökulsá, made for the mouth of the Grafarlandsá, and ridden up the valley of the dwarf stream. The guide preferred a short cut, which saved distance and which lost double time.
To the right or north-west we could trace distinctly the golden crater, the Sighvatr pyramid, and the familiar features of the Fremrinámar. I again ascertained that a line of high ground, a blue range streaked with snow, trending from north-west to south-east (mag.), and representing the fanciful Trölladýngjur (Gigantum cubilia) of the map, also connects Bláfjall with the Herðubreiðarfell. The latter, separated by “Grave-land Water,” a common name for deeply encased streams, from the “Broad-Shouldered” proper, is a brown wall with frequent discolorations, a line of domes and crater cones, now regular, then broken into the wildest shapes; in one place I remarked the quaint head and foot pillars of a Moslem tomb. A single glance explained to me the ash-eruption from the Trölladýngjur recorded in 1862, and the many stone-streams supposed to have been ejected from Herðubreið; they extended to the very base of the latter, and all the “Hraunards” (lava-veins) which we crossed that day had evidently been emitted by these craters.
At noon, after four hours fifteen minutes (= fifteen very devious miles), we entered a line of deep, chocolate-coloured slag and cinder, unusually bad riding. It presently led to the soft and soppy, the grassy and willowy valley of Grafarlönd, which is excellently supplied with water. I naturally expected to find a drain from the upper snow-field of the Great Cone; the whole line is composed of a succession of springs dividing into two branches, a northern, comparatively narrow, and a southern, showing a goodly girth of saddle-deep water. The weeds of the bed and the luxuriant pasture amid the barrenest lava, “Beauty sleeping in the lap of Terror,” suggested that in this veritable oasis, if anywhere, birds would be found. A single snipe and three Stein-depill[171] (wheat-ear) showed how systematic throughout this part of the country had been the depopulation of the avi-fauna. A few grey-winged midges hovered about, but I looked in vain for shells. The spring showed only a difference of + 0·5 from our sleeping-place. And now my error began to dawn upon me: the ride to Herðubreið would be seven hours instead of two to three; the tent had been left behind; the men had no rations, and “alimentary substances” were confined to a few cigars and a pocket-pistol full of schnapps.
But regret was now of no avail; and time was precious. After giving the nags time to bite, I shifted my saddle, and, at two P.M., leaving Gísli Skulk in charge of the remounts, I pushed on south, accompanied by Stefán and Kristián. We crossed the two streamlets, each of which has its deeper cunette, luckily a vein of hard black sand. Beyond the right bank of the Grafarlandsá we at once entered the wildest lava-tract, distinguished mainly by its green glaze, fresh as if laid on yesterday. It was like riding over domes of cast-iron, a system of boilers, these smooth or corrugated, those split by Gjás and showing by saw-like edges where the imprisoned gases had burst the bubbles: near the broken cairns we found lines of dust which allowed the shortest spurts; the direct distance to Herðubreið was not more than two miles, but the devious path had doubled it. Again we had been led by the worst line; on our return, Kristián, having recovered his good temper, showed us a tolerable course. He frequently halted, declaring that his master had forbidden him to risk the nags where the Útilegumenn might at any moment pounce upon them.
At 4.30 P.M. I reached the base of Herðubreið, and found it, as was to be expected, encircled by a smooth, sandy, and pebbly moat, a kind of Bergschrund, whose outer sides were the lava-field, and whose inner flanks formed in places high cliffs and precipices. The formation at once revealed itself. The Broad-Shouldered mountain is evidently only the core of what it was. Its lower part is composed of stratified Palagonite clay, which higher up becomes a friable conglomerate, embedding compact and cellular basalt, mostly in small fragments. The heaps at the base are simply slippings, disposed at the natural angle, and they are garnished with many blocks the size of an Iceland room. Above them rise the organs, buttresses, and flying buttresses, resembling pillars of mud, several exceeding 300 feet; the material assumes the most fantastic shapes: in one place I found a perfect natural arch resting upon heat-altered basalt. The heads of the columns form a cornice, and from the summit of the cylinder an unbroken cone of virgin snow sweeps grandly up to the apex. Evidently the Herðubreið is not the normal volcano: it may be a Sand-gýgr after the fashion of Hverfjall, but of this we cannot be assured until the cap is examined. The chief objection would be the shape, the reverse of the usual hollow.
Leaving Kristián in charge of the horses, I attacked the slope in company with Stefán, from the north-east, and we gradually wound round to the east of the cone. The slopes were clothed with small and loose fragments of basalt, making the ascent difficult. Here rain-gullies radiated down the incline; to the south-east yawned a great marmite, a breach probably formed by a long succession of clay-slips and avalanches. The adhesive snow clinging to the rough conglomerate lay in fans and wreaths even against perpendicular walls, whereas in Europe large masses cannot accumulate at an angle of 45°, and the meteor is unstable and apt to break away when the angle exceeds 30°; here it seems plastered upon the steepest sides, looking from afar like glistening torrents. After seeing the huge névé which clothes the mountain from the shoulders upwards, I was surprised to find that, although the ascent was broken by huge gullies which in spring must discharge torrents, the flanks are absolutely waterless; as on Western Snæfell, the drainage sinks through the porous matter and, passing underground, reappears in springs upon the plain, a familiar feature to the traveller in Syria. Yet the slopes carried the usual Iceland flora, of course shrunk and stunted by the cold thin air. I picked up the vermiform earths of some wild animal, which crumbled to pieces in my pocket: the farmers recognised the description, declared that they knew them well, but could not tell me what the creature was. None would believe me when I assured them that Herðubreið was a formation of “Mó-berg.”
As we approached the upper pillars the lowlands lay like a map before us. Hard by the south-eastern foot sat the little tarn Herðubreiðarvatn, surrounded by soft mud, instead of rush and reed: the Vatn has no outlet, but it is perfectly sweet. Farther north there is a streamlet flowing, like the Grafarlandsá, through patches and streaks of green: it rejoices in the name of Herðubreiðarlindá, the “river of the spring of the Broad-Shouldered.” Beyond the blue cone Jökullsclidá—I am not sure of my orthography—which rises to the south-east, the Great Jökulsá, after broadening into apparently a shallow bed, forks, divided by a lumpy ridge, the Fagradalsfjall, which we had seen like a blue cloud from Möðrudalr. It has the appearance of a ford, but Stefán assured me that the farmers are deterred from crossing it by quicksands: this was afterwards contradicted. The eastern branch, lying upon a higher plane, again splits, enclosing the Fagridalr. On the “Fair Hill,” and in the “Fair Dale,” where outlaws are said formerly to have mustered strong, sheep from the eastern farms are fed upon the very edge of the Ódáða Hraun. We had an admirable study of the Kverk and the (Eastern) Snæfell, making the student remark that he was close to his home at Bessastaðir. As the sun sank, the peak projected a gnomon-like shadow on the plain, an affecting reminiscence of the Jebel el Mintar, which acts dial to “Tadmor in the Wilderness.”
After an hour and a half of very hard work, for we had scrambled up nearly 2000 feet (aneroid, 26·60; thermometer, 35°), we reached the mud-pillars, and serious difficulties began. My camaro, who walked pluckily enough, could mount no more. I had taught him the rule of volcano-climbing on stones and descending on cinders; of using the toes when going up and the heel when going down; and the consequence was that his Iceland slippers and stockings were clean worn away, and in a few minutes his feet would be cut. I left him and sought a couloir, which by careful “swarming,” might have opened a passage. But here a new difficulty was added to ever-increasing darkness and to numbing cold. In Switzerland the rock cannonades are most frequent between midnight and dawn: here the blocks of basalt, detached by the leverage of sun and frost, begin to fall as soon as the temperature lowers. The couloir was too narrow for swarming up the sides, which are less risky than the centres. After three narrow escapes, in one of them my right hand saving my head, I judged that the game was not worth the candle. Though close to the snow (aneroid, 26·55), it would have been impossible to reach the summit alone, in the night and over an unknown field.
Descending in double-quick time—“devouring space,” as Belmontel says—we soon reached the moat which separates the castle from its outworks of lava, and refreshed ourselves at the little tarn. During the descent I observed a feature, before hidden from view; a lumpy tail with two main bulges prolonging Herðubreið to the south-west: perhaps the next attempt might succeed if this line be followed. From the Heröubreiðarvatn we took the south-eastern line, where the lava-field was by no means so horrid. After an hour, striking the Herðubreiðarlindá, also an influent of the Jökulsá, we hurried down the right bank, frequently crossing when the soft and rotten ground threatened to admit the ponies. Finally, we traversed in fifteen minutes a divide of lava, we forded the double channel of the Grafarlandsá, and at 9.45 we were received with effusion by the solitary Gísli. Those who follow me will do well to ascend the left bank of the Jökulsá, to trace the Grave-land Water to its source, to pass over the lava-breach, and to follow the Lindá where it rises from the plain.
The day’s ride had occupied nine hours thirty minutes, and the unfortunate “tattoos” were not prepared for some four more: moreover, les genous m’entraient dans le corps, as the gamin says. The blood-red sunset promised a fair night, free from wind and fog, and, although we were some 1400 feet above sea-level, a bivouac in the glorious air of the desert under
“Cette obscure clarté qui tombe des étoiles,”
could not be considered a hardship. No one thought of a fire till I set the example of collecting willow-roots, and then all, beasts as well as men, were greatly comforted by the short, sharp bursts of blaze. The poor fellows offered me a share of their only viaticum, a bit of bread and sausage, but I saw by their longing, hungry eyes that their necessities were greater than mine. A blanket instead of the oilskin from my saddle-bag would have been a comfort; but even without it I slept like un bienheureux, and awoke lively as a lark. What a different matter was my night in the open below Fernando Po peak!
That morning I had set out to “plant a lance in Iceland,” by mastering the Herðubreið; for once utterly deceived by the clearness of the air, I had despised my enemy, and he got the better of me—the general verdict will be, “Serve you right.” My consolation was that, though beaten, I had hardly been fairly beaten; the fog was not to be controlled; the guide led us by the worst paths, and we crept over lava after expecting to move fast. The altitude is laid down at 5447 English feet above sea-level; and as we rode up to the base, about 1500 feet high, there remained only 4000 feet, which would not have taken more than five hours. Such was my calculation, and it erred by being drawn too fine. Nor could the attempt be renewed next day. I had promised to send back to Mr Lock my only companion, Stefán, whose foot-gear was in tatters; Gísli and Kristián would have seen me in Ná-strönd, the shores of the ignoble “straw-dead,” rather than accompany me over an unknown snow-field, and such climbing must not be done single-handed.
Section II.—Return to Valthiófstaðir and Stay There.
August 12-16.
There is little to say concerning these five days, which were spent in returning to Valthiófstaðir by devious ways. On August 12th the world, according to local belief, was to have been destroyed; knowledge has increased since A.D. 1000, so no one made preparation, spiritual or material, for what Hindus call the Pralaya, hourly expected by primitive Christianity. Je m’en moque comme de l’an quarante (1740). At three A.M. we rode down the cold valley of the Grafarlandsá, picked up the tent, and bidding adieu to the good Stefan and the miserable Kristián, we reached the Jökulsá ferry after a total of six hours forty-five minutes. The blood-red sunset had kept its promise till clouds rolled up from the south, and I have seldom had a more thorough dusting.
At early nightfall suddenly appeared Mr Pow and his guide, Jón Pètursson, son of the old priest of Valthiófstaðir: they had been paying a visit to Mý-vatn, and now they were hastening home for a wedding. The former had been making inquiries about sheep-farming; he believed that, in that line, something might be done whilst the pony traffic was thoroughly worked out. Farms ranging from $3000 to $6000 are readily bought throughout this part of the country. As the snow begins upon the Heiðis in November, lies deep in December and January, and lasts till May, it would be necessary to allow one ton of hay per thousand head, and the import price, excluding freight, must be computed at £2,10s. rising to £4. He was sanguine enough to expect a cent. per cent. profit: I never heard that the project had any results.
Next day we started betimes in the cool east wind, which presently chopped round to the south, and gave us a taste of Sind and the Panjáb—all the sand of the Arabian desert seemed to be in the air, and it was the sharpest of its kind. We enjoyed a headlong gallop not unworthy of the Argentine Pampas, halted a few minutes at the Möðrudalr oasis, and pressed on to Vetur-hús: here we parted as I wished to examine the lake region, and to inspect the Brú of the Jökulsá.
On the next morning, which, after the stillness of dawn, also obliged me with a dust-storm, I set out at eight, rounded the swamps and black bogs, and, after crossing a marshy divide, entered the valley between the Eiríkr and Thríhyrning hills. The land is poor, but it manages to support two little Sels. At last we came upon the Thverárvatn, the southernmost of the tarns, and following the right bank of its drain, the Thverá,[172] we reached the Brú after an hour and a half’s hard riding. It still preserves the traditional name although the natural arch of rock fell in 1750: in Henderson’s day it was succeeded by a wooden bridge, and now there is only a cradle. Horses are forded about a mile up stream, where the break becomes a broad, split by holms and sand-banks. The seedy little chapel of Brú wants cross and steeple: it is built of turf, like that of Mý-vatn.
We left the river at 10.30 A.M., and resolved to inspect the Aðalbólsvegr, the southernmost road across the Heiði. It begins by crossing a divide, after which, rounding the Vaðbrekka, or ford-ledge hill, it ascends the dusty valley of the Hrafnkelsá. Two farmlets, Vaðbrekka and Aðalból,[173] the latter with four gables of wood and turf, and backed by Laugs of warm water, hug the left bank. After fording the stream thrice we walked up another divide, where the path was cobwebbed and all in holes—these “dead roads” are by no means pleasant travelling. The upper plateau was, like the northern line, the usual scene of standing waters and flowing waters, especially the Höllná and the Heiðará; all these soppy black beds are named, but none appear in the map. The list of this day’s birds comprised a few snippets, three ravens, and a couple of whoopers (C. ferus or C. Bewickii?) which travellers often mistake for sheep. It was not my fate in Iceland ever to hear the sweet song of the swan, which borrows an additional charm on dark wintry nights from the popular belief that it promises a thaw; the poetical fancy of its being a death-lay seems here unknown. The descent to the Fljótsdalr occupied half-an-hour, and after seven hours forty-five minutes of rough riding from the Brú I reached Valthiófstaðir, where they did not expect me before nightfall.
There was revelling at the parsonage, and though I missed the howling of hymns and hollaing of anthems, the splendid “upholstering” of the girls, and the starry veil which takes the place of orange-flowers, I was in time for the feast. The daughter of the house, a notably good manager, was the bride; the bridegroom was a well-to-do widower of eighteen months’ standing. Hr Nikólás Jónsson had learnt joinery at Copenhagen, and found his handicraft pay well at Seyðisfjörð. Ponies, with all manner of gear, including the “handsome brass woman’s saddle” of a certain English traveller, filled the stables, or browsed about the tún, showing a goodly gathering of relatives and friends; even Seyðisfjörð sent forth its contingent. Those who had dined were chatting and “touching pipes” on the green: despite my garb being the reverse of a wedding garment, I was hospitably pressed to join the second detachment. After we had satisfied hyperborean appetites, the speeches began, prefaced by loud cries of “Silentium!” As many of the orators were priests and students training for the priesthood, few could plead “unaccustomed to public speaking,” and most of them acquitted themselves remarkably well. Mr Pow, after delivering his sentiments in English, sprang out of the window to prepare for a wild ride; I aired my Latin, concluding with an effective sentence, “Deus sit propitius his potatoribus”—of course ignoring Walter de Mapes. Having talked ourselves “dry,” we installed a “magister bibendi,” and fell to with a will; we were loud in our mirth “as the Ritur (tarrock-gull) on the rocks,” and the bottles of Cognac and rye-brandy required repeated replenishing, till the small hours sent us to bed. The newly-married couple slept at home, and next morning, after coming to breakfast, they took horse and went their ways.
At Valthiófstaðir I was fortunate enough to meet Prófastr Sigurður Gunnarson of Hallormstaðir, whose name has already been mentioned. A portly, good-looking man of sixty, hardly showing fifty, he is a good Latinist, and his genial manners make him a general favourite. He first accompanied Professor Gunnlaugsson in 1832 to the Vatnajökullsvegr, and since that time he has made three trips to the northern edge. He gave me the position of the volcano (N. lat. 64° 20´, and W. long. G. 30° 20´), which appears upon the map. When told that Herðubreið was a mass of Palagonite, he declared that he had seen Mó-berg at Lomagnúpr and other hills of Sera and Floskeldar; moreover, that he suspected it to be the constituent of the Kistufell and the Kverk, which he had passed in the dark. He assured me that he had found the Western Jökulsá easily fordable after its fork, where it is called Kreppa, or the Squeezer.[174] Among other places which
are shown by the map, he mentioned the Lindákeilir (fountain-pyramid) with its two springs, the northern cold, the southern hot; the Hvannalindir, rich, as the name shows, in Angelica; and the Kringilsá, or encircling water.
The morning after the feast was spent in breakfasting, in chess-playing, and at cards, with coffee-beans for counters: on this occasion the men ate first, and after them the women, somewhat after the fashion of the Druses: the parson’s wife also waited, like an “Oriental,” upon her younger brothers. The friends mounted their stout nags, and disappeared after the normal salutations: amongst them was the Prófastr, with coarse woollen stockings sensibly drawn over his shoes. The kith and kin waited till two P.M. on the next day, and, when the heartiest and smackingest of busses had been duly planted upon projecting lips, all rode off, escorting the bride and bridegroom, and escorted by the family honoris causâ as far as the next farm. Mr Pow had agreed to join me in attempting the Vatnajökull; but, whilst I remained to collect provaunt and to avoid the heavy weather which threatened, he resolved upon a preliminary trip, with the prime object of shooting a reindeer. He hired for $2 an old round-ball Enfield from the farmer-ferryman of Bessastaðir, who, apparently convinced of the Enskimaður’s insanity, snatched it three times out of his hands, till he received a watch in pledge. The solitary march was hardly to be recommended. About the Vatnajökull fog or snow may cover the world at any moment, even in July, the best month; and dozens of sheep are often killed by a single violent storm. Mr Pow set out early on the 15th, missed the road, and returned at eleven A.M. on the next day, thoroughly dazed, and apparently unable to give any account of his march—Jón Pètursson’s eyes filled with tears at the sight. That trial proved sufficient for my intended companion, who, as soon as his two nags could move, set out for Seyðisfjörð.
The weather, which had been surly and wrathy for some time, could no longer restrain its rage: the afternoon (August 16) was bad, and the evening was very bad. The day sped wearily watching the cloud-battalions as they scaled the seaward hills: here this easter and deflected norther brings heavy rains and thick raw mists; the souther and the south-wester are little better, and men rely only upon the western wind, which comes from the arid lavas and sands of the Ódáða. The night was one long howl of storm; “drip-drip” resounded from the church floor, and the wind flung itself against the building, threatening to bear away the frail steeple into space. Huge black nimbi, parted by pale and sickly gleams, ever greeted my sight as I gazed in sorrow from the casement of my ecclesiastical lodging. But joy came in the morning: first a glimpse of blue sky between the flirts of rain, then a sign of the sun. The river was reported to be rapidly filling—never mind, unlucky Friday has passed by, and we may look for better things on Saturday.
The provisions, bread, meat, and cheese ($3), with the unfinished keg of schnapps, were awaiting our departure. But Stefán Pètursson, who was to accompany me, had fallen ill, the malady being probably that popularly called in India a “squiffy quotidian:” so I engaged as guide the student Thorsteinn, who had led us to Thorskagerði, paying for him and his nag $3, 3m. Osk. per diem. Gísli, the “coal-biter,” when drawn badger-like from the kitchen, again tried to shirk, pleading the weakness of the ponies, but a threat to withhold wages reduced all opposition to a slackness of the knees, a settled melancholy, and a hurt-feeling expression of countenance. This time he was never left alone with the horses after they had been shod: he presently revenged himself by displaying an amount of appetite which threatened the party with starvation, if it lingered in the wilderness a day longer than he liked.
Section III.—The Ride to Snæfell: View OF THE Vatnajökull.
Saturday, August 17.
I managed to draw the sleep-thorn from Gísli’s ears and, after the usual silly delays, to set off at 9.45 along the left bank of the Fljótsdalr, alias the Norðurdalr: the wind was still southerly, clouds came from the east, but the aneroid was rising and the sun was taking the master’s place. The broad trap valley supports, on either side, many farms and Sels; Glúmstaðir, Hóll, Thuriðarstaðir; the large Egilstaðir, highest on the map, reached in two orette; and Kleif, with its Sætur and backing of western hill. The angry stream is crossed in many places by ropes and cradles; gradually it becomes a torrent-gorge, and the whole length receives a least a dozen rain-bred cataracts: everywhere we saw their smokes and heard the dull charge of cavalry, whilst the rattling of stones upon the sandy beds sounded like the distant pattering of musketry. There was, however, no difficulty in crossing the mouths and, after three hours fifteen minutes of mild work, we rested the nags and changed saddles at the sheep-house of Kleif.
Beyond this point the torrent-gorge is impracticable, and we ascended the rough, steep left bank, whose lower levels were garnished with stunted birches: it led to the monotonous Heiði, which I had now passed thrice. The streams on this line were more troublesome, owing to the slippery crossings of sheet-rock. We forded the Stóri-lækr (big rivulet) four times, and twice the upper waters of the Öxará above its ugly little cataract in a dwarf valley. A short tract of sandy, willow-grown ground led to the Laugará, which was girth-deep. Riding down its right bank, we came to the Laug, which much resembles that of Reykjavik: the waters show boiling point at the source, and 115° (F.) a few yards below. It lies on the north-eastern slope of Laugarfell, and nearly due east (mag.) of the pointed black cone Hafrsfell: these two detached hills, disposed upon a meridian, are mere outliers of Snæfell. Fifteen yards west of the Laug is the Laugarkofi, or the Warm-spring-cell, a hut some 7 feet by 6, with dry stone walls sunk two feet in the ground: the raftered roof is supported by a central post, and made tight with turfs. We were happy to find it in repair. The weather again broke, and a Scotch mist settled stubbornly upon the dreary landscape; the aneroid showing 27·60, and the thermometer 38°. Our day’s march had lasted only five hours fifteen minutes, and on return we easily covered it in three hours fifty minutes. The night in a warm and (comparatively) clean nest, with the howling wind outside, would have been delightful, but for misgivings about the morrow.
August 18.
I rose at dawn with no little anxiety; in these altitudes man is wholly dependent upon weather: it is like a Polar expedition on a small scale. The rainy and windy night had cleared the air, and the sun rose bright, bringing with him a stinging and intensely dry[175] south wind from off the Jökulls. The baggage pony was loaded, and all preparations were made by 8.45. We began with the rotten and boggy ground, draining the Snæfell and its north-eastern outliers to the Jökulsá. Here began the trouble which lasted more or less throughout the morning. The surface is cut by gullies and earth-cracks, often twenty feet deep, and varying from a yard to ten yards in breadth. Few could be leaped by untrained animals, and the many which could not be crossed caused detours either up or down, often a furlong to cover a perch. The smaller sort were the most troublesome, owing to the badness of the take off and landing: the nags made themselves ridiculous in attempting to scramble over, with their hind legs in the hollows, whilst the forehand was holding on the farther bank. In the worst places, at least one of the caravan was sure to be sprawling upon the ground. The best parts were the stony spots, and the medium were the swamps, especially where Fífa and bright mosses spangled the ground.
The wind now veered to the south-west, and after two hours we easily forded the Hafrsá, a drain rising in the south-east of its “fell.” The latter, seen from the eastward, proves not to be a single cone, as the map shows; behind the knob lie a jagged, saw-toothed ridge and sundry outliers. At a distance, it appears to be lava, but when riding over it in the afternoon I noticed that such form of erupted rock is wholly absent from this line. The material, like that of Herðubreið, is Palagonite, which doubtless forms the base of the northern Vatnajökull. Unlike the basaltic conglomerate of the Broad-Shouldered, however, it is puddinged with cinders reddened and charred by the flames. The colours are ruddy, black-brown, chalky-white, green, and yellow, the two latter extending in a band through Snæfell from
R. F. B. delt.
VIEW OF THE VATNAJÖKULL FROM THE SOUTHERN SLOPE OF (EASTERN) SNÆFELL.
south-west to north-east. Scoriæ also are scattered upon the sand, and these, with a strew of basalt, make up the sum of the surface rocks.
At noon we forded the Thjófagilsá (water of the thief’s gil) below the little waterfall dashing down columnar basalt, and we halted near the Hálskofi, a hut like the nest near the Laug. After half-an-hour we resumed our ride along the eastern flank of Snæfell, which greatly altered in shape. The first view (August 2) from the heights above Hallormstaðir showed a Háls or col to the north, in fact the Snæfellsháls of the map, which should be countermarched to the south: “Snowfell” also seemed attached to the Vatnajökull by a long Rani, or tongue of raised ground, to which it acts tip: this must be changed for lowland and lake; and the shape suggested climbing on the western side, where it is almost perpendicular. Viewed from the north-west (August 14), Snæfell hill assumed a sphinx shape, the hindquarters being like those of Herðubreið to the south.
Snæfell projects to the north-north-east, or above our path, a long clean arête of yellow Palagonite, flanking a great fissure: the lower parts are here snowy, the upper are revetted with dark conglomerate. Behind, or to the west of this ridge, is a large snow-field, one of the many buttresses, extending to the flat-topped summit. We ascended stony ground when working to the south; and here an unpleasant surprise awaited me. Instead of the clear course of the little Jökulsá draining the peaks and pins of the Snæfellsjökull, a northern section of the Vatnajökull, the whole expanse lying between the glacier and the height upon which we stood formed a broad and apparently shallow lake, in part composed of clear pools, and the rest of muddy veins. At its head is a great depression in the Jökull, marked eastward by Eyjarbakki (island bank), a black cone, which may be a crater. The delta-shaped mass of water projects its point to the north, where we can distinctly see it falling over the Eyjarbakka-foss into the Jökulsá gorge. This formation may be temporary, dry ground flooded by the late rains: the farmers, however, know it by the name of Eyjarbakka-vatn. Permanent or not, it was utterly impassable without boats, whilst the Jökulsá was too full to be forded.
A near view of the Vatnajökull, from the south of Snæfell, confirmed my previous impressions. The snowy base-line is formed by the descending angle of the wind: this must explain how all is congealed at a height where Snæfell is free from frost (aneroid, 27·75): perhaps the thrust from behind may perpetuate the névé. Beyond the long white wave, pure ermine above, and below spotty like a Danish dog, stretching far to the west, rose the quaint form of Kverk, the throat or angle beneath the chin,[176] with two big, blue buttresses to the east: the black outlier of conical shape has a deep gullet to the north, vomiting a light-blue glacier upon the snow-fields lying at the base; it is prolonged north by the Kverkhnúkrrani (snout of the gullet-knoll), apparently containing two distinct patches of volcanic aspect.
Resuming our ride to the west over the true Snæfellsháls, whose stony flanks delivered us from bog and earth-crack, we found that even here the summer pasturages are not unused. The dandelion and the violet, dead elsewhere, still enjoyed the autumn of life; sign of reindeer was seen in two places, and we flushed sundry coveys of ptarmigan. A couple of ravens and a snow-tit composed the remnant of animal life; happily for us the midges were absent.
At two P.M. we reached our farthest southern point, the long dorsum which prolongs Snæfell southwards to the Snæfellsháls. On the far side of the col rose Thjófahnúkr, a big, black, cindery cone, like the rest. Between it and the northern hypothenuse of the Vatnajökull lay a dark saddleback, with all the appearance of a volcanic crater; the absence of lava may be explained by its vomiting, like Hverfjall and Herðubreið, cinder and ashes. As we turned up the Thjófadalr, between the Thieves’ Knoll and the Snæfell proper, the ice-wind struck full on our backs. The amphitheatre was girt on both sides by jagged, rocky peaks, like the edges of bursten bubbles and blisters; and the shoulders of Snæfell projected to the south-west, a sharp ridge and a cone of warm-yellow Palagonite—here the ascent would have offered no difficulties. This part of the valley discharges to the south many streamlets of melted snow, some clear, others of white water. Crossing the divide, we struck the Hrafnkelsá, which is prolonged by the Jökulkvisl and the Sauðará (sheep-water) to “Jökulsá of the Bridge.” The line presently became a deep and grisly gorge of black and copper-coloured Palagonite; and we passed sundry long bridges of hard snow which were excellent riding. So far I can confirm the experience of the French naval officers, who assured me that in Iceland these formations, so redoubtable farther south, offer no risk.
At four P.M. we halted for an hour at the head of the Eastern Jökulsá, quietly enjoying the warm western exposure. From this point there was an extensive view of the river-drained plain which, broken by detached lumps of hill and broken ridges, separates Snæfell from the eastern edge of the Ódáða Hraun. When the nags had enjoyed a bite we resumed the descent of the deep and broken river-valley that passes between the Hafrsfell and its western outliers: the buttresses and banks of loose wind-blown sand descended bodily with our weight. Again we saw a spine of Palagonite, showing a fair ascent to the upper snow-field; and we looked in vain for the delicate ripple-marks which from a distance betray hidden crevasses. Here the surface material melting in the sun sinks into the lower strata, making the whole a solid mass—hence the glacier growth which exists in Greenland, and which is suspected in Iceland. As we rode under the precipices of North-western Snæfell, the snow, sliced off as if by a razor, forms a wall some fifty feet thick, soft above, and below pale-blue, like the Blaabreen of Norway, where hardened to ice by excessive pressure. This fine “snout” showed a few thin ribbons, but nothing like “veined structure,” that vexed subject of the glacialists. The whole “snow-fond” for perfect beauty wanted only the lovely background of mazarine-coloured skies to be seen in more southern latitudes.
At six P.M. we forded the Hauká (hawk-water), one amidst a score of shallow, bubbling, pebbly streams, random rivulets, which the afternoon heat was setting free from the vast sheets of snow. Beyond Hafrsfell we recognised with disgust the sodden, rotten ground of the morning, and the weary ponies so lost their tempers that they seemed unwilling to rise after the frequent falls. Yet I could not but admire the pathos, the strange double nature of the wild prospect. Here it was a hard and uncompromising photograph, a weird etching by Rembrandt or Doré, in which, from the vivid whiteness of the snow and the blackness of the rocks, the far appeared near: amongst the chaotic rubbish heaps there was no shadow within shadow, no dark as opposed to a light side. There, beyond a middle ground of steely blue plain, lay a “lovely Claude,” a dream-landscape of distant Jökull. The delicate tints, cool azure-white and snow warm with ethereal rose-pink, seemed to flush and fade, to shift and change places, as though ghostly mists, unseen by the eye of sense, were sailing in the pale beryl-coloured sky. Anon the sun sinking towards the hilly horizon rained almost horizontal floods of light, transfiguring the scene with golden glory as every feature kindled and lit up with a peculiar freshness of expression—a region so calm and bright did not seem to be of this world. Yet a few moments more and its rare spiritual loveliness, passing through gradations of matchless tenderness, began to fade; the pale-grey shadow came, “stealing like serious thought o’er joyous face,” and all disappeared in the dark nothingness of night. These splendours of the Trolls’ home were well worth a journey to the “Brumous Isle,” but the long search and the short fruition almost tempt me to “point a moral.”
After some ten hours’ hard work for man and beast, we were cheered by the steam rising from the Laug, and we again thanked Iceland for laying on such plenteous supplies of hot water. The memory of the last touching view, with its “wild beauty of colouring,” moved me to issue, about midnight, from the nest and to compare the dark with the light hours. But the moon and stars seemed to count for nothing in that “inspissated gloom.” The scene was
“All ruined, desolate, forlorn, and savage.”
The deepening glooms made the silence something more oppressive—τῆς σιγῆς βάρος—than the mere negative of sound; it became an indescribably awful presence, weighing on and deadening to the spirit as the sense of utter solitude—even the nasal music within the Laugarkofi was a positive relief. I can easily imagine a man lost in this utter stillness and swoon of Nature finding the horror and oppression unendurable.
Section IV.—From the Snæfell to Djúpivogr.
To Gísli’s infinite satisfaction, a vile sea-fog crept up the Jökulsá valley, slowly, but persistently, and, meeting scant opposition in the air, which the falling aneroid showed to be unusually deficient in weight, it spread, like the magical “Foka” of folk-lore, over the face of the upper world. Below us, we afterwards heard, all was merry as a fine May-day. I had intended to make the Kverk direct from “Snowdon,” and from that vantage-ground to prospect the Kistufell and the Skjaldbreið, with “Trölladyngja,” the bower of the Troll-Carline. But in the words of Wordsworth’s happy warrior, I did not see what I foresaw, and had only the cold comfort of reflecting—
“Est quiddam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra.”
Icelandic exploration is “chancy” as Central African, and the traveller must expect to be the sport of circumstances far beyond his control, unless, at least, he can afford unlimited time.
The next morning (August 20) was also foggy: I waited till 8.45 A.M., and then all the munitions de bouche being thoroughly exhausted, the word was given for a retreat. The approach to Valthiófstaðir was perfumed, after the rancid moss and the hard snow-wind, by the fragrant crop of newly-mown hay. I bade friendly adieu to the family which had shown me so much kindness; to Stefán, who was still abed, and to Björn, the eldest son. A man of forty-six, and suffering from rheumatism, for which the parsonage is famous, he was the only Icelander who in physique realised my idea of a Saga-hero. The gentlemanly old-fashion parson put into my hands, when parting, an appeal which touched me, “Opto ubi de Islandiâ locutus estis, benè rem referere.”
My return-ride need not be described: it was over the same path, the only difference being the last half of the last day, which is noticed in Chapter XIII. At Hallormstaðir I again missed Síra Sigurðr, who appears not to be of a very domestic turn. Reaching the Berufjörð parsonage at 4.45 P.M. on August 21, I found the ponies far too much fagged by a day’s work of 5500 feet, up and down, for riding another twelve miles round the firth. The Reverend was absent from the Prestagarð, but his wife kindly found me a boat and a boat-boy, the student Thorsteinn taking the other oar. Progress was painfully slow, and the tall ghostly loom of Búlandstindr seemed to follow us like a “Fylgja,” or fetch. We enjoyed all the pleasures of l’humidité spéciale de l’eau de mer pulverisée; the bright phosphoric lights of the tropical seas were absent—indeed, I never saw them in Iceland. At this season the nights become real nights; the smooths in the water, alternating with ripple-lines, had no worse effect than to persuade the inexperienced lads that they were approaching land, and, as the skerries and drongs are thickly ranged along the southern shore, we were fortunate that there was no gale—
“Only the sea-fogs to and fro
Skipped like the ghosts of the streams below.”
After six hours of mortal weariness, I landed with feet dead from sitting in cold water, and awoke Captain Tvede. My good friend turned out of his bunk; the cooper put the kettle on; sundry glasses of red-hot toddy were administered medicinally; and I went to my old quarters, well satisfied with having ridden, from under the very shadow of the Vatnajökull, in two days to the eastern coast.
The “balance” of my stay at Djúpivogr would not have been pleasant without the Ancient Mariner, who energetically assisted in preparing my diary and in paying off the guides, a matter of $49. Hospitable Hr Weÿvadt’s son, the acting Syslumaðr, presently joined us from Eskifjörð, and lectured me upon taxation in Iceland which, as the reader has seen, is “no joke.” The only drawback was a certain nervousness touching the movements of the “Diana,” which was to touch at Deep Bay for the last time this season. Alternate fog and rain, with faint attempts at clearing about mid-day, had lasted for a week, and on August 24 the “Postdampskibet” was due. The seamist rolled thick as a bolster up the narrow line of Fjörð; I had almost abandoned hope, when suddenly we received the glad tidings of her being anchored at the mouth of the voe. Hurried adieux were exchanged, and we steamed for Reykjavik the same evening.
Rain and fog accompanied us the whole way; fortunately for me, Dr Hjaltalín was on board, returning from a visit to Denmark, or the lively “Diana” would have been a very purgatory of dullness. The rest of my tale is soon told. We made Reykjavik on the 26th. On September 1, I embarked on board an old friend, the “Jón Sigurðsson;” and steaming southwards cast a farewell view, while Iceland faded into the past, at the palegold and glittering silver of the Öræfajökull.
On September 15, I landed at Granton.
Conclusion.
The past has been very short-lived of late, says the Duc de Noailles: the world moves fast, and even
“the naked, melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule.”
have felt the civilising influence of the nineteenth century. During the two short years which have followed my visit, Iceland, after a generation-long struggle for political liberty and self-government, has conquered, by inscribing her name on the European list of constitutional countries. The “Annus Jubilæus Millesimus” has been an “Annus Mirabilis:” the Present has met the Past: the “living antiquarian museum” has been honoured with a royal visit, which highly gratified the loyal, and which gave the disloyal an opportunity of declaring that “Iceland has laws.” The Millenary festival drew a host of tourists and “Own Correspondents,” even Hungary being represented, and a dozen octavos will presently be the result. The practical Americans brought with them a gift of some 2000 volumes which will, when room is found for housing them, change the face of the Reykjavik library. As regards physical matters, Iceland has witnessed a new eruption of the Skaptár; and, as the map shows, the north-eastern side of the island is at this moment (July 1875) in violent volcanic action. The Kötlu-gjá, or Katla’s Rift of many terrors, has been visited and found to be another “humbug;” and, last but not least, the Vatna-, or more probably the Klofa-, jökull has been penetrated by the enterprising Mr Watts and his party, who are reported to have planted the Union Jack upon the highest peak. I may conclude with the lines of the Millennial Memorial:
“Ages thou numberest ten, unconquered and long-biding Thule!
Hardy mother of men, Thorr grant thee life through the ages;
After thy sad, sad past, may Happiness smile on thy future,
And Liberty, won so late, crown every blessing with glory.”
STONE AXE IN MUSEUM, REYKJAVIK.
APPENDIX.
SULPHUR IN ICELAND.
SECTION I.
Let us begin this subject with an extract from Hr O. Henchel’s Report on the Icelandic Sulphur Mines, and on the Refining of the Sulphur. January 30, 1776. (Translated from the Danish).
I arrived at Krísuvík the 24th of June 1775, and immediately after my arrival I made preparations for examining the mountain of Krísuvík, with its mines and the surrounding neighbourhood. This mountain is situated two miles from the sea, the intervening space all the way from the sulphur mines being a tolerably level field, with only a few diminutive hills. The mountain stretches from north-east to south-west, and about two miles south-west from the mines it terminates in a plain, three miles of which are covered with lava. To north-east I did not examine the mountain more than three miles from the mines, because I found that in this direction the whole of it consisted of the same stuff, viz., of a very loose sandstone (Palagonite), except where the mines and the hot springs are to be found; there it consists of gypsum, and partly also of a red and blue “bolus,” which, in my opinion, has been sublimated by acid vapours, and partly thrown up by the hot springs. In some places these soft earths have become a hard stone, the cause, being, no doubt, that the access of the water has been stopped in these places, and when the acid vapours could not any more penetrate through this soft earth, it became hard by degrees.
In some places the above-mentioned gypsum is found to be tough and sticky, and when it is dried slowly it has a greasy touch; sometimes it is perfectly white, sometimes with red streaks, and one might take it for pipe-clay. One may therefore conclude, that by the acid, the effects of the rain and the sun and the rising heat, a fermentation has been brought about in this earth, and that it has thus become tough. Besides the already-mentioned variation, another kind of gypsum earth is found on the top of the mountain in hard sheets irregularly formed; here we probably see the effects of strong heat combined with absence of sufficient water, after the fermentation has taken place. In other places where this earth is saturated with sufficient acid, and partly dissolved by the same, and has, besides, a suitable or a natural degree of heat, so to speak, it is found in loose, reddish, and prismatic crystals. There is a considerable quantity of it, but it is never found deeper than from one foot to a foot and a half; the deeper you go the less solid it becomes, and at a depth of one foot it becomes quite fluid, because the heat is so strong, and the ground penetrated by warm vapours to such a degree that it cannot attain any solidity; in fire it loses its red colour. In short, this earth goes through so many changes, partly through the greater or lesser degree of heat, partly through a greater or less abundance of acids and water, and through the admixture of foreign substances, that it can almost bewilder one.
The blue “bolus” is found everywhere beside the boiling springs, and some of them are filled with it in such quantities that they are like a pot full of thick gruel. When the “bolus” has become hard it cannot be melted by the blow-pipe, but, in its natural condition, it attracts vapours from the air, and forms very fine white crystals, and at a distance they look like hoar-frost. This seems to show that this kind of stone must be impregnated with calcareous earth which has been saturated with vitriolic acid. That it must be this kind of earth in a hardened state is seen both from its form and from the flowers of pyrites that are mixed with it; for when one breaks off a piece of these earths in their soft and half-solid condition, the broken pieces have the same form, and are also interspersed with pyrites.
The red “bolus” is always found on the surface of the ground like the white gypseous earth, and is never covered by a bed of another kind; it is never mixed with the water of the boiling springs; there is no sublimated sulphur where it is found, although the subterranean heat in some such places is quite as strong as where that process actually takes place.
Several hot springs are to be found here, and most of them contain the blue “bolus,” but one contains white earth. These springs often disappear in one place, and break out again in another place where no spring has been before; the probable cause is that the narrow pipes under the ground, through which the spring is supplied with water, fill up by degrees; the strong heat transforms the water into very elastic vapours, which break through the ground where they find the least resistance, and thus a new hot spring is formed.
On a hill between the southernmost hot spring, called the Bath-room, and the more northerly springs, a hardened “bolus” is found; it is so brittle that it can easily be broken between the fingers; it is porous, and its holes are filled with hardened lime. At first I assumed this “bolus” to be a kind of lava partly dissolved by the atmosphere and the slow heat rising from the ground; the lime I took for a kind of salt, which had been embedded in the lava, and let loose by its solution, and then settled down into the holes of the “bolus.” But, upon closer examination of the solid state of this lime, and, after having tested it by aquafortis, by which it was brought to a high state of effervescence, I saw plainly it must be lime. I had tried to dissolve it in water, but without success; if it had been a salt let loose by the dissolution of the molten lava, it must have been more loose and in a somewhat crystallised state. My idea is that the lime must have been sublimated by the hot vapours when the lava was already thrown out; then it subsided into the holes of the lava and became hard. When I compared this earth with the lava of other places where volcanoes had been, from which the lava had spread far and wide, without undergoing any perceptible change or dissolution, I saw that this could never have been a lava. Although the lava of volcanic mountains is often confounded with slag produced by burning of the ground, I saw that this had never been melted to real slag; and it seemed to me therefore probable, that it must be a kind of hardened clay. I did not, however, find anything to confirm my conjecture until I came to Mývatn, where I found specimens of it in a soft and crude state.
The loose sandstone (Palagonite) already mentioned, which is found besides the most northern hot springs, is there much finer than in other places; it is of a slaty structure, and between the plates gypsum is found, so one might almost take it for alum plates. On the top of the mountain another kind of sandstone (trachyte?) is found; it is a good deal harder and burnt; it looks like millstone rocks from the Rhine, yet it is more porous; it is in irregular heaps, and never makes a whole mountain, as if it had been thrown over by earthquakes.
Near the boiling springs, where the ground is loose and porous, but especially where the heat has free ventilation through the above-mentioned gypseous earth, the sulphur is to be found. At the bottom it is dissolved and mixed with acid vapours; and when the sublimation has taken place, it becomes fixed in the outermost crust where there is a colder bed; and here it is found either in the shape of crystals, powder, or flowers; it is never deeper than one, two, or three inches under the surface, according to the greater or lesser degree of heat, or the greater or lesser porosity of the earth which forms the uppermost bed, as the sulphur bed itself, when it is in the shape of powder, is never more than three to six inches; and when in a crystallised form, never thicker than two to two and a half-inch, and three inches at the very highest.
These mines are not many, and do not cover a large space of ground; there are indeed a few spots here and there where sulphur is sublimated, but these spots are very small. The most important as well as the largest are the two mines highest up in the mountain; one of them is 120 yards long, and from 16 to 20 yards broad; the other is from 140 to 160 yards long, and from 20 to 40 yards broad. In these two mines the finest and best sulphur is found in the largest quantities. The bed covering the sulphur contains a great deal more of acids than the layer immediately below it, because the hot acid vapours rising from the depths below must keep the lower bed permanently acid and damp; the surplus acids are driven up through the sulphur, and that portion of them which does not unite with the sulphur, comes to the uppermost crust, where it is dried by the combined efforts of the sun, the air, and the wind. Here the acids are therefore more concentrated, and consequently able to dissolve some portions of the gypseous earth with which it has become united; in this condition it makes a kind of flowers of alum, which, however, are partly vitriolic or blended with iron. I tried to examine the purity of this salt by dissolving it in water. When the water had been filtered it had a green colour; thereupon precipitated with alkali, it gave a white precipitate; and when this was separated from the water, the latter became after a while quite yellow, as if it had been coloured with iron rust. This salt cannot really be called alum unless we should call it lime-alum. Like alum it has a nauseous taste, but more pungent and almost caustic. When, after dissolution, it has become solid by evaporation, it is not nearly as close as alum, and no crystallisation can be perceived in it.
As the sulphur is sublimated in the manner above stated, and by condensation becomes fixed in the cold earth at the surface, it will be seen that the opinion is erroneous, that sulphur is generated in earth penetrated and made porous by the air. My instructions were to find out, by blasting the rocks, whether any traces of sulphur were to be found in them; but blasting was out of the question on account of the softness of the ground, the great heat, and the large quantity of hot vapours. The rocks must, moreover, be at a great depth, since all attempts to find them with the earth-borer, which was fifteen feet in length, proved unsuccessful.
Close to the mines on the south side heat is seen to have been in the mountain formerly. Here the same kinds of stone are found as at the hot spring, and the yellowish gypseous earth as well. By some cause or another the heat has been removed somewhere else. I was convinced that sulphur must be found here, as it might have been covered with earth after the heat left; but all my diggings, both with the earth-borer and otherwise, proved unsuccessful.
With the earth-borer I tried to ascertain the difference of the beds where sulphur is sublimated, and of those where it is not, and where only a slight heat is felt. The first experiment was made in the northernmost mine. Below the sulphur I found a one-foot thick bed of the white gypseous earth; then there was a bed of fine blue “bolus,” or an earth impregnated with flowers of pyrites here and there. In this bed the heat began to increase, and when I came to a depth of three feet the bed became a little harder, but, at the same time, warmer and coarser, as if it were mixed with gravel; and thus it continued to the depth of fourteen feet, when it became a little softer.
I examined another place where no considerable heat was felt. The white gypseous earth continued to the depth of a foot and a half; and in this place it was harder and more solid than where the heat had a free egress. Then came the blue earth; uppermost it was somewhat loose, but farther down it became so hard and close that the earth-borer could hardly penetrate it; the lower down the more it became mixed with pyrites, and was filled with gravel, as it were. At the depth of twelve to thirteen feet it became a little looser as I thought. It was the same kind of earth all the way through; the heat was intense.
The third place which I examined was at the most northern point, beside a small hot spring, thick with blue earth. Uppermost there was red “bolus” to the depth of one foot; then a bed of purple and a yellowish one, three feet thick; then a purple and bluish one, one foot thick. The heat increased with the depth; here the bed became very hard, and I found the blue earth impregnated with pyrites. This bed was ten feet deep; at this depth the heat was so intense that the water trickling down from the upper beds boiled violently, and prevented all further progress.
By these experiments I found that the conditions necessary for the sublimation of the sulphur are: Firstly, A sufficient quantity of water to keep the soil loose and porous, that the sulphur may pass through it, and to drive the sulphur vapours upwards. Secondly, That the water must come from below; for when it comes from above, it cannot penetrate through the blue bed in the absence of the rising hot vapours which keep the bed porous; and in that case the bed becomes harder and harder, and prevents the sublimation of the sulphur.
I tried in several places, both with the earth-borer and otherwise, to discover some of the so-called dead mines, but without success. From the many experiments I made, I concluded that the volcanic mountains of Iceland must have been sulphur mountains or sulphur mines in the beginning; the blue bed became hard, and the sulphur vapours were thus prevented from being sublimated. Thus they became more condensed, and, at the same time, more elastic in the ground; then there arose in them a “heat-forming movement,” by which the whole ground, which is very sulphureous, became violently shaken, and subsequently ignited, causing tremendous destruction.
Mývatn.
Fremri-námar.
At Húsavík I obtained horses and workmen from the sheriff, and left that place the 9th of August, and arrived the 12th in the evening at the so-called Fremri-námar. At a distance of about one mile from the mines, there is a valley called Hellaksdalur, where there is a little grass, just so much as to give the ground a green colour, and this is the only green spot that is to be found here within a distance of many miles; yet there was not grass sufficient for the horses, but I had to bring with me hay for them, and water for the men. In this valley I spent the night, and the next morning, the 13th, I went to the mines, which are about ten Icelandic miles (11 indirect, 40 geographical) south-east from Húsavík, situated on the west side of a mountain called Herðubreið. On the top of the mountain there is a ridge or an eminence, from which there is an extensive view; but as far as the eye can reach in every direction, nothing can be seen but lava. This eminence is 1500 paces long, and equally broad, and about 120 feet high. On the top of the eminence there is a deep hollow completely round, and about 200 paces in diameter. From its shape it is called by the inhabitants a kettle. The south and west sides of this eminence, as well as the hollow itself, consist of lava, and it may therefore be concluded that the mountain has been an active volcano in olden times. On the north and east side the mines are found, and where these are the mountain consists of gypseous earth like that at Krísuvík. A large quantity of sulphur is said to have been dug from the dead mines here; but now they are rarely found, because they have been worked annually, and the sulphur is not generated afresh in these as in the live ones. Thirty paces from the end of the valley, and also on the side of the mountain, the first live mines are found. In the valley they are about 60 paces long, and from 20 to 30 broad. On the side of the mountain they are 200 paces long, and from 20 to 30 broad. On the east side of the mountain, 40 paces lower than the mines above mentioned, other live mines are found 220 paces long, and 40 to 50 paces broad. From all these the sulphur has been completely cleared away, because the sulphur found here was very good and pure. The soil is moderately damp, and the sulphur has just as much water as (when converted into steam by the heat) is sufficient to raise it up, and to keep the ground in a loose and porous condition, so the sulphur can be sublimated through it without hindrance. Yet it does not make the soil too loose; in that case, small particles of earth would rise along with the sulphur, become mixed with it, and thus make it impure. In the mines, which, according to my guide’s information, had been completely cleared of sulphur, there was already a new bed of sulphur one to two inches in thickness, but very impure. There are others which formerly yielded sulphur, now quite cold, and ruined. The destruction of the mines, as well as the impurity of the sulphur, arises from careless digging. When the peasants dig the sulphur out of a mine, and particles of earth and impurities are sticking to it, they clear away the largest lumps; but they do not take care not to let the impurities fall down where they had taken the sulphur, where some flowers of sulphur always remain. For although the uppermost sulphur is tolerably compact and crystallised, the lowest is loose. The reason is that the uppermost bed is made more and more compact by the sulphur rising from below, and the acid phlegm surrounding the sulphur vapours cannot evaporate; the small sulphur particles are thus prevented from immediate contact with each other, but are enveloped in the superfluous phlegm. This is the reason why the lowermost sulphur must remain in the shape of flowers until the hard crust is removed; then the phlegm is exposed to the air and evaporates, until the surface has become hard again. It will therefore be seen, that when the impurities fall into these loose flowers, and the fine sulphur is subsequently sublimated among them, the impurities will be imbedded in the sulphur, and must be taken out with it at a second digging.
Another reason for the impurity of the sulphur is this, that a man, coming to a mine to see how the sulphur is, thrusts his spade into the ground in various places, without first carefully removing the upper earth, whereby the sulphur and the earth become mixed together. If he does not think the sulphur good or abundant enough to be dug out at that time, he leaves the mine thus disturbed; and the rising sulphur is sublimated among the disturbed lumps of earth and sulphur, and the whole becomes a compact mass; it often looks quite pure, but turns out altogether different at the refinery. Thus a single man may in one hour destroy a great many mines that might have been excellent if more carefully handled.
One more cause of the impurity of the sulphur may be found, I think, in the following circumstance. When the peasants come to a good mine they take out all the sulphur that is to be found there, and do not take care how they tread down the loose earth below the sulphur; the down-trodden earth, over which the wind sweeps freely, becomes tough and hard when the heat from below is not strong enough to break through it, and thus keep it porous; thus the mine becomes cold and useless. In other places where the heat is strong enough to force the steam through the trodden earth, there is, however, this disadvantage: Firstly, It takes a longer time for the sulphur to arrive at a state of perfect sublimation than if the earth had remained in its porous condition. Secondly, The fresh sublimation will be impure. When one steps into the loose earth, deep holes, separated by thin ridges, will be formed. When the sulphur is formed in these holes, covering the ridges as well, it is evident that all these ridges must come out with the sulphur at a subsequent digging.
Those that work the mines must therefore be ordered: Firstly, To remove the earth before they dig up any mine, so that nothing shall fall into the sulphur. Secondly, When they remove lumps of earth from the sulphur, they must carry them outside the mine. Thirdly, When they work a mine, they must first remove the uppermost earth; they must not completely empty any mine of its sulphur: they should leave the utmost border standing; then run a trench along the whole length of the mine, then leave a ridge standing, and run another trench, and so on until they have reached the utmost border, which they are to leave standing. Thus the wind will be prevented from having a full sweep of the mine, and thus making it cold. These trenches ought therefore to run across the course of the most frequent winds; these are here, in my opinion, a north-wester and south-easter. After one year the ridges left standing might be taken with the same precaution as mentioned above. The workmen ought therefore to be as much as possible prohibited from stepping into the mines; every digger should take with him a board to stand on while he digs, and this he should move with him as he proceeds. By these means the mines might be saved from being unequally trodden down, and the digger might escape from burning his feet, which he now frequently does, by sinking through the loose and hot soil.
On the east side of the mountain, below the above-mentioned mines, a red “bolus” begins, stretching round the mountain from south to north until it meets with a sandstone mountain; between the mountain and this ridge of “bolus” there is a little sulphur mine, and here the gypseous earth is found below the sulphur as usual. Digging up the real “bolus,” I found it to be very loose and soft; it was full of holes, like the hardened one at Krísuvík, and the holes were filled with lime, very loose and gelatinous, and slimy to the touch. Under the “bolus” the earth was in many places hollow, and one hardly dared to tread there. Very hot vapours arise from the bottom, by which these earths are sublimated, for it is quite as hot here as in the sulphur mines. This is a very interesting circumstance, and well worth observing, that there are two places lying side by side, and presenting such a difference in the stuffs driven up from the bottom by the heat, which is equally great in both places. In one, however, sulphur is sublimated along with a strong acid, and in the other the above said lime is sublimated, and not the least acid is found in it.
Hliðar-námar.
The 15th I went to the so-called Hliðar-námar, which are about eighteen miles distant from the former ones. These are the largest of all the mines, and here too is the greatest heat; the sulphur is consequently sublimated in less time than in any of the others. At present there is a large quantity of sulphur here, but it is all in powder, or in the form of flowers; most of them are found in the mountains, as in the former places; and the sulphur bed is in many places six inches and more in thickness. The reason why the heat drives up greater quantities of sulphur here than in the former places is to be found in the looseness of the soil; it is not only much looser than in the former ones, but in some places even too loose and damp, which both makes the spot difficult to approach in order to dig, and fills the sulphur with earth and impurities, so as to make it useless. The reason why these mines are in such a good condition now is, that the sulphur brought from here to the refinery was not so well received as that which came from the Fremri-námar, or the so-called Theystarreykja-námar nearest to Húsavík. I admit that the sulphur found here is more mixed with earth and acids than in the other places; not, however, in such a degree as to offer any serious difficulties. But as the whole of the sulphur is in the form of flowers, and the earth immediately below it has nearly the same appearance, and cannot therefore be easily distinguished from the sulphur, the peasants do not, therefore, I think, separate the sulphur from the earth with as much care as where it is found in a more solid condition, and where the earth is more easily detected.
The mountain where these mines are situated stretches from north to south, and on the north side it goes a considerable distance beyond the mines. The same kinds of earth are found here as at Krísuvík, except the grey slate, of which there is none here, neither are there any variations in the gypseous earth; and very little of gypsum is to be found, which probably is owing to the higher degree of heat, or it may be because the heat has less interrupted egress, and consequently keeps the earth constantly porous. There is a larger quantity of the vitriolic alum. For the rest, the mountain consists of common sandstone. That even these mines have not been worked carefully is evident from the considerable number of ruined and cold mines.
Below the sulphur mountain on the east side there are three boiling springs; it is evident that the two farthest to the south, and situated close to each other, have been produced by an earthquake, because they are found in a rift in the mountain, and boil with such awful noise, especially the most southern one, that it can be heard 200 yards off, and the ground, which consists of bluish “bolus,” is shaken. Close to these hot springs is a large lava-tract, which spreads to the north to a considerable distance; it also winds round the southern point of the mountain, and crosses the path that leads to Fremri-námar, and spreads almost down to Reykjahlið. The ground is hot everywhere, and the hot vapours rise through the lava, and the whole is therefore continually steaming. About nine miles north of these mines is the mountain Krabla, where excellent mines are said to have been, but when the eruption of 1724 took place, it caused great destruction. One branch of the lava-stream coming from this mountain passed close by the mines on the west side and through the farm of Reykjahlið, the whole of which was destroyed, and at last the current flowed into the lake Mývatn. The lava thus produced was in various places hollow, as if the uppermost crust had been hardened by the air, and the still liquid lava which was under it flowed away. As the outmost crust cooled down by degrees, it contracted, and thus rifts were formed; in some places also it was not strong enough to support its own weight, and fell down. Crawling into these caves, I found a kind of salt which had been sublimated from the earth, and become fixed there. It had a bitter taste, and after being dissolved and dried again it formed square crystals, with a square point. It was easily melted by the blow-pipe.
Theystarreykja Mines.
The 31st of August I came to the Theystarreykja mines, which are about two miles from the refinery. A large quantity of sulphur is said to have been brought from these mines to the refinery, as they were very important ones, but now they are almost all cold, and it is only in a few of them that sufficient heat is found. Therefore, although four years are said to have passed since sulphur was taken herefrom, there are only four or five where it might be taken again. Nevertheless the heat seems in some of the cold mines to be breaking through so far that the vitriolic acid can be sublimated through the ground, as it has in combination with the dissolved lime formed the above-mentioned vitriolic salt. It is therefore to be hoped that many of these ruined mines may recover after a time, yet this is not certain. Here is again a clear instance of how the very best mines may be ruined in a short time by careless treatment. If, therefore, the still remaining mines, either here or in other places, are to be preserved, the peasants must be prevented from digging the sulphur.
The home-field of Theystarreykir is good though small, and has a fine situation; and to the north there is a large piece of uncultivated ground which might be made useful. Close to the farm is a hill called Bæarfell, where some of the mines are situated. It begins on the south side of the most southern mines, and continues in a northerly direction, then it takes a turn to the east and then again to the north. In the corner between the eastern and southern arms of the Bæarfell the best mines are found at present. There have been a great number of mines on the west side of the mountain, but these are now cold, except a few in the middle, where the earth is tolerably loose, and the heat can therefore sublimate the sulphur. Those, however, that are on the east side of the hill are quite cold, except two small ones high up in the hill, but there is sufficient heat in all these mines; and I am therefore of opinion that sulphur may be sublimated in them for the future. Some of the western ones are also found to be considerably hot, and it may therefore be expected that these ruined mines may recover in time. On the west side of these mines there is a large tract of lava. On the north side of the Bæarfell the home-field begins, and north of that again a piece of uncultivated ground; when beyond that, the lava reappears and takes an easterly turn. On the top of the Bæarfell there is a great deal of red “bolus,” and a strong heat under it. But sulphur is never sublimated with or through the red “bolus,” therefore it is not found here. Very little of gypsum is found in these mines. The warm springs are neither deep nor very hot, and the minerals are either sandstone, or hardened like those at Krísuvík.
All the sulphur mines which I visited in the north are in the following condition: Fremri-námar bad, because all the sulphur was taken away last year. Hliðar-námar good, because they have been saved the most. Theystarreykja-námar are worst, because the largest quantity has been taken from them. My advice is, therefore, to let Fremri-námar and Theystarreykja-námar rest for some time, and to work the Hliðar-námar only. When these have been emptied, the former two may be worked in their turn.
The Refining of the Sulphur.
The refinery is situated a few hundred paces from the factory of Húsavík, and consists of a sulphur hut; two store-houses, one for the raw sulphur, the other for the melted, or refined ore; a dwelling-house, with kitchen and outhouses, all built of turf according to the Icelandic fashion. The hut is about 20 feet long and 12 to 14 feet broad. In the middle of it is a small chimney, and on both sides of it two iron boilers are walled in; one is quite small, and holds only 1 cwt. of melted sulphur, the other holds 3 cwts.; the smaller one is very little used. Above the boiler a small board is inserted in the chimney, which reaches over the middle of the boiler; it has a hole at one end, through which a stick is put to stir up the sulphur; when its lowermost end reaches the bottom of the boiler, the uppermost is supported by the board, and he who stirs the sulphur can therefore move the stick more easily than if its upper end were loose. The other instruments are, an iron spade with holes, which is used for taking off the impurities floating on the molten sulphur. Then there are some wooden forms, into which the molten sulphur is poured. They are made of oak planks 3 inches thick, 12 inches broad, and 3 feet long. On one side of the two outermost planks, and on both sides of the two middle ones, three cylinder-shaped grooves are made, so that every half-cylinder groove of the two outermost corresponds with those on the middle ones, and those on the middle ones with each other. The planks are laid one on the top of the other, and kept together with an iron ring; in such a form nine bars can be made at the same time. A small iron sieve with narrow holes is put in the top of each hole, through which the sulphur is sifted when poured out from the boiler with a large iron ladle. When not used the forms are put into a tank filled with water, in order that the hot sulphur may not stick to the sides of the holes. This is completely prevented by soaking the forms in water. These are all the instruments used in the refining of the sulphur. The fuel used is some little wood sent by the Government, and for the rest peat, of which there is a good supply close by.
When the sulphur is to be purified, a slow fire is made under the boiler, and when it grows hot a small quantity, about two pounds, of raw sulphur is put in; this is stirred till it becomes hot; the fire must be slow, in order not to burn the sulphur, which might easily happen on account of the quantity of earth mixed with it. When the portion is quite dry and begins to melt, a little train-oil is poured in and stirred quickly, by which the earth unites with the oil, and floats on the top. As soon as this is melted, another portion of raw sulphur is put in; and when this is melted, another portion of oil, if required: this is easily seen; if the earth absorbed by the oil falls to pieces like ashes, it falls again into the sulphur, and oil must be poured in immediately. Thus the work is continued until the boiler is full. When the boiler is nearly filled with molten sulphur, a quantity of train-oil is poured on the top of it, and heated sufficiently. Then the fire is removed and the stirring discontinued. The impurities absorbed by the oil are removed with the iron spade described above. The forms are taken out of the water, put together, and raised on one end. The iron sieve described above is placed over the first form, and the sulphur poured over it from the boiler. When it is full the sieve is placed over the second one, then over the third, and so on.
SECTION II.
The next account that we have of the Krísuvík diggings will be found in the following extracts from “Travels in the Island of Iceland during the Summer of the Year 1810,” by Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, Bart., etc., etc., second edition, 1812.
Pp. 113, 114.—We set out towards the Sulphur Mountain, which is about three miles distant from Krisuvik. At the foot of the mountain was a small bank, composed chiefly of white clay and some sulphur, from all parts of which steam issued. Ascending it, we got upon a ridge immediately above a deep hollow, from which a profusion of vapour arose, and heard a confused noise of boiling and splashing, joined to the roar of steam escaping from narrow crevices in the rock. This hollow, together with the whole side of the mountain opposite, as far up as we could see, was covered with sulphur and clay, chiefly of a white or yellowish colour. Walking over this soft and steaming surface we found to be very hazardous, and we were frequently very uneasy when the vapour concealed us from each other. The day, however, being dry and warm, the surface was not so slippery as to occasion much risk of our falling. The chance of the crust of sulphur breaking, or the clay sinking with us, was great; and we were several times in danger of being much scalded. Mr Bright ran at one time a great hazard, and suffered considerable pain from accidentally plunging one of his legs into the hot clay. From whatever spot the sulphur is removed, steam instantly escapes; and, in many places, the sulphur was so hot that we could scarcely handle it. From the smell we perceived that the steam was mixed with a small quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. When the thermometer was sunk a few inches into the clay it rose generally to within a few degrees of the boiling point....
Pp. 115, 116.—At the foot of the hill, in a hollow formed by a bank of clay and sulphur, steam rushed with great force and noise from among the loose fragments of rock.
Farther up the mountain we met with a spring of cold water, a circumstance little expected in a place like this. Ascending still higher, we came to a ridge composed entirely of sulphur and clay, joining two summits of the mountain. Here we found a much greater quantity of sulphur than on any other part of the surface we had gone over. It formed a smooth crust from a quarter of an inch to several inches in thickness. The crust was beautifully crystallised, and immediately beneath it we found a quantity of loose granular sulphur, which appeared to be collecting and crystallising as it was sublimed along with the steam. Sometimes we met with clay of different colours, white, red, and blue, under the crust; but we could not examine this place to any depth, as the moment the crust was removed steam came forth, and proved extremely annoying. We found several pieces of wood, which were probably the remains of planks that had been formerly used in collecting the sulphur, small crystals of which partially covered them. There appears to be a constant sublimation of this substance; and were artificial chambers constructed for the reception and condensation of the vapours, much of it might probably be collected. As it is, there is a large quantity on the surface; and, by searching, there is little doubt that great stores may be found. The inconvenience proceeding from the steam issuing on every side, and from the heat, is certainly considerable; but, by proper precautions, neither would be felt so much as to render the collection of the sulphur a matter of any great difficulty. The chief obstacle to working these mines is their distance from a port whence the produce could be shipped. But there are so many horses in the country, whose original price is trifling, and whose maintenance during the summer costs nothing, that the conveyance of sulphur to Reikiavik presents no difficulties which might not probably be surmounted.
Below the ridge on the farther side of this great bed of sulphur we saw a great deal of vapour escaping with much noise.
SECTION III.
Mr Consul Crowe’s Report (1871-72) supplies the following notices of mineral prospects in Iceland:
Mineral deposits, showing the presence of copper, iron, lead, and silver, are found in many parts of the island, but either from their poorness or the want of fuel, no attempt has been made to utilise them. Calcareous stone, marbles(?), and feldspath are also found; and large deposits of sulphur likewise exist in some districts, which at different times have been the object of commercial speculation. The sulphur mines at Krisuvik, in the south, are at present worked for foreign account, but, I believe, owing to their partial inaccessibility, and difficulty of transport, without much success.
The right of working sulphur mines at Myvatn, in the northern portion of the island, has recently been conceded by the Danish Government to an Englishman on a fifty years’ lease. They were worked some years ago for account of a Copenhagen house, but were abandoned in 1851, since which time they have remained closed. Many causes contributed to this result; the chief of which, doubtless, were, ignorance of the proper method of mining the sulphur, the cost of transport on horseback to the sea-board, and the want of remunerative demand.
Since then these conditions have changed, and there exists no reason why these mines should not be worked profitably. They extend over a large tract of country, and their position is most advantageous, in the midst of a flat country, within an easy distance of Husavik, a convenient shipping port; and, during the many years they have been closed, the deposits must have very greatly accumulated, and should yield abundantly. Indeed, so strong was this conviction in the minds of the natives that they long opposed the leasing except on very onerous terms, although quite unable themselves to work them.
As these mines are now likely to remain in English hands for many years, a short account of their former history may be read with some interest.
They are situated between 65° 20´ north latitude and the Arctic Sea, or more definitely speaking, lying in the tract between Myvatn on the east, and Jökulsá (glacier river) on the west.
The right of working them was bought from private owners by the Danish king, Frederick the Second, in 1563, and this right has ever since been in the possession of the Danish Crown (now the State). During the reign of this king a considerable quantity of sulphur was extracted, amounting to as much as 400 tons annually. In the reign of his son and successor, Christian the Fourth, the produce appears to have fallen off, and his Majesty was unsuccessful in his endeavours to lease them to foreigners. To the falling-off of their supply of sulphur in this reign, and the consequent scarcity of gunpowder, the Danes attribute their defeat by the Swedes in Holstein (1644).
In 1665 we are informed that the Crown granted a concession for “digging sulphur” to a foreigner, who is stated to have exported large quantities up to the year 1676; since which date no special mention appears to have been made of them until the early part of the eighteenth century, when two foreigners, apparently Germans, acquired in 1724 the right of exporting sulphur from Iceland. They also shipped considerable quantities during the succeeding five years, when the death of the lessees put a stop to this commerce.
After this date, and up to the beginning of the present century, the Danish Government worked the mines for their own account, at times, it appears, with considerable profit, until 1806, when they were again leased to a foreigner. Subsequently, they have at times been worked by private speculators up to 1851, since which date, as already mentioned, they have remained untouched.
In 1840 they were visited by some scientific travellers, who calculated that these northern mines might easily yield an annual net profit of £1000 or £1200. Ten years later they were specially examined by a Danish mineralogist, who discredited this statement, and reported them to be less valuable;[177] but in speaking of the Krisuvik mines in the south, he says, “These might be easily made to yield 200 tons annually,” and yet they have always been considered inferior to the northern mines. A French geologist, Eugène Robert, who visited Iceland in 1835, and afterwards published a treatise on its geology, calls the attention of the Danes to the value of the Myvatn mines, and advises them not to lease them to the Englishmen (who were then applying for them), as the property might become of great consequence in the event of the sulphur mines of Sicily falling off, of which, he affirmed, symptoms had shown themselves.
It will thus be seen that opinions are divided as to the productiveness and present richness of these mines; but so much is certain, that they have for several centuries been worked at intervals with varying results; at times with considerable profit: the history of the country, and the experience of so many years, point to the conclusion that, if properly worked, they would become valuable property.
The mines, for instance, at Reykjahlidar-námar are the richest to be found in all Iceland, and produce large quantities of the purest sulphur.
The reproduction is incessantly going on from upwards of a thousand small eminences, called solfataras, which are found on the ridge along the sides and at the foot of Námarfjall. Rich sulphur deposits are also found at the Ketill Crater (called Fremri-námar), while the least rich are the Krafla-námar, but at all these there is a continual deposition of sulphur going on. They all have the great advantage of lying in the track of one of the few practicable roads in the island, leading to an accessible shipping port.
SECTION IV.
Hôtel de la Ville (Au Troisième), Trieste,
16th February 1873.
The following are the notes which I made, for the use of Mr Lock, upon Mr Vincent’s able and instructive paper.
“Holding sulphur-export to be the most legitimate trade in which Iceland can engage, I rejoice to see the paper by Mr C. W. Vincent, F.C.E.
“The writer’s theory upon the formation of the mineral, by the by, the action of water upon pyrites, is not new, nor am I certain that it is true: perhaps it may be provisionally accepted, until we have a better. He has done good service to students by noticing the similarity of the Icelandic diggings with those of Central Sicily and of the Yellowstone River sources. On the other hand, after actual inspection of the Icelandic sulphur mines, I must differ upon many details with Mr Vincent, who has derived his information from hearsay. He nowhere notices the interesting combination of the Palagonitic groundwork of the island with lavas of modern date, which seems to me a constant feature of these solfataras. The venerable Sir Henry Holland recorded in 1810, that the Krísuvík formation occupied high ground ‘composed principally of the conglomerate or volcanic tufa which has before been noticed:’ this palpable reference to Palagonite has not been worked out as it deserved to be. The ‘vivid word-pictures’ of older travellers are either written in the fine style of former days, or the subjects of description have lost youth and vigour. The ‘tremendous proofs of what is going on beneath us’ are now, or have become, phenomena on a very mild scale; while the ‘thundering noises’ which ‘stunned the ears’ of a former generation, have learned to ‘roar gently,’ and to avoid shaking weak nerves.
“As regards the authorities quoted, I may notice Commander (now Admiral Sir) J. E. Commerell, who in the Vincent lecture appears enthusiastic upon the capabilities of the Krísuvík mines. But that able officer’s more dubious views do not come forth: he expressly states in the same report that ‘a tramway might also be laid down; but, as there are two hills to cross, with other difficulties, I could not positively state whether this were possible or not.’ Mr Seymour (fils) has spent many months in Iceland, but that does not mean Krísuvík. Captain Forbes is also quoted, although it is well known that my friend has not a high opinion of the south-western solfatara, and the sketch of travel over that part of Iceland given in his lively volume (p. 103) suggests anything but facility of transit. When a tramway has to cross a hill-range, and a lava-tract some twelve indirect miles broad, we already expect difficulties. Here, however, I must confess not to have seen the plan and estimates drawn up by Messrs Shields and Gale, who set out for Krísuvík a few days before my departure from Iceland.
“Also Mr Vincent appears to extend the solfatara district of Krísuvík over a space of twenty-five miles, along a fancied volcanic diagonal. This may be the case, but on July 9-10 Mr Chapman and I rode from ‘Krísa’s Bay’ eastward to the Reykir, alias the ‘Little Geysir,’ and, although we looked curiously for the enormous area theoretically assigned to the sulphur formation, we failed to see any sign of it. Our path ran over the normal quaking bogs, over large spills of modern lava poured down the walls of the high interior plateau, and occasionally over a strip of sea-sand. The apparently indispensable Palagonite was also missing till near the end of the second march. Gunnlaugsson’s and Olsen’s large map of Iceland, hereabouts so minute in all its details, does not show a single hot spring between Krísuvík and Reykir; on the contrary, all is coloured red-yellow, as a Hraun (lava-tract). Even the ‘western mine’ of Krísuvík has been described to me by authorities who know the country well, as containing very little sulphur; and a passing visit induces me to believe them.
“All these are minor objections to Mr Vincent’s paper. But when speaking of, or rather alluding to, your concession, he has fallen into grievous error. If he has studied the subject, he simply misrepresents it; if not, he should have avoided all depreciatory notice of the Mý-vatn mines.
“And now for the proofs.
“I read (p. 137) with unpleasant surprise, ‘a violent eruption of the mud-volcano Krabla to a great extent buried the then active strata beneath enormous masses of volcanic mud and ashes, so that the energy has been probably transferred along the line’ (viz., the great volcanic diagonal stretching, or supposed to stretch, from Cape Reykjanes to the Mý-vatn lake) ‘southwards,’ that is to say, to Krísuvík.
“Without dwelling upon the fact that Mr Vincent’s theory about the local production of sulphur renders such ‘transfer of energy’ impossible, I remark that, firstly, the Hlíðarnámar, the nearest deposits of the Mý-vatn sulphur, are at least two miles removed from the extremest influence of Krafla, whilst the Fremrinámar are four times that distance, and the latter are situated upon a much higher plane. To those who have breathed the live sulphur tainting the air for mile after mile, this ‘transfer of energy’ becomes a mere matter of fancy. Secondly, on the very flank of Krafla, the hollow called Great Hell (Helvíti Stærra) shows an abundance of sulphur, which extends right across the valley westwards to Leirhnúkr (mud knoll). In this small section of your concession Gunnlaugsson gives no less than seven Hverar (boiling springs) lying close together. I need hardly pursue this part of the subject: to one who has seen the country the assertion that any eruption from Krafla has effected either the Hlíðar or the Fremri diggings appears inconceivable. Suffice it to say that your six square miles of live sulphur contrast wonderfully well with the two at the south-western end of the island. Krafla alone contains as many solfataras, boiling springs, and ‘makkalubers’ (mud caldrons), as exist in the whole district of Krísuvík, and Krafla is only a part, a very small part also, of the north-eastern deposits.
“Again I see with astonishment (p. 143), that ‘the sulphur at Myvatn, though great in quantity, is at too great a distance from the port of embarkation to permit its extraction being carried on with any chance of competing with that from the Krisuvik mines.’
“It is true that your concession lies some twenty-five direct geographical miles from Húsavík, the nearest available port, whilst those of Krísuvík are only ten distant from Hafnafjörð. But a simple statement of this kind is fallacious, because it conveys the wrong impression. It is known to every Icelander that the northern line is one of the best, the southern one of the worst, if not the worst, in the island. The Húsavík road has the immense advantage of an easy and regular incline from 900 feet high to sea-level, and in the depths of a protracted winter your sledges can always carry down the material dug up during the long summer days. There is nothing to prevent your having your tramway, when such expensive article becomes advisable.
“You are at liberty to make any use you please of these short and hurried notes. Pray understand that my object is by no means to disparage the sulphur mines of Krísuvík; on the contrary, I hope soon to see a company formed, and a stout-hearted attempt made to benefit both the island and ourselves. M. Robert’s opinion upon the capability of Iceland generally to supply an article which every year grows in request, and his truly Gallican horror of the trade falling into English hands, are too well known, and have too often been quoted, to justify repetition. But I can truthfully say, that the Mý-vatn concession will be found preferable to that of Krísuvík, and I regret that Mr Vincent has adopted, without personal acquaintance with Iceland, information which seems to come from suspected sources.
“Why do you not render justice to the Mý-vatn mines by a lecture, with the assistance of maps, plans, and other requisites? Mr Vincent, I see, proposes to continue writing upon the highly interesting sulphur supply of Iceland: pray remember that in these wild solitudes I am wholly dependent upon the piety of my friends and the pity of those who remember me.
“Ever yours truly,
“Richard F. Burton, F.R.G.S.
“Alfred G. Lock, Esq.”
SECTION V.
Sulphur in Iceland. By C. Carter Blake, Doc. Sci., Hon. For. Sec. Lond. Anth. Soc. London: E. & F. N. Spon, 48 Charing Cross. 1873.
The fact that sulphur, one of the most useful substances known, and, in the words of Mr Crookes, “the mainstay of present industrial chemistry,” has been an article of commerce throughout all time, and that a ready market has always existed for it, is familiar to all. Like the famous electrum of the ancients, its origin has been comparatively unknown. We shall briefly consider the conditions under which sulphur is found; its geographical distribution over the face of the globe; the method of its preparation for the market, and the circumstances which may lead capitalists to seek for the productive mineral at a shorter distance from our own shores than the Mediterranean or Mexico.
Sulphur is a simple, inflammable, brittle substance, of which all the forms found native belong to the rhombic or trimetric system, and are more or less modified rhombic pyramids. These crystals could not be formed at temperatures approaching that of boiling water, or be exposed to such a temperature without alteration; crystals of native sulphur must therefore have been formed at ordinary temperatures. Sulphur does not occur anywhere in sufficient quantity to constitute a rock, but is widely disseminated throughout rocks of different ages, either implanted in crystals, in small beds, nests and nodules in a pulverulent condition, as a coating, as in some lavas, or as a cement of decomposed trachyte. Dr Sullivan has said:[178]
“In volcanic regions the deposition of sulphur may result from two causes: 1st, the action of oxygen on damp sulphide of hydrogen gas, or on solutions of the gas; and 2d, the mutual decomposition of sulphide of hydrogen, H2S, and sulphurous anhydride, S2O. If the former be in excess, water and sulphur appear to be formed; if the latter be in excess, pentathionic acid, H2S5O6, and water are formed; the pentathionic acid is gradually decomposed into sulphur and sulphuric acid, which produce sulphates. In connection with this reaction, it may be observed that several sulphates are associated with the sulphur found in districts where the sulphur is formed from gases escaping through fissures. Old craters having such active fissures called fumaroles, are termed solfaterras.”
So important an influence does the price of sulphur exercise upon the cost of production of bleached and printed cotton stuffs, soap, glass, and other valuable manufactures of this country,[179] that it was the express subject of a commercial treaty, and in 1838 the British Government took very decided steps to put an end to a monopoly attempted to be established in it by the Sicilian Government.
That the present supply of sulphur is inadequate to the demand is proved by its high price, by the use of pyrites as a substitute, and by the inquiries recently made by the British Government as to its existence in Mexico. That the already large demand for this important substance must increase is quite evident when we consider the purposes to which it is applied.
Gunpowder.—Sulphur enters into the composition of this important article in proportions ranging from 10 to 20 per cent., according to whether the powder is required for war, sporting, or blasting purposes.[180] When we consider the vast quantity required by the gigantic armaments now maintained in every civilised country, as well as by the numerous mining and engineering operations at present in existence throughout the world (in which it is indispensable for blasting), we can form some idea of the immense amount of sulphur annually consumed in the manufacture of gunpowder alone.
Sulphuric Acid.—One of the most important chemical agents required in the arts and manufactures, is used very extensively for making soda-ash for bleaching linen, woollens, etc., straw, etc.,[181] manure making, and for a variety of chemical productions; also for refining metals.[182]
Soda-ash (alkali) is obtained from common salt by means of concentrated sulphuric acid. It is used instead of barilla for soap-making, as a substitute for pot and pearl ashes in glass-making; for cleaning and bleaching; and, in the form of carbonate, for medicinal and domestic purposes. In the year 1862 the enormous quantity of from 100,000 to 120,000 tons of the former, and from 25,000 to 30,000 tons of the latter, was made in Great Britain alone.[183] That quantity is now vastly increased.[184]
Manures.—A great consumption of sulphuric acid has of late years taken place for agricultural purposes,[185] viz., in the preparation of superphosphate of lime, the most active manure for turnips, grass, and cereals.
Oïdium.—Within the last few years it has been discovered that the use of flowers of sulphur, containing traces of sulphuric and sulphurous acid, and of carburetted hydrogen, is a protection against the vine disease—oïdium. Although no reliable information exists as to the exact quantity used for this purpose, yet it is known to be very considerable.
Flowers of sulphur have recently been strongly recommended as a remedy for the potato disease.[186]
Such are a few of the principal objects to which sulphur is devoted, and for which it is needed; thereby proving most conclusively that THE CONSUMPTION IS ONLY LIMITED BY THE SUPPLY.
Sulphur is found in Corfu, the neighbourhood of Rome, Transylvania, Spain, the clear or borax lake in California, the slopes of the Popocatepetl, in the province of Puebla, Mexico; in Montana, North America, and in the Andaman and the Japanese islands. Supply from these sources is practically impossible, and the whole supply of sulphur to Europe and America is derived from the Sicilian sulphur-deposits, the imports of which into this country arose from 16,686 tons in 1842 to 58,204 tons in 1859,[187] and over 75,000 tons in 1862;[188] and in France, from 6668 tons in 1820 to 33,361 tons in 1855.
Sulphur is found either (a) in a pure native state, (b) as gas, or (c) in mechanical admixtures with clays or other earths. The method of extraction of sulphur when mechanically combined with foreign substances is thus described in Richardson and Watts’ “Chemical Technology,” vol. i., part iii, p. 314:
“It has already been noticed that the deposits of sulphur are always associated with various mineral or earthy matters, and three processes are followed to separate the principal part of these impurities, which generally amount to more than one-half of the entire weight of the deposit.
“When the deposit is rich in sulphur it is melted in a cast-iron pot, heated by an open fire. The melted mass is stirred with an iron rake to facilitate the separation of the earthy matters, which are allowed to fall to the bottom. The liquid sulphur is then removed by a ladle, thrown into an iron vessel, and allowed to solidify. The temperature ought to vary between 250° and 300° Fahr., and never reach 480°, at which point the sulphur would take fire. The residue which remains, and contains more or less sulphur, is removed, and may be treated by either of the following plans:
“A small blast furnace, constructed of fire-brick or stone, is charged with the sulphur-stone at the bottom, which is ignited, and fresh charges of the sulphur-stone are thrown in from time to time. The working holes at the sides admit a small supply of air to support combustion on the surface, by which means sufficient heat is generated to melt the sulphur, which runs off at the bottom through a pipe into an iron pot, where it solidifies.
“The third plan is suitable for treating the impure sulphur-stone, containing from 8 to 12 per cent, of sulphur. It consists of a furnace sufficiently wide to receive two rows of earthen pots—the vessels for distillation—which are arranged in pairs somewhat raised above the sole of the furnace, upon the supports so that the necks of the pots are a little above the top of the furnace. Thus the mouths of the pots are free, and having been charged from without, they are closed by the lids, cemented on, and the distillation begins. The sulphur vapours pass over by the lateral tubes to the receivers, where they condense to liquid sulphur, which flows through into a vessel filled with water, and there solidifies.”
We have indicated the three conditions under which sulphur is found. The sulphur in a gaseous state in Iceland, where, besides the large and rapid deposit of the sulphur in and upon the ground, an immense quantity escapes in the sulphureous vapour, is now entirely wasted, but with the adoption of the improved Mexican process an enormous saving would result. Now the whole of this may be recovered by condensing these vapours in clay vessels, a method practised with great success in Mexico, where in certain places the fumes escape from the soil and can be utilised only in this manner. The sulphur thus obtained is required at the mint of the city of Mexico and at the assaying works.
Sulphur is an essential product of volcanic action: now Iceland is par excellence the spot of the world where volcanic action is at its maximum, and Iceland, as a consequence, is the spot where sulphur is found most extensively. The districts round the active volcanoes of Etna, in Sicily, and Vesuvius, near Naples, supply the whole amount of sulphur now used. In seeking, then, for a new source of this commodity, we should naturally turn our attention to a volcanic district. And where in the whole world does there exist another country so pre-eminently volcanic as Iceland? Its fearful lava-tracts, its vast plains of scoriæ, volcanic dust and ashes, its pools of boiling water, its spouting geysirs, its vast caldrons of seething mud, proclaim its volcanic origin. It owes its upheaval wholly to volcanic agency, and is composed almost entirely of igneous rocks.
While these pages are passing through the press, the volcanic force has broken out in Iceland, and Skaptar Jökull burst into eruption for four days in the month of January last.
The wildest theories have been uttered respecting the modes of origin of sulphur. An inquirer, who investigated the southern Icelandic mines in a superficial manner, has thrown out a theory that the sulphur derived from Krísuvík, and other southern localities, has been produced by the action of water on the sulphurets of iron contained in the rocks. This idea, which rivalled some of the speculations of De Luc, was expressed by him in a paper read before the Society of Arts, on the 15th January 1873. The notion was, that the hidden fires of Iceland dwell in the crust of the earth, and not in its interior; that the boiling springs and mud-caldrons certainly do not derive their heat from the depths of our globe, but that the fire which nourishes them is to be found frequently at only a few feet below the surface, in fermenting matters which are deposited in certain strata! How far this theory is probable may be estimated when we glance at the converse hypothesis, which we must impress upon our readers. The lava at Myvatn is only a few feet, or at most, a few yards, thick; this is clearly shown by the fact that the gaseous vapour escapes from innumerable holes in the lava lying between the mines and the lake. The stoppage of an outlet for the upward flow of the gas has caused the outbreak of the fluid at spots far distant from the original central “crater” of the sulphur volcano. The geology of Mr Vincent is decidedly vague.
That a great volcanic diagonal line stretches from Cape Reykjanes to the lake of Myvatn, is a theory which is unproven by topographical science, and which a glance at the map, which shows the elevated hills of Lángjökull, Hofsjökull, and Vatnajökull extending across this imaginary line, is sufficient to disprove. The relative elevations of the mountains, from Snæfell on the east, to Eyjafjallajökull on the west, seem to indicate that the central line of volcanic action has been along a line parallel with the south-south-east coast, and which has left the formations in the neighbourhood of Lake Myvatn, with the small volcanic chain of Sellandafjall, Bláfjall, Hvannfell, and Búrfell, entirely to the north. The abrupt escarpment of the greater chain lies along its south-eastern strike, and the fissures along which the parallel rivers from the Jökuldalr to the Hrútafjörðará flow are, according to a well-known geological law, produced on the less inclined slopes. Whilst Mr Vincent’s theoretical geology verges on the speculative, his assertion of known geographical facts is inexact.
In 1857, when the temporary cessation of war by England led the British Government to look for fresh sources of gunpowder supply for Europe, Captain J. E. Commerell, of H.M.S. “Snake,” was sent to Iceland by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to report upon the capabilities of the mines of Krísuvík and Húsavik. He found the Krísuvík mines, though comparatively close to the sea, did not possess a safe port of debarkation nearer than Hafnarfjörðr. An ex parte statement of the “objects, pleasures, and advantages” of the “truly eligible” Krísuvík sulphur mines leaves itself open to severe criticism, and the opinion of Commander Commerell that “the sulphur at Myvatn, though great in quantity, is at too great a distance from a port of embarkation to permit its extraction being carried on with any chance of competing with that from the Krísuvík mines,” may be profitably contrasted with that of A. de Capel Crowe, Esq., H.B.M.’s Consul in Copenhagen.[189]
Consul Crowe’s remarks as to the richness of these deposits are corroborated by Commander Commerell himself, who says in his report:
“I found at Námarfiall, which lies about six miles to the east of Lake Myvatn, large beds of sulphur in a very pure state; and though the quantities already deposited were very great, no signs appeared of their having been worked.”
We shall give the testimony of a few of the more distinguished Icelandic travellers relating to the value of the Myvatn fields. But quotations are only made from authors whose scientific and literary position render their opinion of value and authority.
The testimony of the Rev. Mr Henderson, the celebrated missionary in Iceland, cites the following notorious and well-known facts:
“To the east of Krabla the sulphur mines of Reykjahlid.[190]
“Of the sulphur mountains a particular description is given in the journal.[191]
“...Several huge dark mountains that are again relieved in the east by the Námar, or sulphur mountains, from the decomposition going forward, in which a vast profusion of smoke is constantly forming, ascending to a great height in the atmosphere.[192]
“Olafsen and Povelsen, describing two pools on the south-east side of Krabla, say that the whole region completely answers to the well-known solfatara in Italy.”[193]
Describing the neighbourhood of Myvatn, he, in an eloquent description, says:
“On either side lay vast beds of sulphur covered with a thin crust, containing innumerable small holes, through which the vapour was making its escape. In many parts the crust, which presented the most beautiful aluminous efflorescence, was not more than half-an-inch in thickness; and on its being removed, a thick bed of pure sulphur appeared, through which the steam issued with a hissing noise. The sublimation of the sulphur is produced by the constant ascension of this vapour; and it is found to possess greater and less degrees of purity, in proportion as the soil is more or less porous. In general, however, these mines are VASTLY superior to any other in Iceland, owing to the intense degree of subterranean heat, and the very loose and porous nature of the earth at this place.
“The sulphur mountain rises to a considerable height from the east side of the hollow in which these mines are situate. It does not exceed a mile in breadth, but is more than five miles in length, stretching from the east end of the lake in a northerly direction, between the volcanoes Krabla and Leirhnukr, where it joins the ridge by which these two mountains are connected. The surface is very uneven, consisting of immense banks of red bolus and sulphur, the crust of which is variegated with random mixtures of yellow, light-blue, and white colours, and in some places a soft sandstone makes its appearance through the predominant mould. I could also observe holes, out of which the sulphur has been dug by the peasants.
“The jetting is accompanied with a harsh roar, and the escape of a vast quantity of vapour strongly impregnated with sulphur.... Passing a desolate farm, and keeping at a distance from the sulphur banks, which appeared in the face of a contiguous mountain, we succeeded in reaching the base of Krabla.... On the northern margin rose a bank, consisting of red bolus and sulphur, from which, as the wind blew from the same quarter, we had a fine view of the whole. Nearly about the centre of the pool is the aperture whence the vast body of water, sulphur, and bluish-black bolus is thrown up; and which is equal in diameter to the column of water ejected by the Great Geyser at its strongest eruptions.... What was visible of Krabla appeared covered with the same clay, pumice, and sand as that on which I stood, only diversified by beds of yellow sulphur.... To the west of this wilderness lay a number of low mountains, where the Fremri Námar are situated. Directly in front was the valley filled with lava above described; near the farther end of which the large columns of smoke ascending from the sulphur springs had a fine effect.”[194]
The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, whose researches into Icelandic literature have been of such service to the philologist, gives the following description of the view from the slope above Reykjahlíð, looking across the Lake Myvatn:
“You see the indigo chain of Blafell, beyond which is a field of sulphur and boiling mud called Fremri-Námar, not visited by travellers, as it is difficult of access, and inferior in interest to the Námarfjall springs.... (From Námarfjall) in half an hour we reach the sulphur mountains, a chain of red hills, perfectly destitute of vegetation. We dip into a glen, and find it full of fumaroles, from which steam is puffing, and sulphur is being deposited. These run along the dale in a zigzag. By the road-side I noticed a block of pure sulphur, from which every traveller breaks a piece, so that in time it will disappear altogether.
“Passing through the Námar-skarth, a winding cleft in the mountains, I came upon a plain of mud, the wash from the hills bounded by a lava-field; the mountains steaming to their very tops, and depositing sulphur, the primrose hue of which gives extraordinary brightness to the landscape.... Presently the beautiful Lake Myvatn, or Midge Lake, opened before us, studded with countless lava islets; beyond was the sulphur range, yellow as though the sun ever shone on it.”[195]
In Mr Shepherd’s work on the North-West Peninsula of Iceland, we find another lucid description:
“We rode to the sulphur mountains on the east of the lake (Myvatn). These large hills are a very wonderful sight. They are of various colours, a variety of mixtures of red and yellow. From their sides are emitted various jets of steam, and masses of bright yellow sulphur are strewed all around them.... All around the soil was very treacherous, consisting of hot mud, with a covering of sulphur about an inch in thickness, which in most cases was sufficiently strong to bear a man’s weight. When the crust was broken, steam issued forth, strongly impregnated with sulphur.”[196]
The distinguished Lord Dufferin (the present Governor-General of Canada) in his charming book, “Letters from High Latitudes,” says:
“Opal, calcedony, amethyst, malachite, obsidian, agate, and felspar are the principal minerals; OF SULPHUR THE SUPPLY IS INEXHAUSTIBLE.”
M’Culloch’s “Geographical Dictionary,” vol. i., p. 585, under the heading “Iceland,” says:
“Few metals are met with. Iron and copper have been found, but the mines are not wrought. The supply of sulphur is inexhaustible; large mountains are encrusted 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 supplies sent to the foreign market were comparatively small.”
“Chambers’s Encyclopædia,” under the heading “Iceland,” vol. v., p. 505, says:
“The mineral wealth of Iceland has only begun to be developed. In no part of the world is sulphur found in such abundance.”
An adequate idea of the value of the Icelandic sulphur fields, as compared with those of Italy, cannot be conveyed by the reports of travellers. To thoroughly comprehend this, we must bear in mind the reproductive properties displayed by solfataras, and the best means suggested by practice to extract the sulphur and yet not interfere with this peculiarity.
The process for the separation of the sulphur at the celebrated solfatara of Pozzuoli, near Naples, where the sulphur is condensed in considerable quantities amongst the gravel collected in the circle which forms the interior of the crater, is conducted as follows: The mixture of sulphur and gravel is dug up and submitted to distillation to extract the sulphur, and the gravel is returned to its original place, and in the course of about THIRTY years is again so rich in sulphur, as to serve for the same process again.[197]
We thus see that the reproductive process occupies a period of THIRTY years in the Italian mines, whereas the same results are produced in THREE years in the Icelandic mines, i.e., that a given area in Iceland will produce ten times the quantity of sulphur, or is ten times as valuable, as the same area in Italy.
“The permanency of the volcano, as a source of sulphur, would depend on the rapidity with which the sulphur would be replaced, after the sand had been once exhausted. The time required for this is not necessarily fixed to periods of twenty-five or thirty years. In Iceland, at a similar spot the sulphur is renewed every two or three years.”[198]
The nearest port suitable for shipment of the sulphur is “Húsavík,” situate in the Bay of Skjálfandi; it is perfectly accessible at all times of the year. Mr Consul Crowe having been questioned on the subject, states[199] that:
“The Icelandic ports are, owing to the influence of the Gulf Stream, in ordinary years accessible to shipping all the year round, and shipments can safely be made during seven months at ordinary rates of freight and insurance. Húsavík, as a rule, is never frozen up, the only impediment to free navigation being the floating ice which at certain seasons is loosened from Greenland, and may for a time lie off the coast. Such occurrences, however, have their stated times and seasons, which are well known to navigators in those waters; in some years there are no hindrances of the kind at all, and shipments in good vessels may be made all the year round. In support of this statement, I may mention the fact that steamers leave Copenhagen for Iceland as late as the middle or end of October, and would do so later were there sufficient goods or passengers to make them pay. Again, the Iceland ‘Althing’ have recently proposed to raise funds for running steamers round the island ‘all the year,’ and thus supply the want of internal communication; and, if the proposal fell through, it was only on financial grounds, and not from inaccessibility of ports from ice. I am therefore simply repeating facts in stating that, as a rule, Iceland navigation is free all the year round. The island is but a two days’ journey from Scotland, and with suitable vessels an almost uninterrupted intercourse might, in ordinary seasons, be kept up. In further confirmation of what I have stated, I may add that this same warm current from the Mexican Gulf, which is so beneficial to Iceland, keeps also all the Norway ports, from the Naze to the North Cape, ice-free all the year round.”
The road from Hafnarfjörðr to Krísuvík will certainly be improved by the formation of a railway.
It has been said by Professor Paijkull that this road is one of seven or eight hours’ journey.
“This road is one of the best in Iceland. The ‘heiði’ south of Húsavik is free from stones, and is level, although only sparsely overgrown with grass. Neither are there any hills or fjelds to be met with along it, and there are only a few small streams to be crossed. The last few miles north of Myvatn certainly consist of a sandy plain, but it is tolerably level, and the road is pretty good, owing, I suppose, to the sulphur traffic from the solfataras, near Myvatn, to Húsavik, in former days, in which 100 horses are said to have been employed at one time.”[200]
In 1868, the late foreign minister of the United States, Mr W. H. Seward, one of the most far-sighted statesmen which that country has ever produced, was able to anticipate the future importance of the Iceland sulphur mines both to Europe and to America. It was even proposed that the United States Government should purchase both Iceland and Greenland, as well as St Thomas, from the Danish Government. To promote this object, Mr B. M. Pierce was sent to Iceland to report on the mines. Extracts from his report are subjoined:
“The sulphur mountains, beds, and mines are very rich and extensive, easily worked, and of immense value. The sulphur is supplied at half the cost of that furnished by the Sicilian mines, which it is believed will soon be exhausted. The possession of these mines as a part of our territory is a question of vital magnitude.
“...By the way of Reykjahlid and Krabla, where are the most extensive sulphur deposits of the island.
“There are two principal fields of sulphur in Iceland; one near Krabla and Reykjahlid in the north-eastern, the other at Krísuvík in the south-western corner. The former is by far the most extensive region, but the latter gives the purer product. Every traveller gives us a description, more or less minute, of these sulphur hills, and the beds of pure yellow, often a foot thick, which extend about them. Up to a few years ago the sulphur had only been explored in the rudest way by the natives. The industry thus carried on was almost insignificant in result, and was soon abandoned when the supply of surface material became scanty. Still the exportation of sulphur was enough during the days of the peasant mining to give the brightest hopes of what it would be under enlightened management and economy. One of the most interesting and remarkable facts connected with these mines is that a region apparently exhausted becomes re-sulphurised again, so that the stores of brimstone are PRACTICALLY as INEXHAUSTIBLE as those of the infernal regions. Although the mines of Krísuvík are twenty miles from Hafnarfjörðr, one of the best harbours in the island, and those of Krabla are farther still from the seaboard, and from the principal trading station of Húsavik, it would appear that pure Icelandic sulphur is excessively cheap, half the price, say some, of Sicilian sulphur. With improved means of transportation it would control the market. The Oxonian, remarking on this, says (p. 138), ‘like everything else in Iceland, the light is under a bushel.’ Our most trustworthy information comes from Forbes, who, being an officer, sees the importance of the sulphur supply, and enters energetically into a thorough discussion on the prospects of the Iceland beds. We shall give the substance of what he says: ‘The deposits are formed by the decomposition of the sulphurous fumes that burst up from the ground, and afterwards sublimate as solid sulphur. A part is mixed with clay; a part is almost pure sulphur, containing but 4 per cent. of gangue. The number and energy of these sulphur gases continually coming up is incredible. The sulphur earth, or impregnated clay, averages from 6 feet to 3 feet in thickness, and contains 50 or 60 per cent. of pure sulphur.’
“Sulphur is found also at Námafjall, in the north of Iceland, in geological circumstances analogous to those of the beds at Krísuvík. It is found there generally in concrete masses of a citron-yellow colour, quite pure, sometimes very plentiful, and generally associated with lime and silica. It is to be regretted that the Danish Government does not favour this industry, which would furnish as fine sulphur as that of Sicily, and doubtless at a lower price. Besides, Denmark possesses in Iceland immense stores, which will one day be of great value to her when those of Sicily are exhausted.”
Before the concession was granted to Mr Lock, Professor Johnstrüp was sent by the Danish Government to survey and make plans of the mines. His report is inserted at length:
“Referring to the consul’s request to me in date of the 27th of last month, I beg to inform him that on the journey which I made last year to Iceland I visited the sulphur mines belonging to the State there, which lie to the east of Myvatn, and I made maps of them, which were sent to the Minister of Justice, who will, no doubt, let you have copies of them. From these you will be able to see that the richest mines are to be found in that part called Reykjahlidar-Námar, where large deposits of the purest sulphur are to be found.
“The reproduction is incessantly going on from about a thousand small eminences (solfataras), which are found on the ridge, along the sides, and at the foot of Námarfjall.
“Further rich sulphur mines are to be found at the Kétill crater, called the Fremri-Námar, while the least rich mines are the so-called Krabla-Námar, but also at these there is a continual production of sulphur going on. The first-mentioned mines are the richest to be found in the whole of Iceland, and have the advantage of lying in the track of a PRACTICABLE ROAD to the shipping port of Húsavik, which road is among the best in the island. As regards the position of the mines, I must refer you to Olsen and Gunnlaugsson’s map of Iceland, on which they are marked. It will be a pleasure to me should these particulars be of service to you.
“(Signed) J. F. Johnstrüp,
“Prof. Mineralogy at the Copenhagen University.
The examination of these facts is quite enough to show the inquirer that the transit from Myvatn to Húsavík is more practical, and of more easy access, than that from Krísuvík to any of the ports at the south-west corner of the island, which have been extolled by Mr Vincent in his ex parte glorification of the Krísuvík mines. We will now turn to the testimony of a far greater traveller, whose opinion on the subject ought, indeed, to be regarded as final. Captain R. F. Burton, in his recent exploration of Iceland, devoted much time to the examination of the Myvatn sulphur deposits. The great question is answered by him in the following letter which appeared in the London Standard, Nov. 1, 1872:
“Sir,—Perhaps you will allow me, in continuation of my letter of October the 14th, to attack the subject of the sulphur deposits in Iceland now belonging to British subjects.
“For many years these diggings, so valuable since the exhaustion of the supply from Sicily, were a bone of contention between France and England....
“Denmark can hardly work the mines for herself without a great expenditure of capital, which will find its way into Icelandic pockets, and thus she wisely leases her property to strangers. She relies upon the fact that sulphur has risen from £4, 10s. to £7 per ton, and consequently that her Iceland diggings must become more valuable every year.
“I spent three days—from August 7th to August 9th, 1872—at the solfataras of Mý-vatn, or Midge Lake, situated to the north-east of the island. I lodged at the farm of Reykjahlið (reeky ledge), under the roof of the well-known Hr Pètur Jónsson, whose alacrity in composing a bill of charges has won for him a wide reputation.
“On Wednesday, August 7th, I set out under the guidance of this worthy to inspect the diggings of Krafla, generally but erroneously written Krabla. And now a verbatim extract from my diary will assure the reader that my statements are completely free from the process called ‘cooking.’
“Rode to Leirhnúkr (mud knoll) in one hour fifteen minutes. At once understood an emplacement very imperfectly described by old travellers. It is the northern head of a spine, a sharp prism about one mile broad, with a magnetic direction of 215 deg., in fact, nearly due north—south. It is a mass of Palagonite (sea-sand forming a stone), everywhere capped by spills and gushes of modern lava, and sulphur abounds at the junction of these formations. The hillock of Leirhnúkr is one vast mass of sulphurous deposits. I counted seven wells upon the slope, whilst the lowlands around were spotted with unwholesome-looking eruptions. Rode east to Helvíti, which the Rev. Mr Henderson described in 1815 as a crater, not unworthy of its grim name. ‘Hell,’ here as elsewhere, has been ‘dismissed with costs,’ the placid blue lake, ruffled at times by the passing breeze, and blowing off odours the reverse of Sabæan, is now hardly worth visiting. At Hrafntinnuhryggr (raven stone ridge)—excuse the word, I did not make it—expected to find, as the ‘Obsidian Mountain’ has been described, ‘a heap of broken wine bottles shining with their jet-like colouring.’ Found nothing of the kind, but picked up some decent specimens. Rode back much edified, etc., etc....
“On the next day rode to the Fremrinámar (outer warm-springs) to the south with some easting to Reykjahlíð. Found the road utterly dissimilar to anything laid down in maps. After four hours thirty minutes of rough travelling, reached the deposit which has been worked for some generations, but which cannot be said to have been EVEN SCRATCHED. The ‘lay’ is upon the north-eastern, the eastern, and the southern flank of a crater, described by the late Professor Paijkull as ‘probably the largest in Iceland.’ Immense deposits covered the ground, and white fumes everywhere filled the air. Whole torrents of what Mr Crookes calls the ‘mainstay of our present industrial chemistry’—I mean sulphur—have here been ejected. Could not count the hissing ‘hot coppers,’ popularly called fumaroles. Returned after a stiff ride of eight hours thirty minutes, which gave a fine view of the Ódáða Hraun, the ‘great and terrible wilderness’ of lava to the south-west, etc....
“August 9th was a lazy day, spent in preparing for a trip to the desert. Inspected the Hlíðarnámar (ledge springs), from which the farm of Reykjahlíð takes its name. Bravely objected to be deterred by the ‘smell of rotten eggs,’ by the ‘suffocating fumes,’ and by the chance of being ‘snatched from yawning abysses by the guide’s stalwart arms.’ Perhaps the conviction that the abyss nowhere exceeds three feet in depth may account for my exceptional calmness in such deadly peril. The Hlíðarnámar, or Ledge Springs, lie west of the sulphur mountain, and on a lower plane than the eastern deposits. They are bounded north by two lava-streams issuing from the base of the Hlíðarfjall, and south by independent outbreaks of lava, showing hosts of small detached craters. East is the hill, and west the Mý-vatn water, and its selvage of fire-stone. The area of this fragment of the grand solfatara may be one square mile.
“The spade deftly wielded threw up in many places pure flowers of sulphur. According to Dr Augustus Vöelcker, this bright yellow matter gives 95·68 per cent., and according to the Icelandic traveller Ólafsson, it is readily renewed. Below the golden colour usually is a white layer, soft, acid, and mixed with alum; it is calculated to yield 20 to 30 per cent. Under it again are the red, the dark purple, the chocolate, and other tints, produced either by molecular change in the mineral, or by oxygen which the sulphur no longer modifies. Here the material is heavy and viscid, clogging the spade, and the yield is reported at 50 to 60 per cent. These figures will show the absolute value of the supply. Beneath, at short distances, say at three feet, lies the ground-rock, invariably Palagonite: thus ‘falling in’ merely means dirtying the boots. Between the yellow outcrops stretch gravelly tracts which the spade showed to be as rich as the more specious appearances. Many of the issues are alive, and the dead vents are easily resuscitated by shallow boring, in places even by pulling away the altered lava-blocks which cumber the surface.
“Leaving my horse in a patch of the wild oats that everywhere characterise this region, I walked up the sulphur mountain, whose white and yellow washings, so conspicuous from afar, prove to be sulphur, stones, and sand deposited by the rain upon the red clay. Here we picked up crystals of alum and lime and fragments of gypsum and selenite. The crests and box-shaped masses of Palagonite and altered lava gave fine views of the lowlands. On the summit we found some small mud-springs, which Iceland travellers have agreed to call by the corrupted name ‘Makkaluber;’ the people know them as ‘Hverar.’ This peculiarity is therefore not confined, as writers assert, to the eastern hill feet. The richest diggings lie below the crest, and here the fumes escape with a fizz and a mild growl, which vivid fancy has converted into a ‘roar.’ I returned from the immense soufrière vastly edified with the spectacle of so much wealth lying dormant in these days of capital activised by labour, etc., etc....
“To the question, ‘Will this sulphur pay its transport?’ I reply unhesitatingly, Yes, if great care and moderate capital be expended upon the mines. In the first place, the live vents which waste their sourness on the desert air must be walled round with stones, or, better still, with planks, and the fumes should be arrested, as in Mexico, by pans and other contrivances. The working season would be the summer, AND THE QUANTITY IS SO GREAT THAT MANY SUMMERS MUST ELAPSE BEFORE THE THOUSANDS OF TONS WHICH COMPOSE EACH SEPARATE PATCH CAN BE CLEARED OFF. In winter the produce can be sent down to Húsavík (House’s Bay), by sledges, not the Esquimaux-like affair at present used in Eastern Iceland, but the best Norwegian or Canadian. The road is reported by all travellers to be exceptionally good, running for the most part over gently undulating heaths, overlying basalt. There are no rivers of importance on the way, and the fall is about 1500 feet in forty-five English statute miles. The line is wrongly placed in Gunnlaugsson’s map: it runs on the eastern, not the western shore of the Langavatn, and it passes to the east of the celebrated Uxahver. I am also assured that the much-abused Bay of Húsavík is a safe harbour, when proper moorings are laid down, that no vessel has been lost there during the last thirty years, and that Captain Thrupp, of H.M.S. ‘Valorous,’ judged favourably of it. This also was the verdict of an old Danish skipper, who assured us that during the last twenty-five years he has been trading between Copenhagen, Hull, and Húsavík, reaching the latter place about the end of February, and making his last voyage home in October. During the ‘balance’ of the year masses of floe-ice prevent navigation.
“From such a speculation present returns may be expected. When income justifies the outlay a tramway would greatly cheapen transit. The ships which export the sulphur can import coal, and now that the officinal treatment of sulphur has been so much simplified by the abolition of train-oil, nothing else except pressed hay for the cattle is wanted. When one patch is exhausted, the road can be pushed forward to another. I am persuaded that the whole range, wherever Palagonite and lava meet, will be found to yield more or less sulphur. Of course it will be advisable to purchase sundry of the farms, and these, in Iceland, range in value from £300 to £800 maximum. The vast waste lands to the east will carry sheep sufficient for any number of hands; and good stone houses will enable the Englishman to weather a winter at which the Icelander, in his wretched shanty of peat and boarding, looks with apprehension. I have already spoken about the excellence of the summer climate, and any gazetteer shows that the change of temperature at Montreal is more to be feared than in Iceland.
“I am, &c.,
“Richard F. Burton.
“Athenæum,
“October 16, 1872.”
The very language of Iceland seems to indicate the importance of its sulphur deposit. It is a significant fact that the Icelandic language indicates sulphur as the “burning-stone,” Brennisteinn, unlike the Danish Svovel, which is obviously derived from Sulphur, Lat.
Mr Vincent’s theory that sulphur is produced by the action of water on pyrites, though having some elements of probability in it, is nevertheless entirely unproven in the present state of science, and it is most unfortunate that throughout his paper, theory and fact are mingled in equal proportions, each being independent of the other. “Tant pis pour les faits.”
It was left for Captain Burton to point out that the testimony of Commander Commerell, which appears in Mr Vincent’s paper to make the transit from Krísuvík to Hafnarfjörðr a real path of roses, did not actually speak with such unqualified enthusiasm. Commander Commerell says:
“A tramway might also be laid down, but as there are two hills to cross, with other difficulties, I could not positively state whether this were possible or not.”
Another objection by Captain Burton appears to be of greater force. It is alleged that the Krísuvík deposits extend over an area of twenty-five miles. No precise geological map is given of the locality, and it is most significant that when Captain Burton and Mr Chapman rode from Krísa’s Bay, eastward to the Little Geysir, and although they looked anxiously for the enormous area theoretically assigned to the sulphur-formation, they failed to see any sign of it. The sulphur, like the Spanish fleet, was not in sight; and the absence of the Palagonite, which is invariably in other Icelandic localities found in juxtaposition with the sulphur, ought to hint to geologists the true state of the case.
The Danish Government were not slow to perceive, and have on numerous occasions endeavoured to attract attention to, their valuable mineral products. Mr Lock, an Englishman, some years ago petitioned the Danish Government, and expressed his wish to take a lease of the sulphur mines at Myvatn. A committee was elected by the Icelandic Althing to report upon this subject. This report, which is dated the 14th August 1869, exhibits the utmost timidity in permitting an alien to acquire rights over the mineral products of Iceland. It is given at full length in the terminal notes to this paper.
It is not here necessary to narrate the circumstances under which the Danish Government declined to adopt the local recommendation. It will suffice to say that on the 13th April 1872, a contract was signed between Alfred G. Lock of London and the Danish Minister of Justice, Andreas Frederik Krieger, on the part of the Danish Government. This contract will be found in full in Note No. 1. The lease lasts for fifty years, and the terms, although costly to the English concessionaire, were satisfactory to the Danish Government. The greatest possible irritation has consequently been produced among a very small section of “Home Rule” Icelanders, who objected to the working of the mines by a stranger. The matter, however, being entirely taken out of their hands, their criticism on the arrangement becomes a mere historical question.
A fuller description of Mr Lock’s property will be of interest to the English inquirer, as it shows to what an extent capital may be productively invested.
Description of the Property.
The property comprises the solfataras or sulphur springs, the sulphur banks or fields, and the sulphur quarries belonging to the State of Denmark, and situated in the Things Syssel in the north and east provinces of Iceland.
The sources of sulphur in this property are threefold:
1st. The solfataras, or sulphur springs.
2d. The sulphur banks, or fields.
3d. The sulphur quarries.
The Solfataras.—Sulphur is formed by certain gases generated underground by volcanic action, and in solfataras these gases find their way to the surface of the earth through sand, ashes, or other volcanic substances, and in their passage sublime and deposit a certain portion of their sulphur, a certain amount escaping into the air.
This formation of sulphur is continuous and increasing, and in proportion to the strength of the volcanic influences so is the rapidity with which the sulphur is formed and the amount taken from the solfatara replaced. For this reason they are called “living.”
The solfataras of Italy require a period of twenty-five or thirty years to renew the sulphur in sufficient quantities to pay for extraction, whilst these are said to require only three years to produce the same result, the same area of solfataras in Iceland being consequently ten times as valuable as an equal area in Italy.
The methods of extracting the sulphur from these are most inexpensive, and the plant required of the simplest description.
The gases at present escaping into the air can be condensed and the sulphur obtained in a pure crystallised state, without any expenses for refining, by collecting the gases in clay vessels.
2d. The Sulphur Banks, or Fields.—The gases before mentioned escaping into the air condense and deposit sulphur, which, were the atmosphere always calm, would be precipitated in regular banks, but owing to the constant shifting of the wind it is blown in all directions, forming layers varying from a few inches to several feet in thickness, and extending over vast areas of the surface of the surrounding ground.
3d. Sulphur Quarries.—In these localities the accumulation of sulphur has ceased, and when once extracted is not replaced; they are therefore called “dead.” The sulphur is found imbedded in, and mixed with, lime, clay, etc., and nearly all the sulphur exported from Sicily is obtained from this description of sulphur-bearing strata.
The same kind of strata exists in the Romagna in Italy, and in some districts of Spain, but in the Romagna the deposit is 390 feet below the surface, and only yields, in the furnaces, 15 per cent. of sulphur, while the best of those in Spain are from forty to sixty feet below the surface, and contain a varying quantity of sulphur of from 21 to 36 per cent.—the poorest strata being nearest the surface—whilst these (in Iceland) are upon the surface; and Henderson, the missionary, a most trustworthy authority, describes a valley one mile wide and five miles long in the neighbourhood of Krabla, the surface of which is very uneven, and consists of immense banks of red bolus and sulphur, with mixtures of yellow, light-blue, and white coloured earth.
Forbes found similar clays to contain, the white from 30 to 40 per cent., and the red and blue clays about 16 per cent. of sulphur.
The plans made by J. F. Johnstrüp, Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Copenhagen, by order of the Danish Government, and attached to the leasing contract, a copy of which will be found in the Appendix, show the solfataras, or living sulphur-fields, to extend over a district of more than six square miles, viz.:
| Acres. | Sq. | miles. | Acres. | ||
| No. 2. Krabla-námar, | about | 1998 | = | 3 | 78 |
| No. 3. Reykjahlid-námar, | ” | 1068 | = | 1½ | 108 |
| No. 4. Fremri-námar, | ” | 808 | = | 1¼ | 8 |
As a gauge of the value of the Icelandic sulphur-fields we have been describing, it would be well to compare them with those of other countries. To arrive at this result, we shall give a comparison of the estimated cost of Sicilian and Spanish sulphur, and contrast it with that derived from Iceland.
COST OF THE SICILIAN AND SPANISH SULPHUR COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE ICELANDIC.
Cost of Sicilian sulphur, according to Signor Parodi’s Report to the Italian Government, vouched by English engineers, viz.:
| Per ton of sulphur. | |||
| Fr. | c. | ||
| Excavation of mineral, | 13 | 0 | |
| Oil and tools, | 5 | 0 | |
| Extraction of mineral, | 16 | 5 | |
| Pumping, | 10 | 0 | |
| Fusion, | 5 | 5 | |
| General charges and taxes, | 11 | 0 | |
| Carriage from mines to port, | 20 | 0 | |
| Rent to proprietor of soil, | 15 | 0 | |
| 96 | 0 | = £3 16 10 | |
TO ENGLAND.
| £ s. d. | ||
| Freight, | 1 0 0 | |
| Export duty, | 0 8 0 | |
| Port charges, commission, etc., | 0 4 6 | |
| Insurance, brokerage, etc., | 0 8 0 | |
| 2 0 6 | ||
| Cost of Sicilian sulphur, per ton, | £5 17 4 | |
“Estimated cost of Spanish sulphur, from a Report by Mr J. Sopwith to the Hellin Sulphur Company:”
| The | first tin | contains | 21 | per cent. | of sulphur. |
| ” | second | ” | 36 | ” | ” |
| ” | third | ” | 28 | ” | ” |
It takes six tons of Spanish ore to make one ton of sulphur.
| Perton ofsulphur. | |||
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Cost, | 2 | 13 | 0 |
| Carriage to railway station, | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Railway carriage to Cartagena, | 0 | 6 | 6 |
| Loading, etc., | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| Freight from Cartagena to England, | 0 | 14 | 0 |
| Royalty to Government, | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| Insurance, | 0 | 8 | 0 |
| Estimated cost of Spanish sulphur, | £4 | 11 | 0 |
“This sulphur should be worth, either in England or Marseilles, from £6 to £7 per ton.
“Flowers of sulphur would cost £6 per ton, and their value would be £10.”
Estimated Cost of Icelandic Sulphur.
Although from the fact of the deposits of the sulphur producing clay, sand, ashes, etc., in Iceland being on the surface, the working expenses of excavation (and from the closer proximity to the coalfields of England, the cost of extraction) must be far less than those of Sicily, yet it has been thought advisable to be on the safe side by taking the costs of excavation, extraction, and fusion, to be in each case the same.
The expenses of bringing the sulphur to this country will then be:
| Per ton. | |||
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Excavation of mineral, | 0 | 10 | 10 |
| Oil and tools, | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| Extraction of mineral, | 0 | 13 | 9 |
| Fusion, | 0 | 4 | 7 |
| [201]Carriage to port of shipment, | 0 | 15 | 0 |
| [201] Freight to United Kingdom, including insurance, | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| Estimated cost of Icelandic sulphur, | £2 | 18 | 4 |
| Per ton. | |||
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Cost of Sicilian sulphur, | 5 | 17 | 4 |
| ” Icelandic ” | 2 | 18 | 4 |
| Profit in favour of Iceland, | £2 | 19 | 0 |
| Per ton. | |||
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Estimated cost of Spanish, | 4 | 11 | 0 |
| ” ” Icelandic, | 2 | 18 | 4 |
| Profit in favour of Iceland, | £1 | 12 | 8 |
Estimated Profit on Icelandic Sulphur.
The market price of sulphur ranges from about £6, 5s. per ton for third quality to £8 for best. As by far the greater part of the Icelandic sulphur would be best quality, its average market price may be safely put at £7 per ton.
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Market price, | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Cost price, | 2 | 18 | 4 |
| Estimated profit per ton, | £4 | 1 | 8 |
Estimated Profit per Annum.
Italy, in the year 1870, exported 52,546 tons. From the comparison between the relative formations, there is every reason to believe that as large a quantity can be exported from Iceland as from Italy; but, supposing that for the first year or two only one-third that quantity is exported, viz., 17,515 tons, at a profit of £4, 1s. 8d. per ton, the annual profit would amount to over £71,500.
NOTE I. TO SECTION V.
(Translation.)
Leasing Contract.
The undersigned, Andreas Frederik Krieger, His Majesty the King of Denmark’s Minister of Justice, Commander of the Dannebrog and Dannebrogsmand, Commander of the Order of the North Star, in virtue of the authority given him by a Royal Resolution of the 9th March 1872, hereby grants to Alfred G. Lock, of London, a lease of the sulphur mines belonging to the State, situated in the Thing Syssel in the North and East Provinces of Iceland, on the following conditions:
I. Exclusive right to work the above-mentioned mines is given to the lessee for the duration of the lease; they consist of the so-called Reykjahlidar, Krabla, and Fremri-Námar; on the other hand, the present contract gives the lessee no right to the use of, or to the possession of the land around the mines, which ground does not belong to the State. It must be remarked that the mines on the church lands at Theistareykir are not included in this leasing.
II. The lease is given for fifty years, reckoned from the 1st September 1872 to the 31st August 1922, without either of the contracting parties having the right to withdraw from it. Liberty, however, is conceded to Alfred G. Lock to withdraw from the contract at any time before the 31st August this year, date inclusive.
The lessee can make over his rights acquired by this present contract, together with his obligations, to other parties, against whose respectability and solvency no reasonable objection can be made, but he shall nevertheless be bound to communicate such transfer to the Ministry of Justice. His rights likewise shall at his death be transmitted to his heirs.
III. Full liberty is given to the lessee as regards the working of the mines. The sulphur, however, must not be washed in running waters which have their outlet in the sea, nor in fishing-waters, and as a matter of course the sulphur beds or mines must not be destroyed, with respect to which it is remarked that the earth during the diggings must not be trodden down into the warm beds, which are designated by a green colour in the maps attached to the contract, which in the year 1871 were made by J. F. Johnstrüp, Professor of Mineralogy at the Copenhagen University.
On the delivering over of the mines a survey will take place, at which the maps in question will be used as guides. On the delivering back of the mines a survey shall likewise take place.
IV. Neither the lessee nor the workmen he employs at the mines shall be subject to any extraordinary taxes or imposts by the State or the municipality, other than those imposed on the other inhabitants of the island; and he shall in this respect enjoy the same rights as natives; but, on the other hand, he shall not be exempted from the ordinary taxes and charges imposed by the general laws of the land.
V. The lessee shall be bound to allow the State authorities to inspect the mines whenever they may think fit to do so.
VI. The lessee shall pay an annual rental of £50 for the first year; £60 for the second year; £70 for the third year; £80 for the fourth year; £90 for the fifth year; and £100 for the sixth and for each of the succeeding forty-four years.
The rental shall be paid in advance to the Minister of Justice in Copenhagen in two half-yearly payments,—viz., on the 1st September and 1st March, each time with the half part of the yearly amount. The first time on the 1st September 1872, with £25, for the half-year from that day to the 28th February 1873.
The lessee shall, on the signing of this present contract, as security for the due payment of the rental and the proper working and redelivery of the mines in an uninjured condition, deposit a sum of 5000 rixdollars in the private bank of Copenhagen, in such manner that the Minister of Justice retains the certificate of deposit in his possession, and can, without trial or sentence, and without the lessee’s authority, take them out of the private bank, which institution shall be forbidden to return them to the lessee or others without the Justice Minister’s permission.
As long as the above-mentioned amount is deposited in the private bank the interest of the sum may, without let or hindrance from the Minister of Justice, be paid to the lessee or his representatives.
On the expiry of this leasing contract and the redelivery of the sulphur mines in an uninjured state, the Minister of Justice shall be bound to return the certificate of deposit to the lessee or other duly authorised persons.
VII. Should the rental not be paid at the proper times, and should the lessee destroy the mines, he (the lessee) shall lose the rights conceded to him by this contract, and the Minister of Justice shall in such case be empowered to take from him the lease (eject him from the mines), and the deposit money be forfeited to the Iceland Land Fund (State Fund). Should, however, a breach of contract take place only through omission to pay the rental, and the collective amount of the rentals still to be paid be less than the deposit, the Minister of Justice will refund the difference.
VIII. Should the lessee not have removed, within two years from the expiry of this contract, or from the date of its annulment (see § 7), all buildings, machinery, and the like put up at the mines, they shall become the property of the State without indemnity.
IX. Disputes arising as to whether the lessee’s treatment of the mines is destructive to them, shall be settled by arbitration, each of the contracting parties choosing one man, and these latter in case of disagreement to choose an umpire. If from any cause an arbitration cannot be obtained, the parties at issue are empowered to appeal to the law courts; as likewise in all other disputes arising out of this contract, in which cases the Royal Supreme Court of Copenhagen shall be the proper tribunal; for which reason the lessee, on signing this contract, shall appoint a Copenhagen resident, who on his behalf shall receive summonses for his appearance. Should the Minister of Justice think fit to take law proceedings against him in Iceland, he (the lessee) shall be bound to receive summonses at the sulphur mines for his appearance at the Iceland courts.
X. The expense of drawing up this contract, with the stamped paper and registration, as well as the expense of surveys on the delivering over and the delivery back of the mines mentioned in this contract, shall be borne by the lessee.
The contract shall be drawn up in duplicate, of which the one copy is held by the Minister of Justice and the other by Mr A. G. Lock.
On the above conditions I, Alfred G. Lock, of London, have signed the present contract.
Copenhagen, 13th April 1872.
(Signed) Krieger.
(Signed) { For Alfred G. Lock,
{ A. de C. Crowe.
Witnesses—
(Signed) Ricard.
( ” ) Poulsen.
The value of the stamp on this contract is calculated at 9 rigsd. to the pound sterling.
NOTE II.
Report of the Althing.
Report drawn up by the Committee elected for this purpose by the Icelandic “Althing” of 1869, translated after the original Icelandic text from the “Althing” reports.
We, the undersigned, have, by the honourable “Althing,” been elected into a Committee, to state our opinion as to a memorial which about three years ago has been sent in to the Government by an English gentleman, Mr Lock, importing his wish to take lease of the sulphur mines in the north of Iceland, situated between 65° 20´ north latitude and the Arctic Sea, or, otherwise speaking, the mines lying on the said tract, east of “Myvatn” (Gnat Lake) and west of Jökulsá (Glacier River).
Before stating our opinion about this matter, we think it necessary that it should be clearly understood by the honourable Assembly—
1. How the matter now stands with the sulphur mines in question.
2. What right the Government has to lease out these mines without incurring some obnoxious consequences to the leaseholder, or to other parties concerned.
The sulphur mines that are at the disposal of the Government[202] are those of “Reykjahlid,” “Kráfla-námar” (the mines of the Krafla mountain), and “Fremri-námar” (the mines farthest from the coast), but “Theistareykja-námar” (the mines of Theistareykir) have never been Government property, although they apparently are lying in the tract of which the above-mentioned Mr Lock has wished to take lease.
As it is well known, from the excellent essay by the Right Reverend Hannes Finnson, Bishop of Iceland (see “Rit hins islendska lærdómslista-fèlags”—the Works of the Icelandic Society of Learning and Arts—vol. iv., p. 29), Mr Paul Stigsson, superintendent or governor of Iceland, bought of the Thorsteinssons, so called, in the presence of Mr Hans Nilsson and Mr Hans Lauritsson, on the behalf of his Majesty Frederik II., the mines of which there is no question here, with the exception of the Theistareykja mines, or more properly speaking, the right of digging sulphur in these mines. This bargain was made at Eyjafjord on the 15th of August 1563, and the said Thorsteinssons gave up the sulphur-diggings in “Fremri-námar,” “Kráfla-námar,” and “Heidar-[203] (heath) námar;” but it is nowhere on record, that any land or ground for house-building and road-making has been comprised in this bargain. As it appears, the Government of his Majesty Frederik II. has thought it sufficient to acquire the monopoly of the sulphur that was to be found there, for, as it appears, there has, as a rule, never been lack of persons willing to dig out the sulphur and to carry it, like other merchandise, down to the sea-coast.
In this manner the above-mentioned mines were worked in the time of his Majesty Frederik II., and a great quantity of sulphur was dug up there. It is said that the profit has sometimes, in the said period, amounted to 10,000 rixdollars (or upwards of £1100), and that the total export of sulphur has gone up to about 200 commercial lasts (or 400 tons) a year.
In the time of Christian IV. the working of the mines, which had answered so well in the time of his father, was almost discontinued; and the attempts of this king to let the mines, for a period of fifteen years, to Mr Jorgen Brochenhuus, of Wolderslev, and Mr Svabe, proved a complete failure. Thus, in the time of Christian IV., the mines were of little consequence for the Government and the country. This, the Right Reverend Hannes Finnson says, was a great drawback for the Danes, as it caused the scarcity of powder, which was one of the reasons why the Danes were defeated by the Swedes in Holstein in 1644.
Shortly after the middle of the seventeenth century, or in the year 1665, a certain “assessor,” Gabriel Marsilius by name, acquired a concession of digging sulphur and exporting it from Iceland; and it is said that he has exported from here a very great quantity of sulphur with considerable profit. Since that time, or since 1676, little is said of the sulphur-mining in Iceland until the first part of the eighteenth century; then, in 1724, two foreigners, Mr Sechmann and Mr Holtzmann, acquired a concession of exporting sulphur from Iceland; and it is said that they exported a great quantity of sulphur for a period of five years; but this export was again discontinued, owing to the death of Mr Holtzmann, who was the leader of the business, and to the apparent unwillingness of Mr Sechmann to repair to Iceland.
In the year 1753 the sulphur-mining was recommenced in Iceland by the Government. First it was commenced in the south, and afterwards, or in 1761, in the north (see “Eptirmæli 18 aldar”—“Review of the Events of the Eighteenth Century”). The author of this work, the late Mr Stephensen, says, that both the mines, the southern and northern, have been worked with considerable profit, adding, that the produce of the mines has amounted to 1400 rixdollars (or upwards of £155) a year; and in 1772 the profit of the sulphur mines in the north, according to the same author, was estimated at 1260 rixdollars (or about £140). After 1806 the Danish Government leased out the sulphur mines in the north to some merchants there for a trifling yearly rent, which in no way was a sufficient indemnity for the deterioration of the mines during the time of the lease.
For ten years ago it was a general opinion that the brimstone in the Icelandic sulphur mines for the most part was embedded in the layer that covers the “live mines,” and which must be considered a “sublimate” product of the so-called sulphur pits or caldrons; it had, however, been observed that in the “Fremri-námar,” so called, “dead mines” also existed where the sulphur stratum sometimes was a foot thick. The sulphur digging at Krisuvik last year has proved that these strata can be a good deal thicker, as it has also been ascertained that most sulphur mountains contain a considerable quantity of sulphur earth, clayish and ferruginous sulphur; all of which might yield from twenty-five to fifty per cent. of clean sulphur, if managed in the right manner.
When the three naturalists, Mr Steenstrup, Mr Schythe, and Jonas Hallgrimson, travelled through Iceland in 1840, they calculated that the sulphur mines in the north might yield 10,000 rixdollars a year; but Dr Hjaltalin, who, ten years later, was sent to examine these mines, disavows this statement, adding that the mines, as the matter then stood, could by no means yield so much, for the “live mines” were then in a state of deterioration, and that it would be impossible exactly to say how many “dead mines” were to be found till it is ascertained by successive examinations; on the other hand, he is convinced that the mines of Krisuvik might be able to yield 100 commercial lasts (or 200 tons) of clean sulphur a year, and the experience of the recent time has proved this to be no exaggeration; for during the last winter (1868-69) about 250 commercial lasts (or 500 tons) of raw sulphur have been dug up, which must make a good deal more than 100 lasts of clean sulphur at least; further, Dr Hjaltalin observes, that copper ore of rather a good quality is to be found there, and a more recent experience has rendered it likely that there is a considerable quantity of this mineral.
On the other hand, the sulphur must, no doubt, have accumulated to a considerable degree in the mines of the north for the last twenty years they have not been worked; it is, therefore, pretty certain that they might now yield a considerable quantity of sulphur if they were worked in the right manner; but as it must always be borne in mind that no mines are so liable to deterioration as sulphur mines, it must in consequence be very precarious to make them over to foreigners. A French geologist, Mr Eugène Robert, who travelled here in 1835, and afterwards has written treatises on the geology of Iceland in the French language, has also called attention to this point. He says, that care ought to be taken not to lease out to the Englishmen (who then were applying for the lease) the mines in the north, as they might be of great consequence, the sulphur mines of Sicily having begun to fall off.
As pointed out by the history of the country, and sufficiently proved by the experience, the produce of the mines in the north, if worked in the right way, ought to outweigh by far the lease-rent offered by Mr Lock; it would consequently be a downright loss to the country now to lease out those mines to this foreigner, who would not be able to give any satisfactory guarantee for his working the mines in the right manner, but might, after a lapse of several years, return them so spoiled that the country might, for a long time at least, miss the profit which it ought to have by these mines: indeed the lease-rent offered by the memorialist seems to be comparatively high when compared to what was paid for the mines in the beginning of the present century, but when it is taken into consideration that the rent now offered is only the tenth part of the net profit which the mines yielded in the sixteenth century, the offer is by no means advantageous, neither is it desirable that foreigners should be allowed for many years to import into this country a great number of foreign workmen, as this might lead to the Icelanders being deprived of a profitable business in their own native land.[204]
The population of Iceland is, as it is well known, constantly increasing, but several branches of trade are rather in a state of decadence. Nothing could, therefore, be more beneficial to this country, than if here were to be found profitable mines, in which labourers might work in all sorts of weather, and this may be done in sulphur and other mines, as the experience showed at Krisuvik last winter; ten and sometimes upwards of twenty labourers were at work there, almost the whole winter, earning good daily wages. There is nevertheless no security to be had, that the inhabitants shall be able to benefit by this, if the mines are made over to strangers, neither can it be controlled that they shall not destroy the mines altogether, and render them completely useless after a lapse of some years.
The Icelandic sulphur mines are in such a condition as not to be worse for waiting, on the contrary they will improve by it, and it would be greatly beneficial to them, not to be worked for the present.
The sulphur mining at Krisuvik has shown that these mines are better and richer than had been expected; and this may be the case too with the mines in the north, which have most frequently been deemed richer and more extensive than those of Krisuvik.
When sulphur trade has been carried on in this country, both in past centuries and at present, the mode of proceeding has been very inappropriate and unpractical, for partly the sulphur has been carried, with all the dross in it (which often goes up to forty per cent. or more), down to the sea-coast, and from there to Copenhagen; partly the method of cleaning has been so unsatisfactory and inappropriate, as to render the cost of cleaning the double of what is needful. It appears from the writings of the late Bishop Hannes Finsson, that in the time of King Frederick II., the sulphur was cleaned by means of train-oil, and this method has been continued down to the middle of the present century. This was sheer insanity, as it made the cleaning many times more expensive than was necessary, and than it was at the same time in other countries, where sulphur was then cleaned by means of sublimation. But this was not all, the grease moreover that got into the sulphur, rendered it unfit for powder manufacture, as may be seen from the writings of Mr Jón Eiríksson and others. Of late a new method has been hit upon in France, namely, to clean the sulphur by condensing hot steam, and as hot springs are to be found in the neighbourhood of all the Icelandic sulphur mines, this might now be turned to a good account for the sulphur trade; besides it would make the cost of transport by far less heavy, if the sulphur could be carried down to the sea-coast and marketed in a clean state.
It results from all this that Mr Lock’s offer is by no means so acceptable as some might suppose, for the local government (when established here) might, with the greatest facility, make the mines in the north many times more profitable than they would be if Mr Lock’s offer were to be accepted; moreover, the mines being at the disposal of the said government, a sufficient control may be had that they shall not be overworked or destroyed.
Were the Danish Government, therefore, to grant the request of the memorialist, as it is framed, this might easily, as the matter now stands, lead to suits of law between the Government itself and him, on the one hand, and between the said Government and some private landowner, on the other; for it is quite certain that the Government has no right whatever over the sulphur trade in all the localities pointed out by the memorialist. As clearly evinced by the late Bishop Hannes Finsson, the sulphur trade in Iceland can, in no way, be considered as a “regale;” and, accordingly, the Government ought to be very circumspect in this matter, lest it hurt the right of private landowners.
From the above-mentioned motives, it seems to the Committee that it is unadvisable to accept the offer of the memorialist, and, consequently, submits to the honourable “Althing” to dissuade the Government altogether from granting the concession requested by Mr Lock.
But as some members of the Committee have uttered the opinion that it might be considered as partiality, altogether to exclude foreigners from the sulphur trade in Iceland, provided that it could be sufficiently controlled, that this should neither be detrimental to the country in general, or to the mines in special, the Committee has thought it its duty, if this consideration should prevail in the honourable assembly, to submit a secondary or modified proposal, to the effect that it shall be requested of the Government to make the concession dependent on the following conditions:
1. The memorialist shall himself make the necessary arrangements with the parties concerned concerning pieces, lots, and parcels of land, which he may be in need of, for the cleaning and transport of the sulphur, and which are not at the disposal of the Government.
2. The memorialist shall have commenced the working of the mines within a year from the day on which the licence is handed over to him.
3. The memorialist shall always give the natives of Iceland opportunity to work by halves at the cleaning and transport of the sulphur, and he shall not, for this purpose, employ foreigners more than by halves at most, as far as he offers the same conditions to the natives as to the foreigners, and these conditions shall be acceded to by the former.
4. The Government shall be authorised, at the cost of the memorialist and its own, to be paid by halves, to appoint a man for the purpose of controlling, that the leaseholder shall not destroy the mines for ever by his method of working them.
5. The memorialist shall pay a rent of £100 sterling for the first year; for the next two years, £200; for the next two years thereon, £300; and for the last five years, £400 a year; and the concession shall expire after a lapse of ten years.
6. The memorialist shall, on receipt of the licence, deposit a sum of £5000 as a security for the fulfilment of these conditions, but it shall be returned to him at the end of the ten years, during which he shall have made use of the concession as far as he shall have fulfilled all the conditions that have been stipulated; but otherwise he is to forfeit both the concession and security-money if he shall have infringed any of the above conditions, excepting only if this infringement be caused by difficulties in making such arrangements with the parties concerned on the spot as are mentioned under head 1.
7. All disputes arising from this contract between the Government on the one hand, and the memorialist on the other, shall be settled by the said Government alone; and no appeal to courts of law shall be allowed in this case, neither in this country or elsewhere.
8. Both the yearly rent and security-money, if forfeited, shall fall to the Icelandic country-fise, and be at the disposal of the “Althing.”
Reykjavik, the 14th August 1869.
(Signed) Jón Hjaltalín. Jón Sigurðsson.
Chairman and Reporter, Benedikt Sveinsson.
Tryggir Gunnarsson.
Secretary, Grímur Thomsen.
In a most humble petition of the “Althing,” dated the 7th September 1869, addressed to His Majesty the King, the said assembly has altogether adopted the considerations and proposals of the Committee, as specified above.
Thus, in the first place, the “Althing” begs that the Government of His Majesty shall not accept Mr Lock’s offer to take lease of the sulphur mines in the north, but, on the contrary, refuse altogether to lease them out for the present; and in case His Majesty’s Government should not think fit to follow this advice, the “Althing,” in the second place, begs that the concession, if granted at all, may be made dependent on such conditions as are specified in the above report under heads 1 to 8.
The only difference between the conditions contained in the Report of the Committee and those in the petition of the “Althing” is: that under head 5 is added a clause to the effect that the lease-holder, besides the yearly rent, shall pay £10 a year to the clergyman of “Myvatns-thing” (or district of Myvatn).[205]
SECTION VI.
Sulphur in Sicily.
The kindness of Mr Consul Dennis of Palermo enables me to offer the following sketch of sulphur in Sicily.
Sulphur, it is well known, forms the most important branch of Sicilian commerce and exportation. Found, as in Iceland, in the blue marl which covers the central and the southern parts of the island, its area extends over 2600 square miles; fresh mines are always being discovered, and there is no symptom of exhaustion. In 1864 Sicily worked about 150 distinct diggings, whose annual yield exceeded 150,000 tons; in 1872 these figures rose to 550 and nearly 2,000,000 of quintals, or cantars. The latter contains 100 rotoli (each 0·7934 kilogrammes = 1¾ lb. Eng. avoir.), or 79·342 kilogrammes = 175 lbs. Eng. avoir. The richest in 1864 were those of Gallizze, Sommatine, and Favara: their respective yearly production showed 100,000, 80,000, and 60,000 quintals.
“The visitor to a sulphur mine,” says Mr Goodwin, late H.M.’s Consul, Palermo, “usually descends by a plane or staircase of high inclination to the first level, where he finds the half-naked miner picking sulphur from the rock with a huge and heavy tool; boys gathering the lumps together, and carrying them to the surface; and if water be there, the pump-men at work draining the mine. A similar scene meets his eye in the lower or second level. Above ground the sulphur is heaped up in piles, or fusing in kilns.” This passage well shows the superior facility of collecting sulphur in Iceland, where it lies in profusion upon the surface.
The ore thus obtained by fusion, after hardening into cakes, is carried to the coast by mules and asses, or by carts where there are roads. When the new network of railways covers the island, of course there will be greater facility for transport, but the expense will increase with equal proportion.
The number of hands in 1844 was estimated at 4400—i.e., 1300 pick-men, 2600 boys, 300 burners, and 200 clerks and others, to whom must be added 2600 carters, and 1000 wharfingers, raising the total to 8000, out of a population (January 1, 1862) of 2,391,802, inhabiting an area of 10,556 square miles.
The following translation, or rather an abbreviation of an article, “Lo Zolfo,” in the journal Il Commercio Siciliano (March 4, 1873), gives the latest statistics:
“The Committee of Industrial Inquiry, during its recent sessions at Palermo, Messina, and Catania, has collected valuable information upon the general conditions of the island, and upon its principal articles of commerce.
“We will begin with the chief branch, sulphur, whose exportation in the raw state during the last decade is shown by these figures:
In 1862, = 1,433,000 quintals = 250,775,000 Eng. lbs. avoir., or 125,387 tons of 2000 lbs.
| “ | 1863, | = | 1,470,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1864, | = | 1,398,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1865, | = | 1,382,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1866, | = | 1,791,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1867, | = | 1,923,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1868, | = | 1,723,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1869, | = | 1,701,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1870, | = | 1,727,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1871, | = | 1,712,000 | ” | |
| “ | 1872, | = | 1,969,000 | “ | (estimated). |
“Sicily may be considered the monopolist of the trade in natural sulphur. Other solfataras exist in Croatia, Gallicia, and Poland; at Vaucluse in France, at Murcia in Spain, and in Egypt on the Red Sea;[206] but the production may be considered unimportant. Even the Zolfare of the Romagna cannot be compared with those of Sicily, as we see by the following figures of exportation:
| In | 1862, | = | 22,057 | quintals. |
| “ | 1863, | = | 57,275 | ” |
| ” | 1864, | = | 35,524 | ” |
| ” | 1865, | = | 70,841 | ” |
| ” | 1866, | = | 4,351 | ” |
| ” | 1867, | = | 2,722 | ” |
| ” | 1868, | = | 8,846 | ” |
| ” | 1869, | = | 3,885 | ” |
| ” | 1870, | = | 15,659 | ” |
| ” | 1871, | = | 12,320[207] | ” |
“The annual production of the Romagna mines reaches only 120,000 quintals, including the less important diggings of Latera Scrofaro, Volterra, Grosseto, and Avellino. Sulphurous earth covers all the Sicilian provinces of Caltanissetta (Kal’ at el Nisá, the fort of women) and Girgenti,[208] and a part of Catania; whilst there are two isolated ridges (lembi) at Lercara de’ Freddi of Palermo, and at Ghibellina of Trapani. Those actually worked exceed 550.
“Experts greatly differ in opinion concerning the supply still remaining for exportation; we have determined that the diggings at the actual rate of exportation may last another hundred years.[209]
“Mining property, according to Sicilian law, belongs to the soil; and public opinion, as well as vested interests, would strenuously oppose the legislation which prevails in upper Italy. Yet the present conditions are highly unsatisfactory. Working upon a small scale in fractionary estates has diminished profits, and in many cases has caused mines to be abandoned. And the evil is ever increasing with the greater depths of the diggings where the inflow of water offers fresh difficulties. The only remedy would be the combination of small farmers, and the massing of the less important diggings under a single ‘cultivator.’
“As yet there are only two such associations; and their success in working properties so subdivided as not to pay, recommends them to societies and capitalists. One is at the Croce group of Lercara, where many owners have joined to subscribe for machinery to raise the mineral (macchina di eduzione). The other is at the Madore group, also of Lercara; here a considerable part of the very small diggings has of late been let to one and the same ‘cultivator.’ At Aggira, in the province of Catania, there are two bodies of workmen, called Gabellotti, because they unite to pay the annual Gabella (rent-price) to the proprietor. Of these the large and the more successful is at Assaro in the territory of Calascibetta; it has collected eighteen members who formerly injured one another by the mismanagement of the deep diggings and by jealous competition in securing hands. It is a civil society with unlimited liability; some of the associates receive only half shares, which reduces the whole number of actionnaires to sixteen. The works are directed by a resident member, and the exportation by another at Catania. It is a good instance of how valueless mines may be made to pay.
“But Sicily, under her present law, has to contend not only against the excessive division of property, but also with the normal conditions of leasing it. Of these, the most injurious is the short term of the Gabella, which averages six, and which seldom passes nine, years. This period, far too brief to permit the use of machinery, which, demanding unusual outlay, secures a much greater amount of production.
“The Gabella is generally defrayed in kind, that is, in sulphur at the mouth of the pit. Only one case of money payment is known; in 1868 the Prince of Sant ‘Elia, owner of the Zolfara di Grottacalda, leased his property to an anonymous French society, which, besides advances of capital à fonds perdus, can afford a high yearly rent. Before this agreement was concluded, the Gabelle did not exceed 30 per cent. of the total production; now they have risen to 36, and even to 40. But in this case longer leases were conceded.
“Several of the most important diggings have been let to French and English companies.
“Nothing can be ruder than the mode of working. Where the usual outward signs of sulphur present themselves, steeply inclined galleries called Buchi a Scale are driven, and the ore is brought to grass, without any of those preparatory measures which demand time and money, but which afterwards yield so well. The underground works are longitudinal tunnels following the inclination of the sulphur bank, and so cut by cross galleries that the prospect suggests a cavern supported by stalactite columns. The metal, detached with picks, is carried up the rude flights of stairs by children whose ages vary from seven to fifteen, and it is disposed about the pit mouth in a peculiar way, so as to facilitate measurement and distribution.
“When the bank is exhausted, the pillars are attacked, and thus the abandoned portions readily fall in. Accidents at times occur from the pressure of the ground, and these have often caused loss of life; they usually result from the negligence and ignorance of the overseers (Capimaestri), men who ignore everything but ‘rule of thumb.’ The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce has wisely drawn out a project of mining laws, intended to secure the safety of the workmen by giving information to the directors, and by facilitating works of common interest to those concerned. It is evident that the State can remove the obstacles of sub-divided property, and that its duty is to look after the condition and the health of its subjects who are working 80 to 100 metres underground. Already the ministry has founded a superior school of mines at Palermo, and a second at the Zolfare of Caltanissetta. Let us hope that its term of office may last long enough for carrying out the instruction which alone can develop the sulphur supply of Sicily.
“Here, as elsewhere, the miners’ deadliest enemy is water. Of the various draining systems applied to the tunnels, the favourite is a long cut through the gallery, carried to the surface; and its principal merit is the saving of labour where wages are, as in this island, unusually high. But as the disposition of the ground often causes drains to become long and expensive works, there is a general use of pumps. The latter, till the last few years, were made of wood, and worked by hand; metal has become more common, but steam machinery is almost confined to the foreign concessions. As regards hauling up, shafts, or vertical wells, are almost unknown, although they have been strongly recommended for mines which have reached 50 metres, and a majori for those 100 metres deep.
“The metal, when brought to grass, is freed from its earthy matters principally by fusion; the system being founded upon the different degrees of caloric required to liquefy ore and dross. The operation most in vogue is that called dei Calcaroni: the heaps are covered with a layer of earth, and the heat is kept up chiefly by burning the sulphur itself. As those kilns are built upon inclined surfaces, the melted matter flows into wooden forms, where it cools and solidifies. The great loss, calculated at about one-third, has led to a variety of improvements; many have been adopted by private cultivators, few have been more extensively applied, and none can boast of complete success. The best hitherto produced is the so-called ‘vapour-fusion’ invented by a certain Sig. Thomas, and patented to the Società privilegiata per la fusione dello Zolfo in Italia, an anonymous body, whose headquarters are at Milan. The essential part of the process is to separate the ore by ordinary fuel, using for the transmission of caloric water-steam at the tension corresponding with the temperature which fuses sulphur. The Society established its apparatus at several mines, which paid a proportion of raw sulphur as bonus to the patentees; the remainder went to the ‘cultivator’ as remuneration for the mineral which he provided. Many were disused after a few months, the reason alleged being that they were of use only when applied to poor ores and gypseous gangues. Lercara is the only place which still works by ‘vapour-fusion.’
“The sulphur is exported either in lumps (ballate[210]), as it comes from the moulds, or it is refined to suit the intended object. That used for vines is ground before exportation; there are mills at all the ports, and the expense per quintal reaches only a few centimes. The powder is stored in sacks.
“Sicilian sulphur is sufficiently pure, as a rule, to be directly adopted in many chemical and industrial processes. For the pharmacy, however, for gunpowder, and for other specialties of technology, further refining is necessary. This operation is limited on the island by the high price of fuel; there are only two or three usines at Catania and at Porto Eurpedoch; moreover, these work irregularly, and on a small scale. Thus the refinery of Sicilian and Romagna sulphurs is carried on almost exclusively abroad.
“The principal exporting places are Catania, Licata, Palermo, Porto Eurpedoch, Terranova, and Messina. The following are the approximate figures of the respective harbours:
| Catania | ships, | . | . | 202,000 | quintals. |
| Licata | ” | . | . | 460,000 | ” |
| Messina | ” | . | . | 50,000 | ” |
| Palermo | ” | . | . | 78,000 | ” |
| Porto Eurpedoch | “ | . | . | 917,000 | ” |
| Terranova | ” | . | . | 200,000 | ” |
Palermo offers great advantages of freight by means of return colliers, but the distance of land transport is fatal to all but the sulphur of Lercara.[211] Messina exports only to the United States; sulphur forms the heavy cargo, the lighter being composed of rags, oil, and agrumi (sour fruits, lemons, etc.). But if there is little shipping of the mineral at Messina, she may be called the headquarters of the sulphur trade. Embarkation takes place at other harbours, though there are often badly protected roads; the only reason being their neighbourhood to the mines. Messina[212] urged upon the Committee a reduction of tariffs on the railways which connect it with Catania and Leonforte; but it would be hardly fair thus to protect one city when its rivals, besides being favoured by topographical position, are industriously improving their means of embarkation, and are making efforts to protect shipping during winter.
“At all the harbours there are merchants who make the export their specialty; they buy up the produce of the smaller mines, store it in their magazines, and ship it when the prices are most likely to pay. The principal ‘cultivators,’ however, have established their own deposits, and export on their own account without using middle-men.
“An intelligent merchant at Messina assured the Committee that two-thirds of the total consumption took place in winter and the rest in summer, whilst the exportation during the latter season is by far the greatest on account of the superior ease and safety of navigation. But, as the melting is mostly in September, the results to cultivators and to exporters are, that a large part of the year passes away in inaction, accumulating interest upon cargoes and seriously checking profits.
“It is greatly to be desired that some company with large capital should be formed to make advances of money, thus setting free the modest means of ‘cultivators’ and merchants, and enabling them to lay out more upon the mines.[213]
“The actual medium price (March 4, 1873) of sulphur in the Sicilian ports is represented by twelve lire (or francs) per quintal; and the following are the approximate items which make up this figure:
| Cost of mining, | = 6·600 | lire or francs. |
| Land transport, | = 2·480 | ” |
| Embarking, | = 0·313 | ” |
| ‘Cultivator’s’ profit, | = 1·607 | ” |
| Export dues, | = 1·000 | ” |
| Total, | 12·000[214] | ” |
“After a few years, when the network of railways shall have been finished, when embarkation is improved, and perhaps when the production is rendered easier and safer, we may hope to see the figure L.12 fall to L.11, and even to L.10.50.
“The Committee has hitherto considered only the produce of Sicily per se, and this appears the place to notice its future production and its employment in the general commerce of the world. Many have indulged in exaggerated hopes and fears upon this subject. While some fear that our mineral may be superseded by other substances, others hope that the reduced cost of Sicilian sulphur may enable it to serve the purposes for which pyrites are now generally used.
“An attentive examination of the question proves that, in the actual state of industry, sulphur and pyrites have nothing to fear from each other.
“Several industries, especially the manufactures of sulphuric acid, do not require pure sulphur in the free state; they find it more economical to extract that contained in metallic sulphures, especially in iron pyrites. On the other hand, it is well known that extracting pure sulphur from the sulphures and manufacturing sulphuric acid from pure sulphur are practically impossible; the former could never contend against the Sicilian mines, nor can the latter rival the cheap produce of pyrites. As the uses of the two are different, so will be their sources of supply; and it is hard to believe that any change of price can cause concurrence between the two.[215]
“A fair proof is the concurrent development of both articles. Between 1832 and 1872 the produce of the Sicilian mines has quadrupled; and this was exactly the time when pyrites began to be used, and successfully took their place in the manufacture of sulphuric acid.
“These considerations should silence the arguments which contend for the abolition of export duties upon sulphur, in order to make it compete with pyrites. The State draws an annual revenue of some two million lire (2,000,000 francs = £80,000); and it cannot be expected to yield so legitimate a source of income, until at least assured by competent persons that the impost is a weight upon, and a damage to, Italian industry and commerce.”
To this very fair report Mr Consul Dennis adds: “I have no notion that the supply of Sicilian sulphur is nearly exhausted; more deposits are known than can be worked. There are many spots in the heart of the island which abound in the mineral, but it must lie useless, for as yet there are no means of conveying it to the coast for shipment. The export of sulphur has been increasing greatly, it is true, from 100,000 tons (= £400,000) in 1855 to 200,000 (= £1,000,000) in 1871, but the export is regulated rather by the demand in foreign markets than by the supply. The large quantity made from iron pyrites of late years in many European countries has, of course, much lowered the demand on Sicily. In 1871 the quantities fell to 180,000 tons (= £956,000), but in 1872 they rallied to 192,000 tons. This quantity was thus distributed:
| Great Britain and her colonies took | 46,418 | tons[216] |
| France, | 41,699 | ” |
| United States, | 21,846 | ” |
| Germany and Austria, | 22,348 | ” |
| Italy and the East, | 47,160 | ” |
| Russia, | 1,526 | ” |
| Spain and Portugal, | 8,236 | ” |
| Other countries, | 3,008 | ” |
| Grand total, | 192,241 | ” |
“I should remark that the quantities stated above are from the official returns of the custom-house; they are probably understated to the extent of 25 to 50 per cent., few exporters declaring the full quantity or value, and the Doganieri having scant interest to verify the declarations. The amount exported last year (1873) was probably not much under 300,000 tons.
“The great rise of prices in the necessaries of life of late years, and the increased demand for labour, consequent on the construction of railways, harbours, and other public works, have doubled the price of sulphur in Sicily. But when the network of railways with which it is proposed to intersect the island is completed, when the country roads are laid out to feed them, and when the ports of Girgenti, Licata, and Catania, are enlarged and deepened, so as to accommodate vessels of large size, then it will soon be ascertained what treasures of sulphur Sicily still contains.”
In conclusion I would observe that this age of national armies and bloated armaments is not likely to allow decline in the use and the value of sulphur, and that nothing can be more unwise than to rely upon a single source of supply, Sicily, which might at any time be closed to us by a Continental war.
Richard F. Burton.
Note on the Compagnie Soufrière of the Red Sea.
Schweinfurth (“Heart of Africa”), when passing down the Red Sea, speaks of the Sulphur Company at Guirsah. Its concession extends over 160 miles of coast southwards from Cape Seid. The ore is obtained from gypseous schiste; and all the fresh water for the workmen, of whom there are over 300, must be brought from the Nile.
I need hardly remark that if sulphur is found to pay under these circumstances, we may expect great things from Iceland.
SECTION VII.
Sulphur in Transylvania.
According to Mr Charles Boner (p. 312, “Transylvania: its Products and its People,” London: Longmans, 1865), the whole district round Büdös contains rich deposits of sulphur; and yet Hungary draws her supplies from the Papal States and Sicily; yielding, as the latter has hitherto done, a million and a half hundredweights per annum. So with sulphuric acid which has played so important a part in raising the industry of Europe to its present state. A single commercial house in Kronstadt employs nearly 300 cwts., and would probably use more were its price not so high. The sulphuric acid factory at Hermannstadt, the only one in the province, uses 300 to 400 cwts. annually. The custom-house returns for Transylvania vary from 300 cwts. to 3000 cwts., as the article comes sometimes from Trieste, sometimes from Vienna, where the duty has already been paid. In 1863, the amount of sulphur produced in the Austrian monarchy was 35,085 cwts., at an average price of 6fl. 44kr. per cwt. The consumption has regularly augmented owing to the increase in the number of soda factories: in 1858, the import from foreign states was 71,337 cwts.; in 1859, it was 86,673. Mr Boner has profited in the following remarks by two reports made by M. Brem, director of a chemical factory at Hermannstadt, and by Dr F. Schur, professor at Kronstadt:
“The sulphur-deposits are situated at the south and west of Büdös,[217] and not on the mountain itself. The places are Kis Soosmezö, also Vontala Feje Búlványos, and a little above the chalet Gál András. Thirty different diggings were undertaken in a circuit of at least eighteen miles; but the extent of the ground where the deposits are, is more than three times this size. The deposits run in unequal strata of from one to nine inches under the mould, which varies in thickness from one to three feet. The soil was everywhere saturated with sulphur, and in this permeated earth pieces of pure sulphur were found. They were of pale-yellow colour, fine-grained, and with a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. Here and there only was a sort found with a certain hardness (cohesion), and even this, when dried, became brittle and ticturable. All this shows that the mineral is a true volcanic sulphur, and that the deposits will continue as long as the inner activity of Mount Büdös lasts. A careful analysis gives as result, in the earth taken in one place, 63·96 per cent.; in a second spot, 61·00 per cent; and in a third, 41·01 per cent. of sulphur.” [218]
“The district whence the earth was taken is a space of 16,000,000 square fathoms. Allowing for interruptions in the deposits, and taking these at an average thickness of three inches instead of nine, 200 lbs. of sulphur might be obtained from every square fathom, even if we suppose the earth to contain only 50 per cent. of the mineral. But we have seen that it has 61 per cent., and, in some cases, nearly 64 per cent. of sulphur. Continuing the calculation, the district would contain 16,000,000 cwts. of the precious commodity. Ten years ago, raw sulphur from Sicily and the Papal States (viâ Trieste) cost, in Hermannstadt, 9½ florins per cwt. Competent authorities are of opinion that it might be produced here for 5 florins per cwt., inclusive of the carriage from Büdös to Kronstadt. Sulphur costs more than this in the places where it is produced in Poland, Slavonia, and Bohemia. Every year the demand for the article increases, for almost each year brings with it new appliances, and shows how indispensably necessary it is in the daily life of civilised communities. We all know what are the profits arising from chemical fabrications; and I think the facts here given will hardly fail to attract the attention of those who are willing to turn their knowledge and spirit of enterprise to account. For Transylvania at large, but for Kronstadt especially, it would be of the greatest advantage to obtain the article in question at a cheaper rate; for not only might undertakings, which, as yet, are but projects, be called into existence, but others already thriving be considerably enlarged.”
SECTION VIII.
Extracted from “Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders.” By Frederic J. Mouat, M.D., F.R.C.S., etc., etc., etc. Hurst & Blackett, Publishers, London, 1863.
The sulphur on the top of the cone occurs in such quantity in the cracks and fissures, often lining them to the thickness of more than half-an-inch, that the question naturally arises whether the sulphur could not be worked with advantage.
Although in the immediate neighbourhood of the crater, where the fissures are numerous, the ground seems to be completely penetrated with sulphur; this is so evident in other parts, only a few feet lower, where the surface is unbroken. There are, however, some reasons which seem to promise that a search might be successful. In eruptive cones, like that of Barren Island, there is always a central tube or passage, connecting the vent in the crater with the volcanic action in the interior. In this tube the sulphur, generally in combination with hydrogen, rises in company with the watery vapour, and is partly deposited in the fissures and interstices of the earth near the vent, the remainder escaping through the apertures.
If in the present case we admit the sensible heat of the ground of the upper third of the cone to be principally due to the condensation of steam—a process of which we have abundant evidence in the stream of hot water rushing out from underneath the cold lava—it is not improbable that the whole of the upper part of the interior of the cone is intersected with spaces and fissures filled with steam and sulphurous vapour, these being sufficiently near the surface to permit the heat to penetrate. It is therefore not unlikely that at a moderate depth we should find sulphur saturating the volcanic sand that covers the outside of the cone.
I only speak of the outside, as we may conclude from the evidence we have in the rocks of lava in the crater, and those bulging out on the side, that the structure of the cone is supported by solid rock nearly to its summit, the ashes covering it only superficially.
From what has been said above, the probability of sulphur being found near the surface, disposed in such a way as to allow of its being profitably exhausted, will depend on the following conditions:
First, That the communication of the central canal, through which the vapours rise, with its outlets, be effected not through a few large but through many and smaller passages, distributed throughout the thickness of the upper part of the cone.
Second, That some of these passages communicate with the loose cover of ashes and stones which envelops the rocky support of the cone.
Although I have mentioned some facts which seem to indicate the existence of such favourable conditions, and which are moreover strengthened by an observation by Captain Campbell, who saw vapour issuing, and sulphur being deposited near a rocky shoulder, about two-thirds of the height, on the eastern descent of the cone; still their presence can only be ascertained satisfactorily by experimental digging....
If a preliminary experiment should make it appear advantageous to work the cone regularly, the material about the apex, after being exhausted of the sulphur that is present, could, by blasting and other operations, be disposed in such a way as to direct the jets of vapour in the most convenient manner through uncharged portions of ground. If the sulphur should aggregate in periods of not too long duration, it would be possible to carry on the work of filling up new ground on one side, and taking away saturated earth on the other at the same time—so that, after working round the whole circumference, the earth that had been first put on would be ready to be taken away.
If the periods should prove too long to allow the work permanently to be carried on, an interval of time might be allowed to pass before resuming operations.
Water for the labourers could always be obtained from the warm spring at the entrance of the island.
The distilling, or melting, of sulphur, to separate it from adherent earth, is a matter of comparatively little expense or trouble. If the sulphur be abundant, it might be effected as in Sicily, by using a part of it as fuel. It is not necessary to do it on the spot; it might be done at any place where bricks and fuel are cheap.
INDEX.
[A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [J], [K], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [R], [S], [T], [V], [W], [Y], [Z]
African lakes, re-discovery of the, i. 29.
Agriculture, state of, i. [179-189].
Almannagjá, the, ii. [198].
Alpen-glow, the, i. 68.
Althing, re-establishment of the, i. 103;
biennial, [106].
American gift to Iceland, ii. [327].
Amulet with Runes, ii. [118].
Antiquarian Museum, an, ii. [10], [13-23].
Anthropology, i. 122.
Art in Iceland, i. 160.
Arthur’s Seat, view of, from Firth of Forth, i. 270.
Aurora Borealis, the, i. 67.
Bede on Iceland, i. 31.
Berufjörð fisheries, ii. [234].
Berserkir, derivation of, ii. [100].
Black death, the, i. 100.
Blake, C. C., on human remains from Iceland, ii. [214];
on sulphur, [352].
Bogs of Iceland, i. 51.
Books on Iceland criticised, i. 369.
Boxes for travel, ii. [41].
Breiðalsheiði, top of the, ii. [249].
“Brimstone” on the sulphur diggings, ii. [301];
his unfairness, [302].
Broad-Shouldered, the, ii. [265].
Bruce, James, and the Nile sources, i. 22.
Buchan, A., on the climate of Stykkishólm, i. 63.
Bunsen’s division of Iceland rocks, i. 38.
Caithness, shores of, from the sea, i. 275.
Calabrian earthquake, the, i. 48.
Casaubon, Isaac, on Thule, i. 7.
Catholicism in Iceland, i. 100.
Cattle of Iceland, i. 186; ii. [53].
Character of the Icelander, i. [137-141].
Charnock’s, Dr Richard S., note on the Culdees, i. 28;
on Thule, [33].
Christ and Thor, i. 94.
Christian IX. and the Millenary Festival, i. 109.
Chronometry, i. 70.
Clay of Iceland, i. 51.
Cleanliness, i. 136.
Climate of Iceland, i. 55;
effect of Gulf Stream on, [56];
wholesomeness of, [66].
Coal and peat, i. 294.
Cavalcade, a, ii. [39].
Coal in Iceland, i. 377.
Cockney sportsman, a, i. 316.
Cod-fishing, i. 192, [193].
Constable, the head, i. 358.
Coinage, the, i. [215-218].
Commerce, i. [219-224].
Cowie, Dr Robert, on pre-historic remains found in Shetland, i. [300-306].
Culdees, the, note, i. 28, [29].
Danes, the, and home rule in Iceland, i. 105.
Danish Government, the, i. [378-380].
Days, Icelandic names for, i. 73.
Denmark and the annexation of Iceland, i. 99.
Desolate prospect, a, ii. [324].
Diseases, i. [151-155].
Divisions of Iceland, i. 116, [117].
Divorce, an easy method of, i. 151.
Doomsday Book of the North, the, i. 27; ii. [50].
Dress, styles of, i. 147.
Drunkenness in Iceland, i. [359-362].
Duncansbay Head, i. 274, [278].
Eddas, the, i. 95.
Edinburgh, defenceless state of, i. 270.
Education, i. [155-162].
Eider down, the, i. 201, [202].
Eider duck, the, ii. [45], [46], [112].
Emigration, i. 208.
Epitaph, a model, i. 137.
Eyjarbakka-vatn, ii. [321].
Færoe Islands, the, dulness of, i. 299.
Fair Isle, i. 308.
Family, the, i. [148-151].
Farewell to Edinburgh, a, i. 267.
Farm-house, a, i. 145;
a rough, ii. [288].
Finance of Iceland, i. [110-112].
Fish diet for brain-workers, i. 190.
Fisheries, i. [189-198].
Fjörðs, the, popular theory about, i. 49.
Flora of Iceland, i. [175-79].
Fox, the, i. 170.
Foula, the island of, i. 22, [309].
Funeral customs, i. 372.
Gare-fowl, the, ii. [228].
Genesis and geology, i. 35.
Geysir, the, i. 55, [319], ii. [169];
Bunsen on, [177];
Werner and Baring-Gould on, [178];
decline of the, [183];
description of, in eruption, [184-191];
a new Geysir, [222].
Granton, i. 269;
compared with Reykjavik, [269];
the central quay, [269];
farewell to group of friends, [269].
Guide, the pretty, ii. [27];
guides, [29];
a bad, [214].
Gulf Stream, the, i. 56.
Hafnafjörð, ii. [87-89].
Hakon of Norway and the liberty of Iceland, i. 98.
Hay-harvest, the, ii. [245].
Hay-making, i. 148.
Hekla, i. 315;
exaggeration of former travellers, ii. [161];
ascent of, [162];
sayings about, [164].
Hel-viti, gate of, ii. [164].
Herðubreið, view of, from north, ii. [305];
volcano of, [308];
ascent of, given up, [311].
Henchel’s report on the Icelandic sulphur mines, ii. [329-343].
High school, deficiency of education in, ii. [5];
method of teaching, [6];
theological school, [7].
Hindús, faith of the, i. 93.
Historical notes, i. 78.
Hjaltalín, Jón A., on the Danish chronicles, i. 83;
on finance, [110].
Horse, use of, by Icelanders, ii. [33].
Human and other remains in Iceland, paper on, ii. [212-220].
Hydrography, i. 53;
names of rivers and lakes, [54], [55].
Inchkeith, i. 270.
Intermarriage, i. 135.
Iron-ore, presence of, i. 205.
Itinerary from Reykjavik to Hekla and the Geysir, ii. [201-211];
from Berufjörð to Mý-vatn, [271].
Johnston, Mr Keith, on volcanic eruptions, i. 44.
John o’ Groats, i. 275.
Jökulsá River, the, ii. [268];
view of from Herðubreið, [309].
Judicial procedure, i. 120.
Kerguelen on the trade of Iceland, i. 228.
Kincardineshire, coast of. i. 272.
Kirkjubæ, ruins of, i. 298.
Kirkwall visited, i. 282.
Kissing, the custom of, i. 160.
Krísuvík sulphur diggings, the, ii. [133-135];
paper on, by C. W. Vincent, [135-153].
Landnámabók, the, i. 27;
extracts from, [78], [79], ii. [50].
Laug, the, or reeking spring, ii. [51].
Lakes, the, of Iceland, i. 54.
Law, meaning of, i. 271.
Ledge-springs, the, ii. [294].
Leirhnúkr, sulphur springs at, ii. [282].
Lemprière on Thule, i. 10.
Leprosy, prevalence of, i. 153.
Lerwick, i. 281.
Lich-gate, the, i. 349.
Literature on Iceland, i. [235-260];
in Iceland, ii. [2].
Little Hell, ii. [283].
Livingstone familiarly known in Iceland, i. 367.
Lock, A. G., and the sulphur diggings, ii. [297].
“Lord Kilgobbin,” description of moors and bogs in, i. 293.
Macculloch on Palagonite, i. 38.
Magnus, Cathedral of St, i. 282.
Magnusson on human remains in Iceland, ii. [218].
Maori proverb, a, ii. [288].
Maps of Iceland, i. 252.
Marriage, a check to, i. 148;
customs at feast, ii. [314], [315].
Medicine, the study of, ii. [6].
Mela on Thule, i. 7.
Merchant, the general stock kept by, i. 233.
Millenary Festival, the, i. 109.
Model farm, a, ii. [266].
Months, names of the, in Iceland, i. 71.
Moss, Iceland, i. 203, ii. [75].
Mountains of Iceland, altitude of the, i. 41, [42].
Mud-springs, ii. [296].
Mý-vatn, the solfatara of, ii. [279];
sport at, [280].
Napoleon, Prince, his expedition to Iceland, i. 38.
Newspapers in Iceland, ii. [1].
Northmen, character of the, i. 138.
Norwegians, the, peopling of Iceland by, i. 88.
Obsidian, where found, ii. [285].
Old Man of Hoy, the, i. 280.
Orcadian minister, prayer by, i. 279.
Palagonite, the, of Iceland, i. [35-38].
Papæ;, the, i. 27;
Dasent’s remarks on, [28], ii. [310].
Peat and coal, i. 294.
Peewits, ii. [46].
Pentland Skerries, the, i. 276;
Firth, the, [276].
Personal appearance of Icelanders, i. 132, [133].
Physical geography of Iceland, i. 35.
Picture, an Icelandic, described, ii. [16].
Piracy, the practice of, i. 89.
Pliny on Thule, i. 8.
Political geography, i. 113.
Population of Iceland, i. 115, [124-129].
Ponies, export of the, i. 224, ii. [30];
prices of the, [31];
method of riding, [37];
difficulties in shoeing, [39];
method of putting on board, [44].
Postal arrangements, i. 200, [201], [223].
Printing presses, number of the, ii. [2].
Professions, i. [162-169].
Prudentius Aurelius on Thule, i. 3.
Ptolemy on Thule, i. 9.
Radical Road (Arthur’s Seat), i. 270.
Raven, the, ii. [243].
Reformation, the, its effect on the national mind, i. 238, [374], [375].
Reindeer, the, i. 170.
Reykholt Kirk, Inventory of, ii. [70].
Reykir, ii. [157].
Reykjanes, i. 318, [322], [323].
Reykjahlíð Church, ii. [286].
Reykjavik, i. 59;
appearance of, from the sea, [325];
description of, [326-380];
Sunday in, [348], [357];
trades and professions, [363];
riding saddles, ii. [41];
fishermen of, [44];
the pier, [45].
Road-making in Iceland, i. 52.
Roc, the, ii. [228].
Romans, the, their knowledge of Iceland, i. 21;
remains of, [30].
Ronaldshaw, i. 278.
Runic writing, i. 288;
alphabet, explanation of, [288].
Sagas, the, i. 95, [131];
a Saga hero realised, ii. [325].
Salmon fishing, the, i. 194, [197];
salmon ground, ii. [59].
Scandinavian curse, a, ii. [105];
savage punishments by, [106].
Sand pillars, ii. [270].
Schools in Iceland, ii. [4].
Seal, the, ii. [242].
Seneca on Thule, i. 2.
Servius on Thule, i. 2.
Shaffner, Colonel, and Atlantic telegraphy, ii. [73].
Shark, a dead, ii. [237].
Shark-hunting, ii. [236].
Sheep, i. 186.
Shetland, life in, i. 295;
Shetlanders, personal appearance of the, [295].
Sibbald, Sir Robert, on Thule: a part of Great Britain, i. 11.
Simpson, Sir James, his archæological researches, i. 279.
Skálds, the, i. 97;
poetry of, [237].
Skaptárjökull, eruption of the, i. 46.
Sledging, ii. [260].
Smallpox, ravages of the, i. 152.
Smoking, in and out of fashion, i. 362.
Snæ-land, on the meaning of, i. 76.
Snæfell, i. 323, ii. [78], [96].
Snakes, on the absence of, from Iceland, i. 173.
Snuff boxes, the manufacture of, ii. [16].
Society, i. [141-148].
Solan goose, the, i. 317.
Spinning, i. 198.
Stonehenge, a theory concerning, ii. [106].
Stone of Iceland, i. 51.
Stone implements found in Iceland, ii. [20].
Stone weapons, ii. [20].
Store, the, i. 225.
Strabo on Thule, i. 3.
Strokkr, the, ii. [181].
Stromness, museum at, i. 290.
Stykkishólm, climate of, i. 63, ii. [101].
Sulphur, i. 171;
diggings, the, [171];
at Krísuvík, ii. [133], [135];
disused, [292];
mountain, [295];
pure, [295];
commercial value of, [296];
diggings leased by Mr Lock, [297];
importation of, [299];
prospects of trade in, [300].
Sulphur in Iceland, ii. [329];
mines at Krísuvík, [329];
at Mý-vatn, [335];
at Hlíðarnámar, [340];
Theystarreykja mines, [340];
refining of the sulphur, [342];
Sir G. S. Mackenzie on, [344];
Consul Crowe’s report on, [345];
Captain Burton’s notes on Mr Vincent’s paper on, [348];
C. C. Blake on, [352];
leasing contract for, [378];
report of the Althing on, [381];
in Sicily, [390];
on Red Sea, [400];
in Transylvania, [400];
in Andaman Islands, [402].
Sunday in Iceland, i. 348.
Service in church, i. 352, [353], [357].
Swan, song of the, ii. [313].
Taxation, i. 119, [209], [215].
Taylor’s “Etruscan Researches” criticised, ii. [107].
Telegraphy, ii. [73].
Tents for travel, ii. [43].
Theology, the study of, ii. [7].
Things, the, i. [90-92].
Thingvallavatn Lake, ii. [193].
Thor and Christ, i. 94.
Thorvaldsen an Icelander, i. 350, [351].
Thule, of, i. 1;
princess of, and king of, [1];
political and rhetorical, [1], [2];
Strabo, Mela, Pliny, and Ptolemy on, [3-11];
part of Great Britain, [11-23];
as Scandia, [23-25];
as Iceland, [25-32];
etymology of, [32].
Tom Noddy, the, i. 316.
Trades in Iceland, i. 125.
Trout fishing, about, i. 197.
Tyndall, Professor, on Palagonite, i. 37;
on the Mer de Glace, [43];
on active volcanoes, [49].
Vatnajökull, crossing of the, ii. [231];
view of the, [258];
sudden fogs on the, [315].
Vesuvius, eruption of, i. 47.
Virgil on Thule, i. 2.
Volcanic ashes, i. 50.
Wallace, the, of Iceland, ii. [124].
Waterproof for Iceland, note, i. 261.
Watts, Mr, on the Vatnajökull, ii. [232].
Weaving, i. 198.
Weights and measures, the national, i. 215, [218].
Wild oats, story regarding, in Iceland, ii. [296].
Windmill, a, ii. [233].
Yankee traveller, the, i. 356.
Zoological notes and sport, i. [169-175].
END OF VOL. II.
M‘Farlane & Erskine, Printers, Edinburgh.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From Thjóð old High Germ. Diot, a people, a nation; often found in composition, as Thjóð-fundr =constituent assembly, Thjóð-rekr = Germ. Diet-rich, and Thjóð-marr = Germ. Dit-mar (Cleasby).
[2] Akureyri had another paper, the Gángleri, which ceased publication in 1872. It contained some valuable articles, especially one headed “What am I to pay to the Thing?” and the answer was apparently not easy, as it occupied seven issues, beginning with February 7, 1871.
[3] It was here in Henderson’s time, and it was disliked because charged with “a tendency to introduce the illumination of the German school.” At present, besides the presses of Reykjavik and Akureyri, there is a third at the Elliðavatn, one hour’s ride from the capital. It belongs to a certain Hr Benedikt, ex-assessor of the High Court of Justice, who was removed for the best of reasons. He has no licence to print.
[4] And even England lacks the foundations which encourage specialties in Germany. What we want is a number of students who are able to devote their time to pursuits never likely to pay in a publishing sense. Some day, perhaps, one of those philanthropists who give half-a-million sterling to an hospital or to a church, will provide the necessary accommodation in the “Temple of Science”—£15,000 per annum, divided into incomes ranging from £200 to £300, would supply a great desideratum.
[5] The principal are the red-breasted merganser (Mergus merganser); the rare lap-wing (Vanellus cristatus); the water-rail (Rallus aquaticus), also uncommon; the thrush (Turdus eleacus); the willow wren (Motacilla trochilus); and the little regulus with big feet and bill (Troglodytes borealis), the Pjetur Nonsmad, or Peter Dinner of Norway, because he is not seen after noon, and the Fugle Kongr, because he rides the eagle. Curious stories are also told about the wren at Trieste; he appears and disappears with the thrushes, avoiding the heats of summer: the same is said about the Abú Hin (the father of Henna) at Damascus. The black-bird (Turdus merula) is sometimes driven to Iceland by southern gales.
[6] Of local specimens we were shown varieties of the Mó-berg (Palagonite tuff), especially from the Seljadalr, which feels soft, between chalk and steatite, some white or dull yellow, acted upon by acids; others brown and black. Palagonite conglomerate with large pieces of felspar. Blue compact basalt from Kjallarnes, with and without drusic cavities; hexagonal basalt; reniform pebbles of the same material. Jaspers, red, yellow, and green, from the north, the latter containing copper. Dolerite or greenstone. A collection of Hekla lavas, passing from the porous to the highly compact. Micaceous “glimmer schiefer” studded with garnets. Zeolite and Iceland spar; silicates of lime. Quartz needles from the Geysir, and other quartzes, uncrystallised and crystallised into fine hexagons, large and small, often contained in bolides. Aluminous clays and oxide of iron, some with regular angles and metallic revetments. Concretions from Laugarnes and the Geysir, the stalks of plants resembling petrified bones. The Cyprina Gaimardi and Byssomea arctica from the north. Other shells: Balanus, Mya truncata, Venus Islandica, Lepas, Bulla, and Turbinus. True cannel coal from Suderoe, to the west; lignites, old and new; pieces of Surtar-brand, flat, and showing impressions of leaves; large fragments of true pitch-stone resembling, and others in transition to, obsidian. Hrafntinna (Raven-flint, Gagates Islandicus), obsidian or Iceland agate, black and liver-brown, like Jews’ pitch or asphalt, from Mý-vatn and the Hrafnatinnuhraun of Hekla. Henderson (i. 178) mistranslates Hrafnutinna, “Piedra de Galinazzo, or raven-stone” (for buzzard-stone). Agates, chalcedonies, and transitional opals, from Múla Sýsla, Tindastoll, and Heimaklettur, in the Vestmannaeyjar: according to Professor Abel, the south-eastern coast affords the noble stone, and the islanders believe that about 1821 a Mr Methley (?) carried home a valuable collection. Professor Árnason kindly gave me a little box of chalcedonies which looked like onyxes.
[7] The Skýrsla (Report) of the Library gives a total of 387 works, distributed amongst eight stands of sixteen shelves—they are by no means well filled. Classical authors occupy two cases on the left of the entrance; on the right are translations of the Testament, and some elementary works in Arabic and Armenian, Hindostani, Maharati, and Bengali, all “dead letters” here. At the further end are modern books printed in Reykjavik. The small collection of Icelandic manuscripts is all on paper, the more valuable vellum has left the island for “foreign parts.” There are bundles of ecclesiastical archives, tattered and unbound copies of the defunct “Islendingur,” which is more quoted in England than in Iceland; and finally, there is a small set of novelists, Walter Scott (in German), Dickens, and Bulwer, lent to the reading public.
[8] The only remarkabilities are the Bibles and the manuscripts. Among the first we find the large folio Biblia of 1584—the first entire work—translated from the German version of Martin Luther by Guðbrand Thorlaksson, Bishop of Hólar, and there printed. This admirable work, which rivals our “established version,” is not divided into verses, and is chiefly curious because the mechanical dignitary, who in 1574 imported new types, made his own capitals, plates, and woodcuts. He was assisted by the Icelander Jón Jónsson, and preceded by John Mathieson, a Swede, who brought the first printing press about 1520, and who published the “Breviarium Nidarosiense” in 1521; an ecclesiastical handbook, Luther’s Catechism, and others of the same kind. These works, especially the Breviarium, are so rare as to be practically unprocurable. According to my informants, no “Elucidarius” has ever been published in Iceland. The Rev. Thorwaldr Bjarnason assured me that the oldest Icelandic manuscript is one of these catechisms, translated, as they all were, from Latin, and dating from the thirteenth century. The second Biblia (1644), after the Danish version of Bishop Resinius, is the work of Bishop Thorlak Skurlason of Hólar, who divided it into verses. The type is black letter, ultra-Gothic Gothic, and the two folios are in the best condition. There is a copy of the New Testament (1540, Henderson, ii. 265) translated by Oddr Gottskálksson, with the distinguishing mark
(G. T. and cross), a large and thick duodecimo, with the beginning and the end restored by manuscript—Icelanders, as a rule, are very skilful in supplying lost pages. Of this book only three copies are known, the two others are at the deanery of Hruni and in Glasgow. Another New Testament (1609), reprinted at Hólar by Bishop Guðbrand, whose high-nosed and fork-bearded face remind us of his kinsman Rustam in far Iran, is a small stout octavo, with an old binding and metal clasps.
[9] The valuable printed books are the fourth volume of Finn Jónsson’s “Historia Monastica,” of which only three copies exist in the island; the “Scriptores Rerum Danicarum” (Jacobus Longebek, 8 vols. folio, Hafniæ, 1772); and the “Crymogea” of Arngrimr Jónsson, 4 vols. octavo: the latter is so unhappily divided that it is most difficult to find a passage required. Some of the shelves are filled with presents made by patriotic Icelanders and liberal publishers, such as The Gentleman’s Magazine till 1771; a few Smithsonian and Patent Office Reports; “Le Plutarch Français;” “Conversations Lexicons;” the “Allgemeine Deutsch Bibliotek;” the “Bibliothêque des Romans;” “Chambers’s Information for the People;” “Dictionnaire de Bayle,” and the “Chronique des Religieux de Saint Denis,” by L. Bellaguet—a curious mixture by the side of Thackeray, Dickens, and Marryat. The list of local works, so much wanted by travellers and so rarely found, is eminently defective. Neither the first nor the second volume of Cleasby was among the number, and although the Latin translation of the Njála exists, Mr Dasent’s “Burnt Njál” did not appear. Of Englishmen in Iceland, I found Hooker and Mackenzie, Lord Dufferin, and Symington. Gaimard’s sumptuous and expensive work, including the folio illustrations, is there: its fate has been general abuse and unlimited “cribbing.” I was shown in London some photographs of exploration in the Vatnajökull, which were mere reproductions of the “Sommet du Snæfells Jökull;” and many a book of travels has similarly enriched itself.
[10] The oldest form is Frauva, and the later Frú is probably a contracted form of Fruvu, or of Freyja (Venus), according to the Prose Edda (c. 24), but in the glossary to the Poetical Edda, it is from Friðr, handsome, whence Friðla, a concubine, corresponding with the German Frau, but put after as well as before the name. It was little used before the thirteenth century, and in the fourteenth it was applied to abbesses and the wives of knights, not of priests. At present, it is given without distinction. Húsfreyja is = Germ. Hausfrau = Eng. Housewife, always a married woman. Junfrú is = Germ. Jungfrau, a princess in the thirteenth century, now simply Mademoiselle. Víf (Weib, a wife) is purely poetical in Icel.: it is supposed to be originally a weaver (Vefa, vífiðr). Hence the Anglo-Saxon Wîf-mann = woman, not womb-(Icel. Vömb) man. Herra (= Germ. Herr) was a title given in A.D. 1277 to the new Norwegian creation of barons (Hersar) and knights: bishops and abbots were also so styled. After the Reformation it became an integral part of the address of bishops, as Síra of priests, but only applied like the Latin Don (dominus) to Christian names. Now it is our Mister or Esquire in writing: in conversation Icelanders have no equivalent for these words; the person, if not a clerk, is simply addressed by his Christian name. The old scale of precedence was Konungr, Jarl, Hersir (the baron of Normandy and Norman England), Höldr (yeoman), and Búandi or Bóndi, = Germ. Bauer, a tiller of the ground (Cleasby).
[11] From Falda, to fold, hence the Ital. Falda and Faldetta, head-dress. As women vied in the size of this “stately national head-gear,” it obtained the sarcastic name Stiku-faldr, “yard-long fald.” In modern poetry, Iceland, with her glaciers, is represented as a woman with her fald on. Skaut is the “sheet” or veil, which hung down behind (Cleasby).
[12] Forbes’ sketch of “Helda’s buttons” gives an excellent idea of the article.
[13] M. Gaimard deduces this word from the Germ. Bauer, peasant; evidently an error. The North of England names, of which twenty to thirty end in -by, e.g., Kirk-by, derived the suffix from the Danish and Swedish -by, which is = Icel. Bær (Cleasby).
[14] The instrument occurs in the proverb, “Svá eru Flosa ráð sem fari Kefli.” Flosa plans are a rolling cylinder (Gr. Οἱ δὲ κυλίνδροις ἄλλοτ’ ἐπ’ ἀλλὰ φέρονται), the metaphor being taken from a mangle (Cleasby).
[15] The latter also has introduced the rude Scotch Posh or fiddle, strung with “Torren,” the small gut of the sheep (Edmonston).
[16] Thorpe (Edda, preface, part ii., pp. iv., v.) suggests that the name of this adaptation of Vedic and Iranic artificer-gods, this northern Vulcan and Dædalus, may be merely an adaptation from the German Wieland, or the Anglo-Saxon Weland, and notices Sir Walter Scott’s woeful perversion, in “Kenilworth,” of the venerable legend travestied from the Berkshire tradition. Blackwall tells us that a labyrinth was called Völundarhús—a wayland house; and Cleasby that Völundr survives in the Fr. Galant, and the Eng. Gallant.
[17] The day, however, has not come when these weapons can be ranged strictly according to date, and when a narrow comparison of differences, not of superficial resemblance, can be made between those discovered in different parts of the world.
[18] It is nothing but the “cross cramponné” of heraldry, and is generally identified with the mythic “thunderbolt;” hence, probably, the pre-Christian crosses of Scandinavian inscriptions. Of the sacred cross in the Huaca at Cuzco, we learn that the Incas did not worship it, beyond holding it in veneration on account of the beauty of its form, or for some other reason which they could scarcely give expression to (Garcilasso de la Vega, translated, etc., by Clements R. Markham, C.B., for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1869). It may be remarked that the pre-Christian cross, shaped as an ordinary Greek cross, when not connected with the sacred Tan of Egypt, was the symbol of the four quarters; when surrounded by a circle, it denoted the solar path from left to right round the world. A later symbol of the same order was the Hindu Swastika (mystical mark, meeting of four roads, etc.), whose arms, according to Mr Beal, should always be drawn from left to right, and not, as is sometimes done, “widdershins,” or in the reverse way. Finally, the crocheted cross (Cruz ansata at four ends) is the Aryan symbol of the sacred fire lit by Pramatha (Prometheus).
[19] The trip of eight days thus costs £14, but the travellers had potted provisions, liquor, and other comforts, which may have brought the expense up to £20—£10 each. Allowing £3 for the six days of delay, in or about Reykjavik, till the fortnightly steamer starts; £6 for coming from and returning to Granton; and £3 for extras; the total of £22 easily “does” the Geysirs. Of course, those who are not hurried will pay much less.
[20] The figures have been treated in the Introduction, Sect. VII.
[21] Hross in Icelandic (Germ. Ross, Fr. Rosse) is singular and plural. So Chaucer makes “hors” plural, and we still say, a troop of horse, like a flock of sheep. So in Shetland Russa-bairn (stallion, male) is opposed to Hesta-bairn (mare) child. The Hengist and Horsa of our innocent childhood were derived from the same words.
[22] Nothing easier than to teach the horse meat-eating and fish-eating. Where little and highly nutritious food is forced by the necessity of saving weight, the habit is acquired in youth.
[23] In this matter the last few years have seen a wonderful improvement amongst us; still, I have visited wealthy stables in England where the thermometer stood at 72° (F.), equal to Boston Hotel, or to an Anglo-Indian London Club. It is difficult to reform the evil where grooms sleep above these ovens, where hot air saves grooming coats, and where the vet. requires to make a livelihood. The perfection of horse-stabling appears to me a modification of the Afghan system—protecting the chest and body with felts, thick or thin as the season demands, and allowing the head and throat to be hardened by cold, pure air.
[24] This is a general rule: 65 for an ass, 100 for a pony, and 120-150 for an ox. The latter are not trained to carry luggage in Iceland, and it is hard to tell the reason why.
[25] Astraddle was doubtless the earliest form of feminine seat, yet Mr Newton found at Budrum a statue of Diana sitting her horse sideways.
[26] Information concerning them may be met with in Gosselin (Historia Fucorum): travellers have paid scant attention to this branch of botany. The wracks feed man and beast, and serve for fuel, bed stuffing, and other domestic purposes: consequently some forty-four kinds have been described, especially that impostor, the Zostera marina, which lies in loose heaps. The most common are the Fucus palmatus, Sacchurinus esculentus, edulis, fœniculaceus, and digitatus. The first-mentioned is the Sol, eaten in Ireland and in Scotland, where it is called Dulce: at Oreback (Eyrarbakka), it sells for 70 fishes per voet (= 80 lbs.). The second, F. saccharinus (Alga saccharifera), is the Welsh Laver, whose spirally-twisted leaves, six feet long by one broad, become straight when dry. In the Shetlands the larger fuci in general are called Tangle, Tang, and Ware, and are extensively used as manure.
[27] Dr Cowie (Shetland, 1st edit., chap. ix., pp. 165-167) gives an excellent account of “peat-casting.”
[28] Varða, in the plural Vörður, is a beacon, more generally an “homme de pierre,” a pile of stones to act as landmark or way sign; it is derived from að varða, to ward, to guard, monere (quod hîc vicus est). Our travellers generally write the word in the Danish form “Varde.” These piles, like the “‘a’úr” (Kakúr) of Syria and Palestine, are often put up by the shepherd lads, apparently for want of something else to do.
[29] Kona, of old Kwina and Kuna, is evidently the English Quean (but not Queen). It is a congener of γυνή;(Sansk. Jani), which the Rev. Wm. Ridley (p. 390, Anthrop. Journal, July and Oct. 1872) traces through Guni, Gun, Gyn, and Gin, to the Australian “Jin:” why not take it at once from the Arab. Jinn (Genie), a manner of devil? For many years, Konungr (A.S., Cynig, our King) was composed of Konr, man of gentle birth, and Ungr, young; but the Dictionary pronounces this to be a mere poetical fancy.
[30] The pint was found to contain 3·51 grains of solid matter. The specific gravity (at 60° F.) was 1000·21, and the components were:
| Silica, | 1·04 | grains. |
| Protoxide of iron, | 0·24 | ” |
| Lime, | a trace. | |
| Magnesia, | 0·2 | ” |
| Soda, | 0·84 | ” |
| Sulphuric acid, | 0·76 | ” |
| Chlorine, | 0·40 | ” |
| Organic matter, | 0·30 | ” |
| Total, | 3·60 | grains. |
[31] We have Lax rivers in England. Some books translate Lax “trout” as well as salmon. This is a mistake, the former is always known as Sílungr or Forelle (Dan.): as may be expected, there are numerous terms for the fish at different ages and in several conditions.
[32] This suffixed article, which has died out of so many northern tongues, appears to be comparatively modern, only once showing in the Voluspa (e.g., Goðin, v. 117). It is found in Coptic, e.g., Mau-t, the mother, for Ti-mau; and in Wallach (Daco-Roman): the latter, for instance, says Frate-le (in Italian, Il fratello), and Dinte-le for Il Dente (dens).
[33] Skarð, common in local names, is the English Shard, a notch, chink, an open place in a bank, a mountain-pass, the Cumbrian Scarf-gap (Cleasby). Henderson gives Kampe as the popular name of a col; he probably means Kambi, a comb or ridge.
[34] Meaning a mane, hair, and still preserved in such names as Fairfax.
[35] The word often occurs in Iceland; it is applied to a lady’s bower or a dungeon, both being secluded chambers, to a heap of refuse (Cleasby), and to conspicuous warts and peaks of rock.
[36] At sea-level the compensated aneroid (Casella, 1182) showed 30·05, the thermometer (F.) 66°. Here it was 27·10 in the open air, with the thermometer at 40° (F.), and in the pocket 26·90, with the thermometer at 80° (F.). The instrument, despite compensation, must always be cooled in the shade before use.
[37] “The whole formation of the mountain (Büdös) and the surrounding cones, the sharp-edged blocks and masses of rock, heaped up one on the other, of which these consist, the apparently molten surface of the trachyte—all seems plainly to prove that it was only after the formation of these masses, and when they were in a rigid state, that a grand upheaval took place here; during which, the powerful gases from below, raising, and straining, and tearing the masses, piled them up in mighty domes and mountain-tops, tossing them about till, here and there, they had found permanent canals leading to the surface of the earth.” (Frederic Fronius, quoted by Mr Bonar).
[38] It is noticed in the “Mémoires de la S. R. des Antiquaires du Nord” (p. 9, vol. of 1845-49). The writer assigns it to A.D. 1143, in the days of “Are Frode” (Ari hinn Fróði).
[39] Múli (pron. mule) is the Germ. Maul, a muzzle, and the Scotch Mull (e.g., of Galloway), the Shetland and Orkney “Mule.” It means a buttress, with bluff head, a tongue of high land, bounded on three sides by slopes or precipices, and the word should be adopted into general geography. The Arabs would call this favourite site for old towns, “Zahr et Taur”—the bull’s back.
[40] The late Mr Piddington tells us that the Hvalfjörð district is “called by the neighbouring inhabitants Veðra-Kista, that is, box or chest of winds, which implies that this inlet is, as it were, the abode of violent storms.” He gives cyclones to Iceland, where there are none, and he corrects Uno Von Troil (p. 41) who rightly makes the name “Storm-coast (Veðra-kista) to be given to some places in Iceland.”
[41] The Sel, which often occurs in Icelandic names, is the German Senn-hütte, a shed, or little farm-house, in a mountain-pasture. The A.S. Sele probably reappears in our north-country “Shiel,” a small shooting farm. In Norway such huts are called Setr, or Sætr, the A.S. Sætar: hence Sumur Sætas (dwellers in summer huts) became our Somerset. Iceland wants the cold arbour (Ceald here-berga = Kaltern herberg of old Germany), the bare-walled lodge, or “Traveller’s bungalow.”
[42] The North Atlantic Telegraph viâ the Færoe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. London: Stanford, 1861.
[43] At the farm-house the mean of three observations taken before setting out, and after return, gave 29·60, th. (F.) 71°; summit of first ridge, 27·65, th. 87°; top of mountain, 26·60, th. 77°.
[44] From að stilla, to fix a position.
[45] In the Shetlands called Smora, from Dan. Smör, butter, because it gives an abundance of cream.
[46] Hooker, ii. 325.
[47] The Mexicans also had a “Fair God,” Quetzel, beautiful as Baldur, and, better still, averse to human sacrifices. The popular tradition, that some day he would return from the east and rule the land, made Montezuma recognise him in the blond-haired Cortez: the great explorer and conqueror, however, did not prove a satisfactory Quetzel. Of these white gods and foreigners from the east, even in South America, I have treated fully in my notes to Hans Stade (Hakluyt Soc.), part ii., chap. xv.
[48] The word was taken from Chamounix by De Saussure. It is not, as Petermann says, the detritus or rubbish heaps from the bottom and sides of the glacier or ice-fall, but the débris of the rock above it.
[49] This is the popular form of Or-usta, battle.
[50] Melr, a sandy hill, and especially a bare bank of sand and stone, familiar to Iceland travellers, has been explained in the Introduction (Sect. VII.). Baring-Gould (p. 284) would derive it from a root signifying to grind; Holmboe from Myldja, to dig, or from Mold, loose earth. Bakki is a bank or ridge, opposed to Brekka (brink), a slope, a hill.
[51] This stone, like the diamond, threatens to lose more than half its value, if it be true that the State of Queretaro in Mexico has lately (1874) yielded “opals of the first quality, and of all varieties; the milk-opals, fire-opals, girasols or ‘harlequins,’ and the richest Hungarian or precious opals.”
[52] The word Áss, pl. Asar and Æsir, is explained by Jornandes, “Gothi proceres suos quasi qui fortunâ vincebant non pares homines sed semideos, i.e. Anses (Ans in Mæso-Gothic) vocavere.” Suetonius makes Æsar an Etruscan word which meant God (probably a plural of Kelt. Es). We find forms of it in the Mongolian dialects, and in the Aryan, Sanskrit (Asura), Keltic, Teutonic (Æsir), German (Anshelm, p. n.), and even in the English Osborn and Oswald. As appears to correspond with the Semitic Al, but the word is still involved in mystery.
[53] The Hebrew Esh and the Chaldee Esha (fire) are synonymous with the Aryan Is, whence Isti, an offering on the hearth, and Estika the place of offering. Hence the Greek Hestía, fire, hearth, stove, and, with digamma, the Latin Vesta when worshipped as Genius or Lar familiaris.
[54] Blót (or Forn), a sacrifice of men and beasts, horses and oxen, swine and sheep, must not be confounded with Blóð, blood. The Blót-steinn or sacrificial stone, which acted as our gallows, is described as of “oval form and a little pointed at the top,” which suggests the Moab-god Chemosh, it stood in every Thing-field, a place adjoining the Hof. I did not remark that the site of the temples always faced south, as Mallet says. The Öndvegi, or high-seat of the hall, was “on the side of the sun,” i.e., south.
[55] He specifies the ruined castle near Videdal (Viðidalr), some 200 perches in circumference and 20 fathoms (?) high on the north side; another castle near the parsonage Skaggestad at Laugarnaes; remains of heathen temples at Midfjörð, Godale, Viðvik, etc.; the ancient place of execution at Hegranaes; pagan burial-places, like that of Thorleif Jarlaskáld’s in the Oxerá island, which yielded old swords and helmets; two Bauta-steinn, great standing stones (Menhirs?), on the heaths of Thingman’s and Threkyllis, “which probably, according to Odin’s regulations, were monuments to the memory of deceased persons;” the grass-grown mound of Reykholt, “said to be raised from the ruins of Sturluson’s house;” the Sturlunga Reitr, or burial-place of his family, and forty small figures of brass representing animals and other objects found near Flatey: “unfortunately they fell into the hands of people who did not know their value, consequently they have all been lost” (p. 189).
[56] This popular German expression is evidently the Scandinavian Besse, for Berr or Bersi = Bär, a bear. Besse, again, has a suspicious likeness to the Yakut “Ese,” the most respectful term in the language, = grandfather or monseigneur, applied by those Siberian Mongols to the great white bear, their most formidable foe. Bruin in Gothland being the “king of the beasts,” to do a thing with Besse’s leave is equivalent to doing it without leave. The quaint quadruped is much noticed in folk-lore; “Mishka” is his pet name in Russia; “Berengarius” is derived from the French Dan Beringer; and Ephraim and Ole Cuffey are well known in the U.S. Persia abounds in tales about his wearing a turband and riding asses.
[57] It supplied the Hafnafiordite of Forchhammer, leek-green, light, porous, and friable pumice-tuff, containing the following proportions:
| Silica, | 35·89 |
| Alumina, | 27·36 |
| Protoxide of iron, | 14·41 |
| Lime, | 10·86 |
| Potash, | 9·00 |
| Sulphuric acid, | 1·55 |
| 99·07 |
Dr W. Lauder Lindsay remarks, “The sp. gr. is usually 2·729; it appears to be a lime-oligoclase, belonging, therefore, to the Felspathic family of minerals.”
[58] Passengers to Hafnafjörð paid only 2 marks (7d.). The nine days to the north and back were the cheapest known to me—$9 (=£1) each way, and for living £4, a total of 13s. per diem, including steward’s fees, and excellent Norwegian ale and Geneva ad lib. Breakfast of fish and meat at eight to ten A.M.; dinner of ditto and coffee at two to four P.M.; and supper, a repetition of the two, at eight to nine P.M. Port, sherry, and Château Yquem = $1 specie (4s. 6d.); champagne, $2; porter, $0·48; and Norwegian beer, 12sk. (3½d.) per bottle. The cooking was excellent, and plate and linen equally spotless; the table was laid à la Russe with pleasant little hors d’œuvres of sardines and smoked salmon, salt meat, ham, and sausage, in fact what Italians facetiously call “Porcheria.” We mentally re-echo Mr Thackeray’s hope that Great Britain, who is supposed to rule the waves, will some day devote a little more attention to her cuisine.
[59] Borg, a castle, a city, or a small dome-shaped height, is a common local term. “It may be questioned whether these names (Borgarholt, Eld-borg, etc.) are derived simply from the hill on which they stand (berg, bjarg), or whether such hills took their names from old fortifications built upon them: the latter is more likely, but no information is on record, and at present ‘borg’ only conveys the notion of a hill” (Cleasby). In Chap. I., I have shown that “borg” and “broch” are sons of the same family.
[60] Captain Graah (loc. cit.) looks upon this as a mere fable: I do not.
[61] Hít is a scrip made of skin, and, metaphorically, a big belly. With a short vowel, Hitár-dalr means the Vale of the Hot (i.e., volcanic) River, opposed to Kaldá or Cold Stream. According to Cleasby, the derivation from the Giantess Hít is a modern fiction not older than the Bárðar Saga: he also, contrary to other authorities, makes Dominus Bárð a giantess.
[62] The Dictionary gives Göltr, a hog, and Kolla, a deer without horns, a humble deer, a hind.
[63] Both translations are somewhat too literal: Enni, a forehead, secondarily means the “brow of a hill,” a steep crag, a fronting precipice.
[64] As the “Berserkir” is becoming a power in novelistic literature, it may be advisable to give the correct form. The singular nominative is Ber-serkr, the plural Ber-serkir, and the oblique form Berserkja, e.g., Berserkja-dis, cairn of the Berserkir. Cleasby (sub voce) shows that the common derivation, taken from Snorri, “berr” (bare) and “Serkr” (sark or shirt) is inadmissible, and greatly prefers “Berr” (a bear), whose skins were worn by athletes and champions; perhaps also here we find traces of that physical metamorphosis in which all the older world believed. The “Berserksgangr” (furor bersercicus seu athleticus), when these “champions” howled like wild beasts, gnawed their iron shields, and were proof against fire and steel, may be compared with the “running amok” of the Malays, and the “bhanging up” of the Hindu hero—invariably the effect of stimulants. This fact considerably abates our interest in Eastern tales of “derring-do,” for instance, in the account of the two sentinels at Delhi, whose calm gallantry, probably produced by opium or hemp, is noticed in pitying terms by Sir Hope Grant.
[65] For the observations at Stykkishólm, see Introduction, Sect. II.
[66] Henderson (ii. 67) places “Hofstad” on the western side of the peninsula.
[67] Réttir are the big public pens, Dilkar the small folds round the former, and the Stekkjarvegr is the spring-fold; all are dry stone walls, as on the Libanus.
[68] As the word is written, it can only signify “Lithe (slope) of the panegyric;” Drápa being a poem in honour of gods, saints, kings, princes, and so forth, as opposed to the short panegyric “Plockr,” and to the longer “Hroðr,” or “Lof.” The boatman, however, explained it to mean Slope of Death, i.e., where some battle took place, and this would be derived from Dráp, slaughter. Both words (says Cleasby) come from Drepa, to strike. There is also a dispute concerning the formation of certain beds in this mountain, some holding that they issued from the same crater successively, and others, simultaneously, from different mouths.
[69] Henderson (ii. 68) places the stone in the swamp, not on the hill-side; Forbes (219) adds that it was in the centre of the Doom-ring. If so, we did not see it: moreover, Mr R. M. Smith heard from Hr Thorlacius that we were misled. I cannot help believing in the shepherd-boy; and there was no mistaking the Doom-ring. For the most part, the instruments of death stood in the fens where certain classes of criminals were drowned. On the other hand, the Landnámabók (chap. xii.) says, that after the profanation of Helgafell (Monticulus Sacer), Thórðr Gellir “forum (Thing) in superiora linguæ loca ubi nunc est, transportavere ... ibique adhuc conspiciendus est lapis Thorinus (Thórsteinn), supra quem homines sacrificio destinati, frangebantur; ibi etiam circulus judicialis existit in quo homines ad victimas condemnabant.”
[70] Compare this Northern effort with the poetical Greek curse at the Akropolis of Athens: “I entrust the guardianship of this temple to the infernal gods, to Pluto, and to Ceres, and to Proserpine, and to all the Furies, and to all the gods below. If any one shall deface this temple, or mutilate it, or remove anything from it, either of himself, or by means of another, to him may not the land be passable, nor the sea navigable, but may he be utterly uprooted! May he experience all evils, fever, and ague, and quartan, and leprosy! And as many ills as man is liable to, may they befall that man who dares to move anything from this temple!” Perhaps the most picturesque composition of the kind is the inscription upon the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar, king of Sidon—at least in the translation of the late Duc de Luynes.
[71] This form of “lynching” is popularly and erroneously supposed to have been invented upon the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. The Brazilian “Indians” practised it by way of ceremonial toilette.
[72] Waring and many others suggest that the “Prostrate Stone” lying north-east of the horse-shoe or elliptical opening of the Stonehenge trilithons, and the three—formerly five—fallen stones inside the vallum, represent the first or outer circle, like that of Avebury. It is usually assumed that the “Friar’s Heel,” the single “block lying farther to the north-east of the “Prostrate Stone,” served for astronomical purposes, the sun rising over it on the summer solstice, and striking the sacrificial Thorsteinn or Blótsteinn (4 by 16 feet). The same arrangement is remarked at Stennis. There seems, however, no reason why both should not have been members of an outermost circle.
Martin (Description of Western Islands, London, 1716) has preserved the popular tradition that the sun was worshipped in the larger, and the moon in the lesser, ring of the Orkney ruins. Later writers deny the honour of erecting the circles of Stennis and Borgar (anciently Broisgar = Brúar-garðr) to the “Northmen,” because such circles are found only in localities where a Keltic race has ruled, and because “such names as Stennis and Stonehenge prove that they had existence before the people who so designated them arrived in the country.” The causa appears to me a non causa, especially if they were Thingsteads and Doom-rings, which in later days would take modern and trivial names from their sites or peculiarities of structure. On the other hand, the absence of tradition concerning the popular use of the buildings, which we might expect to linger in the minds of men, is a serious objection.
[73] We have retained the word “Flói” in ice-floe. It properly means the deep water of a bay opposed to the shallow water along shore.
[74] We see in Ireland, Scotland, and the English coast about Bristol, the effect of these gales: they prevail along the coast of Brittany, become less violent in the Bay of Biscay and along Portugal, and finally the Mediterranean, as the regular outlines of the Balearics, Sicily, and Malta prove, ignores them.
[75] The work of Jón Thórðarson and another compiler in the fourteenth century, who transcribed from old MSS., and bring the history up to A.D. 1395, that is a century before the Columbian discovery. A facsimile specimen of the vellum manuscript used by Professor Rafu as the basis of his text is given in the “Antiquitates Americanæ.”
[76] In June 1862 Mr Shepherd and his party succeeded in mastering the Dránga Jökull. Upon the summit the barometer marked 26·5° (at sea-level 29 inches, not degrees), and the thermometer 32° (F.). Glámu (Dict., Glam, Glamr, Glaumr, glamour) is translated “noisy Jökull,” from the hljóð (Germ. Laut), or the clamour, the crashing and clashing of ice-slips and torrents.
[77] Dýr is Θήρ, their, deôr, and deer, in Iceland especially applied to the fox, being the only insular beast of prey (Cleasby).
[78] According to some local authorities, Ísafjörð is the mouth of the Ísafjarðardjúp. Mr Shepherd (p. 92) lays down that the bay-head and the town are called Ísafjörð, whilst Ísafjarðardjúp is the name of the whole.
[79] Ísa being the genitive plural of Íss, ice. See page 5, “The Thousandth Anniversary of the Norwegian Settlement of Iceland,” by Jón A. Hjaltalín, Reykjavik, 1874: the Standard (August 25, 1874) confounds this author with Dr Hjaltalín, “by far the greatest and most learned Icelander of the day.” Some have erroneously derived it from Ísa or Ýsa, a coal-fish or haddock, which is here plentiful: this Gadus carbonarius is known to western Scotland by many names. They are “cuddies” when six to eight inches long, excellent eating in October; when herring-sized they become “saythes,” somewhat coarse of flesh; and when full-grown “stane-lochs,” almost unfit for food.
[80] The Ursus albus maritimus or Thalarctos is called Bamsin and the female Bingsen: it is well known to be carnivorous, a “lahhám,” as the peasants of the Libanus term their small brown bears (U. Syriacus): moreover, it rises upon its haunches to scalp the huntsman, like the Himalayan bear (U. Thibeticus). The two others common in Norway are the Hesta-biörn or horse-bear (the common brown U. Arctos), and the Myre or small bear (possibly a variety of the former, like the black bear of Europe). The latter is valued for its hams, as the paws of the great grizzly (U. ferox), the most savage of its kind, are prized in the Western States of North America.
[81] It must not be confounded, as some travellers have done, with Eyra, an ear. Eyri is the modern form of Eyrr, the Shetland Urie, and the Swedish Ör: e.g., Helsing-ör, our Elsinore. Eyr-byggjar are men who build in Eyris; and, hence, the “Eyrbyggja Saga.” The feature, like the Holmr, was used for battle-plains; thus Ganga út á eyri, is to fight a duel (Cleasby).
[82] This common name for such features is one of the Semitic words (Arab. Karn) which has been naturalised in Aryan speech through Κέρας and Cornu. Another is “Botn,” flat or low land, e.g., Gulf of Bothnia, in Arab. Batn.
[83] Staðr (plur. Staðir), our “stead,” secondarily means a church establishment, see, convent, chapel, and so forth. The “church contest,” or struggle, between the clergy and laity about the ownership and administration of churches and glebes, which began at the end of the thirteenth century, and was partially settled by the agreement of A.D. 1296, has diffused this word far and wide through Iceland. Thus the heathen Fell, Hraun, Hóll, and Melr became Staðar-fell, Staðar-hraun, Staðar-hóll, and Mell-Staðar. On the other hand, the plural Staðir is frequent in local names of the pagan time, as Höskulds-Staðir, Alreks-Staðir, etc. (Cleasby).
[84] So the point was called by all on board; the map gives Krossanes (cross naze).
[85] The Lodbrokar Kviða (Lodbrog’s Quoth) or Krákumál, so called from the “mythical lady” Kraka, was translated (1782) by the Rev. James Johnstone, A. M., chaplain to the British Embassy at Copenhagen. It is given by Henderson (ii. 345-352), who believes—O sancta simplicitas!—that the ruffian, who probably never existed, himself composed the “warlike and ferocious song.” The word Kviða, or lay, derives from Kveðja, cognate with the English “quote” and “quoth.”
[86] This common term is explained in Chap. XIII.
[87] I know no reason why we should conserve such veteran blunders as “Hecla” and “Geyser.” The latter has already been explained. The former, whose full form is Heklu-fjall, derives from Hekla (akin to Hökull, a priest’s cope), meaning a cowled or hooded frock, knitted of various colours, and applied to the “Vesuvius of the North,” from its cap and body vest of snow. Icelanders usually translate it a chasuble, because its rounded black shoulders bear stripes of white, supposed to resemble the cross carried to Calvary.
[88] “Kleifar” is a local name in West Iceland, from Kleif, a ridge of cliffs or shelves in a mountain-side (Cleasby).
[89] Professor Tyndall (loc. cit.) tells us that the “two first gases cannot exist amicably together. In Iceland they wage incessant war, mutually decompose each other, and scatter their sulphur over the steaming fields. In this way the true solfataras of the island are formed.” He derives the vapour of sulphur in nature from the action of heat upon certain sulphur compounds.
[90] I have denied the existence of this diagonal.—R. F. B.
[91] The Journal shows how great this mistake is.—R.F.B.
[92] The description is prodigiously exaggerated.—R.F.B.
[93] Mr Judd, examining Western Scotland, opines that the felspathic (acid) rocks have been erupted from the Eocene volcanoes, and the augitic (basic) from those of the Miocene age. In Iceland, however, both seem to have been discharged by the Post-tertiary, as well as by the Tertiary epochs.
[94] “He” (Gunnar Hámundarson) “was eulogised by many poets after his death,” said an Icelander, with unthinking satire. The last poem is the “Gunnarshólmr,” by Jonas Hallgrímsson, a poet who, being loved of the gods, died young.
[95] The Romans were naked below the knee: the pillars of Trajan and Antonine show Teutonic captives wearing a dress much resembling that of our peasants and sailors.
[96] Often written Reykium (for Reykjum), dative plural of second declension. As has been seen, the word enters into a multitude of Icelandic proper names.
[97] The four higher are (S.E.) Öræfajökull (6426 English feet); (W.) Snæfell (5964); Eyjafjallajökull (5593) to south, and Herðubreið (5447) to north-east. Stanley (repeated by Dillon) assigned to Hekla 4300; Sir J. Banks, with a Ramsden’s Barometer, 5000. Gunnlaugsson gives 5108, but here he is very defective, wanting a separate and enlarged plan. The direct distance from the summit to the sea is usually laid down at thirty miles; measured upon the map, the “bee-line” would be twenty-seven geographical miles.
[98] Rángá (“wrong” or crooked stream) is a name that frequently occurs, and generally denotes either that the trend is opposed to the general water-shed, or that an angle has been formed in the bed by earthquakes or eruptions.
[99] The down is applied as a styptic to cuts, the leaves are used in tanning, and the wood makes ink.
[100] Klaproth remarks that this is the only tree (? the poplar = Pippal) which the Aryan colonists of Europe remarked, and distinguished by the Sanskrit name. Thus Bhurrja became the Latin Betula, the Gothic Birkun, the Scandinavian Birki and Björk, the German Birke, and the English Birch. The name is applied under the form of Bjarkar to the thirteenth Runic letter = B or P; and it is the first Irish letter, Beith.
[101] Næfr, or birch-bark, was used for thatching: Næfra-maðr, the birch-bark man, was an outlaw (Cleasby).
[102] Mr Pliny Miles distinctly denies the existence of these fish-lakes, which Metcalfe observed, and which we clearly saw. There is a Fisksvatnsvegr, which has been travelled over, and there are reports of a volcano having burst out there about a century ago.
[103] The highest apparent point shown to us on the south-east was Grænafjall. Upon the map it is an insignificant north-eastern “mull” of the Tindafjallajökull, but refraction had added many a cubit to its low stature.
[104] Alluded to in Chap. VI.
[105] Tunga is applied to the Doab of two rivers; Tangi is a land-spit, a point projecting into the sea or river.
[106] This is the “low trap hill” of former travellers, supposed to be one of the veins that pierced the elevated diagonal.
[107] Especially M. Dortous de Mavian, whose theory was succeeded by the age of chemicals, pyrites, and alkalis, and the oxidation of unoxidised minerals, with a brief deversion in favour of “The Fire,” by Sir Humphrey Davy. Poisson extinguished it when he remarked that if fed by incandescent gases it would burst the shell, or at least would be subject to tides, causing daily earthquakes. Happily, also, the term “earth’s crust” is also becoming obsolete, or rather the solid stratum of 100 miles overlying a melted nucleus has suddenly grown to 800 (Hopkins). Sir William Thomson (Proceedings of the Royal Society, xii., p. 103) holds it “extremely improbable that any crust thinner than 2000 or 2500 miles could maintain its figure with sufficient rigidity against the tide-generating forces of sun and moon, to allow the phenomena of the ocean tides, and of precession and nutation, to be as they are now.” We will hope for more presently.
[108] Cleasby tells us that the end of Árna Saga (the bishop), the sole historical work of that time, is lost. He opines that a certain “pretty legend,” referring to the “moving” of founts when defiled with innocent blood, could not have arisen “unless a change in the place of hot springs had been observed.”
[109] Everywhere we found leaves laminated with silicious deposit, but no trace of shells, even though we sought them under the turf. The composition of Geysir water will illustrate Forbes. In 1000 parts of water there are 0·5097 of silica, whereas the rest, carbonates of soda and ammonia, sulphates of soda, potash, and magnesia, chloride and sulphide of sodium, and carbonic acid, amount only to 0·4775, Out of the latter, again, soda represents 0·3009, and sodium 0·2609; silica and soda are therefore the constituents. The specific gravity is 1000·8 (Faraday).
[110] More exactly the two divisions are each about twenty feet long; the smaller is twelve and the greater is eighteen feet broad; the extreme depth is thirty feet.
[111] See Barrow’s ground-plan of the Geysirs (p. 177).
[112] In 1859, when I passed over the Rocky Mountains, near the headwaters of the Missouri and the Yellowstone, the North American Geysirs had not been invented, nor did we hear a word about them from the backwoodsmen and prairiemen along the line. In fact, the United States Expeditions which surveyed, photographed, and described them, began only in 1868.
[113] Baring-Gould makes the bridge seven to eight yards long; far too long for single planks.
[114] Written Ravnegiá, and other barbarous forms. Gjá also has been corrupted to Gaia, etc. The word is found in the Hebrew אנ, the Greek γᾶια, and the German and Swiss Gau, a district, a canton; it is preserved in the Scottish Geo or Geow: it is the Cornish Hor, and the Skaare of the Færoes, supposed to extend under the sea. It “often denotes a rift, with a tarn or pool at bottom, whence Gil is a rift with running water;” and it is akin to Gína (χαινω, A.S. Gínan); Gähnen, to yawn (Cleasby). In Iceland these fosses are split by the hammer of Thor.
[115] This is evidently the Germ. Kuchen and the Eng. Cake: we can trace it back to the Pers. “Kahk.”
[116] According to Blackwall, the Thingstead in Oldenburg still shows the Doom-ring of upright stones, and the Blót-steinn in the centre.
[117] The Axewater, so called because Kettlebjörn, the Old, when prospecting for a residence here, lost his axe. Barrow gives Oxera, which would mean Oxwater. There has been no change in the Thingvellir since the days of the Norwegian colonists.
[118] Al-manna, genitive plural from an obsolete Almenn (comp. Alemanni), is a prefix to some nouns, meaning general, common, universal. The local name of the great rift near the Althing was given because all the people met upon its eastern flank (Cleasby).
[119] A large plan, but not very correct, is given by Dufferin (p. 73).
[120] I believe it has been transferred by later antiquaries from the holm to the mainland; but Cowie (p. 178) still keeps it in the islet.
[121] This Gjá is amazingly exaggerated by Baring-Gould (p. 69); assuming the human figures at only 5 feet, the depth of the chasm would be 75.
[122] For the code of honour in pagan Iceland, Dasent refers to Kormak’s Saga, chap. x., where the law of the duello was most punctiliously laid down as the “British Code of Duel” (London, 1824) by a philanthropic and enterprising Irish gentleman. The weapons chiefly used were broadsword and battle-axe; the combatants might not step back beyond a given space, and the latter peculiarity is still preserved in the hostile meetings of students throughout Northern Germany, where the floor or ground is marked with chalk. In some cases they stood upon a hide and were not allowed to gain or to break ground. The Hólm-ganga was a “judicium Dei,” differing from the Einvígi, or simple duel, by the rites and rules which accompanied it. The Norwegian duel was worthy of the Scrithofinni; the combatants were fastened together by the belt, and used their knives till one was killed. How pugnacious the old pagan Scandinavians were, may be judged from the wife’s practice of carrying the husband’s shroud to weddings and “merry makings.”
[123] Paijkull gives the length, one geographical mile, and the maximum depth, 140 feet; too short and too deep.
[124] The curlew (Scolopax arquata), when young, is apparently called a whimbrel (Numenius phœopus) in the London market.
[125] It is analysed by Bunsen (Art. II., loc. cit.).
[126] Skapt is a “shaved” stick, haft, shaft, or missile; Skapt-á, the shaft-river = Scot. and Eng. Shafto; and hence, Skaptár-fell (sounded Skapta-fell), is the Shapfell of Westmoreland (Cleasby), the Icel. “sk” being generally permuted to the softer English “sh.”
[127] Baring-Gould places it near Holt, east-north-east of Erlendsey.
[128] The “frow-stack” is a skerry, resembling a woman’s skirt. Sir W. Scott (The Pirate, xxvi.) says the “Fraw-Stack,” or Maiden Rock, an inaccessible cliff, divided by a narrow gulf from the island of Papa, has on the summit some ruins, concerning which there is a legend similar to that of Danoë. Vigr (a spear, in the Orkneys Veir) describes a sharp-pointed rock.
[129] Erlendr is here a proper name: usually it is an adjective, meaning “foreign” = the Germ. Elendi.
[130] Also the single day’s passage from Reykjavik to Berufjörð is $12, or one-third of the full passage to Granton, which takes eight to nine days. The other and far more important complaints against the “Diana” have been noticed before.
[131] From Ör, negative, and Höfn, a haven: as will be seen, the plural Öræfi is also applied to a wilderness.
[132] In the Færoes the whale is written “Qual,” a pronunciation still retained in Iceland.
[133] Mr Newton’s valuable paper in the Ibis, containing all that is required quâ Iceland ornithology, has been alluded to. He quotes the works of the late Hr Petur Sturitz, of Professor Steenstrŭp (Videnskabelige Meddellser for Aaret 1855), of the venerable Richard Owen (Paleontology, 2d edit., 1861, and Trans. Zool. Soc., June 14, 1864), and of many other writers. An interesting note about the “only wingless, or rather flightless, species of the northern hemisphere,” and two recorded instances of the rara avis being kept in confinement, are given by Baring-Gould, Appendix A., pp. 406, 407.
[134] My companion, Mr Chapman, a New Zealander, who has returned to New Zealand, suggested that, despite Dr Hector, the Moa, a bird eight feet high, may still be found alive in some of the forest fastnesses of his native island.
[135] According to Barnard, the last European auk was killed in 1848, at Vardö, a Norwegian fortress on the frontier of Russia.
[136] Berufjörð is derived from Berr, of whom more presently, or from Bera, a she-bear, the animal being often floated over upon ice-floes: Bare Firth, from “berr,” bare, which has been proposed (Longman, p. 33), is a mere error. It is the longest, if not the largest, feature of this coast, except Reyðarfjörð, which lies to the north, separated by three minor inlets. The “look-out” stands, according to nautical charts, in N. lat. 64° 39´ 45´´, and W. long. (G.) 14° 14´ 15´´ (in Olsen 14° 19´ 47´´), the latter supposed to require correction. The difference of time from Reykjavik is about 30´. The variation (west) diminishes: it was laid down at 39° or 40°, but on May 18, 1872, Captain Tvede made it 35° 15´. Here local attractions, often causing a difference of half-a-point within a few hundred yards, would puzzle “George Graham of London.”
[137] Mr Watts, who is now publishing an account of his march, and who has started a third time for the Vatnajökull, gave me this list of stations:
1. Reykjavik to Reykir.
2. To near the Tindafjallajökull, south of Hekla; very rough path.
3. Over the deep Mælifellssandr to east, where the valleys are grassy.
4. To the Búland farm.
5. To Kirkjubær cloister, on the Skaptá.
6. To the Núpstaðr farm, a long day’s march. Here provisions and forage are
procurable.
[138] Mr Tom Roys, an American, accompanied by his four brothers, established himself at Seyðisfjörð, and used a rocket harpoon patented by himself, and so much “improved” that it will hardly leave the gun: the shell explodes in the body, kills the animal instantly, and, by generating gas, causes the carcass to float; if not, the defunct is buoyed and landed at discretion. He first hunted with a small sailing craft, and in 1865, after bagging seven to eight animals, each worth $2000, he brought from England a screw of 40 tons burden to tow his whaling boats. He calculated that 365 whales would allow 1 lb. of food to 68,000 souls every day in the year: he also proposed pressing the meat for feeding dogs and fattening pigs (!). In that year his total bag till August was twenty-five whales, of which he landed thirteen. I was told, however, that the speculation proved a failure, and that Mr Roys went off to Alaska. At Seyðisfjörð, distant two days’ march, there was a Dutch steamer, which last year had killed thirteen whales. When reduced to the last extreme, we thought of travelling home in her, but future explorers must not count upon such opportunities.
[139] Uno Von Troil (129, 130) gives interesting notices of the whale. He divides the mammals into two kinds: (1.) “Skidis-fiskur,” or smooth-bellied, with whalebone instead of teeth; the largest, “Stettbakr,” or flat-back, measures nearly 200 English feet, and the “Hnufubakr” is only 50 feet shorter. Of the Reydar-fiskur, or wrinkle-bellied (No. 2), the largest is the “Steipereidur,” attaining nearly 240 English feet; the “Hrafnreyður” and the “Andanufia;” all are considered very dainty food; and the Icelanders say the flesh has the taste of beef. The whales with teeth are (1.) the eatable, such as the Hnysen, the Hnyðingur, the Hundfiskur, and the Maahyrningr; and (2.) the ice-whale, or uneatable, with its subdivisions, the Roðkammingur and the Náhvalur, were both “forbidden as food by some ancient regulations, and particularly by the Church laws. The Icelanders believe that the first sort are very fond of human flesh, and therefore avoid fishing in such places where they appear.” The carnivorous whales were frightened away by carrying “dung, brimstone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature, in their boats”—an idea worthy of the black tars who navigate Lake Tánganyika.
[140] Professor Paijkull adds the Reyðr (whence Reyðarfjörð), Physeter or Catodon macrocephalus, a large spermaceti whale; he also gives to the Iceland waters the Arctic walrus (Icel. Rosm-hvalir; Trichecus rosmarus), and the narwhal (Monodon monoceros). The Sagas specify twenty-five kinds of whales.
[141] The Ork. Hockla is the dog-fish, Squalus acanthius or archiarius. Mr Vice-Consul Crowe gives the names “Nákarla or havkalur,” probably misprints; he adds, however, that the Greenland shark rarely attacks man unless molested by him. This assertion, which is made in all popular books, may, I believe, be modified by the reason given in the text. He also tells us that the hide is cheaper than either seal or lamb skin, but is neither strong nor durable—this again I doubt. The Greenland shark is called by some travellers Háskerðingr, and it can swallow, they say, a reindeer.
[142] Properly short-breeks, or curt-hose, from Stuttr, stunted, stinted, scant (Cleasby).
[143] Iceland does wisely to preserve her seals. Argyleshire in the olden time, and especially the holms south of Skye, were famed for them; now they are very wild and not likely to be caught basking on the rocks, or bathing in shallow water. Old bull seals, who may measure 5 feet 6 inches, are wary in the extreme, and seldom allow the use of the club. Phoca must also be hit on the head, or the hunter will see no more of him. In Greenland the packs have been almost killed out by the scores of vessels which Dundee and Peterhead, Norway and Sweden, Denmark and Germany, send every year, and it is reported that without a “close time,” the breed will become, like the oyster and the crab, almost extinct. San Francisco has been sensible enough to preserve the flocks of Proteus by the strong arm of the law—I wonder if grim old “Ben Butler” still tries to stare man out of countenance as he floats off the Ocean House.
[144] Mr Blackwall satirically suggests that our Huggins and Muggins may descend from this respectable parentage, whilst he trusts that the Smiths, Smyths, and congeners, “will duly acknowledge the sturdy Scandinavian yeoman, Smiðr Churlsson, grandson of the jovial old fellow, Grandfather, who had the honour of pledging a bumper with a celestial deity, as their common ancestor.”
[145] A fourth; hence our farthing.
[146] Evidently from Caballus, the word which has so successfully ousted the more classical Equus. The Dictionary makes the horseload = 5 trusses; Uno Von Troil, 12 to 15 lispunds, each about 17 Eng. lbs. avoir.
[147] Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín informs me that on the borders of Norway and Sweden several local names are called after Sóti and Bera, and the legend may have been transplanted to Iceland. It is not found in the list of Sagas quoted by the Cleasby-Vigfusson Dictionary: I am therefore inclined to refer it to the sea-rover Hallvarð Sóti, of whom we read, “Thence Kol steered his course out of the river to Norway ... and came on Hallvarð Sóti unawares, and found him in a loft. He kept them off bravely till they set fire to the house, then he gave himself up, but they slew him, and took there much goods” (Burnt Njál, ii. 2).
[148] The aneroid (compensated) showed 27·63; the thermometer, 67° (F.) in the open air. On the return march, the former was 28·08, and the latter 76° (both in pocket). At sea-level the instruments stood at 30·04 to 30·12, and 63° (F.).
[149] The name was formerly derived from Loka, to shut, like Wodan from Vaða, even as Juno a Juvando, and Neptunus a nando. The Dictionary suggests that the old form may have been Wloka (Volcanus), the w being dropped before the l according to the rules of the Scandinavian tongue. It is strange that though Öðin, Thórr, and Loki were by far the most prominent personages of the heathen faith, the name of the latter is not preserved in the records of any other Teutonic, or rather let us say, Gothic people.
[150] Loka-sjóðr, or Loki’s purse, is the cockscomb, or yellow rattle (Rhinanthus crista galli).
[151] Mr Tuckett, of Alpine fame, shows us anent this word that “strange game (Anglicè, wild-goose) has been started in the dark forest of etymology.” Like Avalasse and Avalaison (a debâcle of rain or melted snow), the Schnee-schlipfe is certainly derived from the low Latin “advallare,” to advance valleywards: others propose “a labendo;” “Lau,” the warm spring winds; “avaler” (e.g., avaler son chaperon), the village; “Abländssch,” in French “Avéranche,” and, lastly, the German Lauwíne, “Löwin,” because these avalantic descents have the rage and power of a lioness. I may add that in mountainous Europe each valley seems to have its own name, Lavena, Labina, Lavigne, Avelantze, Evalantze, Líantze, etc., etc., etc.: the giant snow-ball is called in and about Italian Recoaro “Valanghi” and “bughi di neve.”
[152] It is only fair to repeat what the Standard (August 29, 1874) says of this worthy: “The man to whom I should strongly advise any English visitors to Iceland to apply for advice and active assistance—a resident in Reykjavik, speaking excellent English, active and energetic, whose name is Gislasson—was, in his early days, a theological student, and previous to his ordination was appointed to the pastorate of Grimsey. He declined to go, and withdrew from the ministry. I do not know whether the Grimsey fishermen lost a good priest or not, but I know that the English gained an excellent counsellor. He is the Grímr of Baring-Gould’s well-known book, but if the sketch of him there contained is at all true to the life, he must have wonderfully improved.” I have spoken of him as we found him.
[153] This Snæfellsjökull, which we shall see from a far nearer point, is not laid down in the map: it lies due south of Snæfell, the mountain. Thus there are three Snæfells in Eastern and Western Iceland. There are also two Eyvindars, both snowless; one near the road, the other close to the Vatnajökull: we distinguished them as the eastern and the western. Finally, there is an Eastern as well as a Western Skjaldbreið.
[154] The Dictionary gives “Grip-deildir,” rapine, robbery. Deild (dole, deal) and Deildir (dealings) are common in local names, especially to boundary places which have caused lawsuits, e.g., Deildará (boundary-river), Deildar-hvammr, etc.
[155] Uno Von Troil (p. 108) gives the Icelandic names of four Agarici.
[156] The volcanic ashes and lapilli show supra-marine eruptions, but the water-rolled stones tell another tale.
[157] The Möðruvellir, the abode of Guðmund the Rich or Powerful, was up the Eyjafjörð, and the map still shows a chapel there.
[158] It is thus written by all travellers: Herði-breiðr, however, from Herðar, would be the adjective “broad-shouldered.”
[159] According to the “Antiquaires du Nord” (p. 434, vol. 1850-60), “Slesvig” means Vík, or bay, of the Slè or Sli Arundo Arenaria. But is not this word the Icel. Slý, water cotton (Byssus lanuginosa), used as tinder?
[160] This traveller mentions eider-ducks at Mý-vatn. We saw none, and the farmers declare that the birds do not leave the sea-shore.
[161] Pronounce but do not indite “Krabla”—there is no such written word as Krabla. The Dictionary gives “að krafla,” to paw or “scrabble;” it also means to scratch, and perhaps the obtuse agricultural mind has connected this pastime with the evil for which sulphur is a panacea.
[162] Some travellers call them Makkaluber, and Icelanders write “Makalupe,” a corruption of Macaluba, famed for air volcanoes, near Girgenti, itself a corruption of the Arabic “Maklúb.”
[163] The docks of Southampton, built where he sat, have somewhat stultified the simple wisdom of the old man.
[164] Thus in the Dictionary. Baring-Gould (p. 429), or possibly his printer, calls it Vell-humall, which would be “gold hop.”
[165] In 1776 Professor Henchel found it “about 200 paces in diameter.” (See Appendix, “Sulphur in Iceland,” Section I.)
[166] The lay and the succession of the strata so much resembled those quoted in Mr Vincent’s paper that they need not be repeated here.
[167] As has been seen, I would considerably reduce these figures.
[168] This “banquise,” as the French call it, is said to form a compact belt extended thirty miles from shore in the Skjálfandifjörð.
[169] It was there found by the late Sir Henry Holland; Dolomieu had some specimens, but he did not know whence they came.
[170] The Dictionary gives Lá, surf, shallow water along shore; and hair (Lanugo). I found it extensively used to signify a low place where water sinks, the Arab’s “Ghadir.”
[171] Depill is a spot or dot; a dog with spots over the eyes, according to the Dictionary, is also called “Depill.” Cleasby translates Stein-delfr (mod. Stein-depill) by wagtail, Motacilla.
[172] Thverá, the “thwart-water,” from Thver, Germ. Quer, and Eng. Queer, is generally translated Crooked River, Rivière à travers: the term is often applied to a tributary which strikes the main stream at a right angle.
[173] Aðalból is a manor-house, a farm inhabited by its master, opposed to a tenant farm.
[174] From the verb Kreppa, to cramp, clench. The map gives the name to the eastern headwaters of the Jökulsá, rising from the Kverk.
[175] The experiments of M. J. M. Ziegler of Winterthür show the drying power of ice; a difference of 32° per cent. humidity in the glacier air and in the air of the adjacent plain.
[176] Thus in the dictionaries; but it seems to have another sense in popular language.
[177] In Chapter XIV. I have given the reasons why the Mý-vatn mines were not recommended by the Danish engineers.—R. F. B.
[178] Jukes and Geikie, Manual of Geology, 3d edition, p. 55.
[179] Liebig’s Familiar Letters on Chemistry, p. 152.
[180] Ure’s Dict., vol. ii., p. 432.
[181] Simmond’s Dictionary of Trade Products, p. 367; Muspratt’s Chemistry, vol. i., p. 320.
[182] Liebig’s Letters, p. 149.
[183] Simmond’s Dictionary of Trade Products, p. 351.
[184] See Exports for 1872.
[185] Liebig’s Familiar Letters on Chemistry, p. 150.
[186] See Smee’s My Garden.
[187] Richardson and Watts’ Chem. Tech., 2d edit., 1863, vol. i., part iii., pp. 2 and 3. This old calcarelle furnace has been greatly improved. It must not be described as a “blast-furnace.”
[188] Simmond’s Dict. Trade Products, 1863, art. “Sulphur.”
[189] Quoted in extenso, Appendix, Section III.
[190] Henderson’s Iceland, 1818, Introduction, p. 4.
[191] Ibid., p. 7.
[192] Ibid., vol. i., p. 160.
[193] Ibid., p. 176.
[194] Henderson’s Iceland, 1818, vol. i., pp. 166, 167, 170, 171, 173, 174, 177.
[195] S. Baring-Gould’s Iceland, 1863.
[196] Shepherd’s North-West Peninsula of Iceland, 1867, p. 157.
[197] Ure’s Dict. of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, 1860, vol. iii., p. 830.
[198] Dr F. J. Mouat’s Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders, 1863, p. 169.
[199] Letter of A. de C. Crowe, Esq., 27th June 1872.
[200] Paijkull, pp. 217, 244, 245, 246, 247.
[201] These two items are calculated at excessive and extravagant rates. The first item (15s. per ton) was supplied by an eminent shipowner, and the amount of freight is also overstated.
[202] A certain Hr “Thorlákur O. Johnsen,” whom I met in Iceland, wrote to the Standard (Nov. 16, 1872), and asserted my “entire ignorance” concerning Iceland generally, and the relationship between Denmark and Iceland in particular. What his ignorance, or rather dishonesty, must be, is evident when he states a little further on: “As to the so-called wisdom of the Danish Government in leasing the mines to strangers, there can be only one reply, that all the mines in Iceland, whether of sulphur or other minerals, belong to Iceland and not to Denmark.”—R. F. B.
[203] I presume this to be a clerical error for “Hlíðarnámar” (Ledge-springs).
[204] The words in italics show the good old Æsopian policy, “dog in the manger” redivivus. The Icelandic “hand,” when not superintended by foreigners, is idle and incurious as the native of Unyamwezi: he will not work, and the work must not be done for him by strangers! In the Journal I have suggested employment of the natives, who might learn industry by good example and discipline.—R. F. B.
[205] The words in italics show the “narrowness of the insular mind:” the idea of £10 per annum being an item of any importance in the extensive operations which would be required to make these sulphur diggings pay!—R. F. B.
[206] Iceland is here ignored, perhaps from the jealousy which foresees a fortunate rival.
[207] These immense fluctuations in the market are probably caused by the Phylloxera vastatrix now devastating the Continent. Trieste alone, for instance, has of late years imported as much as twenty cargoes of 200 tons each (a total of 4000) per annum; and the unground sulphur sells at about £7, 10s. per ton as in England. The spread of the disease is likely to cause an increased demand.
[208] In 1864, according to Mr Consul Dennis, the author of Murray’s “Hand-book of Sicily,” the two most important mines of Girgenti were “La Crocella” and “Maudarazzi” near Comitine, belonging to Don Ignazio Genusardi. They yielded annually 140,000 quintals = 10,937½ tons, worth about £70,000, and gave constant employment to 700 hands (chiefly from the opposite town of Arragona), at the daily cost of about £60. The produce was shipped at the Mole of Girgenti, and the road was thronged day and night at certain seasons with loaded carts and beasts of burden, chiefly mules.
Caltanissetta, Serra di Falco, on Monte Carano, and St Cutaldo are villages in the heart of the sulphur district. “The scenery is wild and stern. The mountains are of rounded forms, always bare, here craggy, there browned with scorched herbage, and in parts tinged with red, yellow, and grey, by the heaps of ore and dross at the mouths. Corn will not thrive in the fumes of sulphur; what little cultivation is to be seen is generally in the bottoms of the valleys. The hills around St Cutaldo are burrowed with sulphur mines.”
[209] In a recent report to the Italian Government, Sig. Parodi estimates that Sicilian sulphur will be exhausted in fifty to sixty years.
[210] Each ballata weighs 70 rotoli = 122½ lbs. avoir., and two are a mule-load.
[211] On the northern flank of the range, which, running from north-north-east to south-south-west, nearly bisects the island. It is a mean town in the mountains. Licata, the southern port, is nearest to the central mines.
[212] Her chief exports are fruit, oil, and silk.
[213] “Trust” seems to be the beau ideal of trade where it has not been tried. I have seen its workings in Africa and in Iceland, and my experience is that it is a pis aller which gives more trouble than it is worth.
[214] Here it is not stated whether paper or specie “lire” are meant.
[215] It would be better to state that sulphur costing above £5 per ton cannot at present compete with pyrites; sold below that price it would soon drive its rival out of the market.
[216] “Brimstone” in the Mining Journal (September 19, 1874) made England import in 1872 a total of 50,049 tons (= £336,216), but in 1873 only 45,467 tons (= £299,727).
[217] Büdös is elsewhere described as a pointed cone of trachyte 3745 feet high, a solfatara or volcano, which, though never in actual eruption, incessantly pours forth streams of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and these act as vents for the forces generated in the depths of the earth.
[218] The following is the analysis of the aluminous earth near Büdös:
| Sulphuric acid, | 51·59 | per cent. |
| Water and sulphuric clay, mixed with lime, | 3·54 | ” |
| Clay, | 18·98 | ” |
| Silica, | 14·00 | ” |
| Lime, | 9·65 | ” |
| Potash, | 1·00 | ” |