Great Disasters and Horrors in the World's History

by Allen Howard Godbey

MT. HECLA.

miles by one hundred and fifteen, is a very nest of volcanoes. The convulsion lasted several months, the entire region being active; and great numbers of people perished. So great was the destruction of property, crops, and flocks that the people, reduced to starvation, were compelled to appeal to Britain and Denmark for assistance. This has happened more than once in Iceland’s history.

But far up in the impenetrable deserts of the interior is a mountain which has seldom shown any activity; but when in full blast, its power is unsurpassed by any volcano on the globe. This is the fearful Skaptar Jokul, or Skaptar mountain. A single instance of its power will suffice.

One of the most stupendous outbreaks recorded in history is that of Skaptar Jokul in 1783. In the quantity of lava ejected, it is hardly surpassed by any single eruption; and few disturbances of the sort have surpassed it in fatality. Immense volumes of ashes were hurled into the air, spreading over the whole island in dense clouds. Streams were poisoned by the minerals and alkalies thrown out. Immense numbers of sheep and cattle perished. Thousands of acres of pasture lands were ruined. Where the grass was not killed, it often was rendered poisonous, like the water, by the mineral dust falling upon it. The hills were dotted with the decaying carcasses. The air was filled with horrible stench. The ashes fell in such volumes into the ocean that the fish deserted the coast. The flying clouds of dust spread to Europe. The appalling horror of the scene can hardly be imagined. Death stalked abroad in his most repulsive form.

“The river Skapta, a considerable stream, was for a time completely dried by a torrent of liquid fire. This river was about two hundred feet broad, and its banks from four to six hundred above the level of the water. This defile was entirely filled for a considerable distance by the lava, which crossed the river by the dam thus formed, and overflowed the country beyond, where it filled a lake of considerable extent, and great depth.

“This eruption commenced on the 11th of June. On the 18th of the same month, a still greater quantity of lava rushed from the mouth of the volcano, and flowed with amazing rapidity, sometimes over the first stream, but generally in a new course. The melted matter having crossed some of the tributary streams of the Skapta, completely dammed up their waters and caused great destruction of property and lives by their overflow. The lava, after flowing for several days, was precipitated down a tremendous cataract, called Stapafoss, where it filled a profound abyss, which that great water-fall had been excavating for ages, and thence the fiery flood continued its course.

“On the 3rd of August, a new eruption poured forth fresh floods of lava, which, taking a different direction from the others, filled the bed of another river, by which a large lake was formed, and much property and many lives destroyed.

“The effect of this dreadful calamity may in some measure be imagined when it is known that, although Iceland did not at that time contain more than fifty thousand inhabitants, there perished nine thousand human beings by this single eruption, making nearly one in five of the whole population. Part of them were destroyed by the burning lava itself; some by drowning, other by noxious vapors which the lava emitted, and others in consequence of the famine, caused by the showers of ashes, which covered a great proportion of the island and destroyed most of the vegetation. The fish, also, on which the inhabitants depended, in a great measure, for food, entirely deserted the coast.”