Here are records of nineteen vents and seventy-seven eruptions. “These have occurred in about ten centuries, or, on an average, one in thirteen years. The most violent paroxysms seem to have occurred in 1340, 1362, 1725-1730, and 1754-1755. To complete this view of internal activity, we may add, that the following years were distinguished by violent earthquakes; 1181, 1182, 1211, 1260, 1261, 1294, 1300, 1311, 1313, 1339, 1370, 1390, 1391, 1552, 1554, 1578, 1597, 1614, 1633, 1657, 1661, 1706, 1755, 1784, 1789, 1808, 1815, 1825.”
ENTRANCE TO REYDARFIORD.
THE EAST COAST. BREIDAMERKR—SEYDISFIORD.
Sailing north-east along the coast, we see the Breidamerkr ice-plains, and the mouth of the river Jökulsá, which is only a mile or two long. Dr. Mackinlay informs us that the most dangerous rivers in Iceland are the shortest. They spring, full formed, from the bosom of the thick-ribbed ice. The Jökulsá, which crosses Breidamerkr-sandr, is one of the most dreaded of these. It springs from Breidamerkr-Jökul, which, however, is not a snow-mountain, but only a high field of ice projected southward into the plain from the great snow-range to the north. Some years it is eight or ten miles from the sea, in others only one; the length of the river varies accordingly. It is half a mile broad. Sometimes this river gets dammed up, then bursts from caverns of ice with a noise like thunder, carrying along with it masses of ice with uncontrollable fury to the sea. Sunshine melting the ice swells such rivers more rapidly than rain. The near view of this cold icy region—so dreary, lone and still—made one almost feel cold, although the sun was bright and the thermometer, at noon, stood at 100 degrees.[[38]] The dazzling whiteness of the snow and the ice-blink, made our eyes ache. It was literally
“A waste land where no one comes
Or hath come since the making of the world.”
NEAR THE ENTRANCE TO HORNAFIORD.