Ancient Wall in Iceland, showing Layers of Turf between the Stones.
This is a photograph of a ruin in the Thjór's River Valley, in Iceland. It shows the sod between the stones closely packed but distinct. The stones in our early English and French cellars practically touch each other, as in the old cellar in Fort William Henry, in Maine. Sometimes broken stones fill the interstices, as in another example of stonework at Fort William Henry. Mortar has been used here more or less since the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Old Wall in a Cellar in Fort William Henry, Maine.
Old Wall at Fort William Henry, Maine.
Although European or post-Columbian walls and cellars differ considerably among themselves, it is within certain limits. Post-Columbian walls, or foundation walls when built on the surface of the ground, were practically homogeneous in character, the French only attaining to one metre in thickness, whereas Icelandic walls were disposed in three distinct parts, the inner and outer sides being constructed in layers and the space between being filled in with closely packed earth, while they were never less than a metre and a half thick.
Icelandic outhouses when dug into a hillside dispensed with the triple wall at the back and on the sides, and thus when stone-faced partially resemble our cellars. But even then they still retain one characteristic feature, in their alternate layers of turf and stone.
