The whole of Iceland may be regarded as a volcanic mass composed
mainly of lavas and ashes which have been thrown up by a group of
volcanoes lying near the northern end of the long igneous axis which
extends through the centre of the Atlantic. The island has been the
seat of numerous eruptions; in fact, since its settlement by the
Northmen in 1070 its sturdy inhabitants have been almost as much
distressed by the calamities which have come from the internal heat as
they have been by the enduring external cold. They have, indeed, been
between frost and fire. The greatest recorded eruption of Iceland
occurred in 1783, when the volcano of Skaptar, near the southern
border of the island, poured forth, first, a vast discharge of dust
and ashes, and afterward in the languid state of eruption inundated a
series of valleys with the greatest lava flow of which we have any
written record. The dust poured forth into the upper air, being finely
divided and in enormous quantity, floated in the air for months,
giving a dusky hue to the skies of Europe, which led the common people
and many of the learned to fear that the wrath of God was upon them,
and that the day of judgment was at hand. Even the poet Cowper, a man
of high culture and education, shared in this unreasonable view.

The lava flow in this eruption filled one of the considerable valleys
of the island, drying up the river, and inundating the plains on
either side. Estimates which have been made as to the volume of this
flow appear to indicate that it may have amounted to more than the
bulk of the Mont Blanc.

This great eruption, by the direct effect of the calamity, and by the
famine due to the ravaging of the fields and the frightening of the
fish from the shores which it induced, destroyed nearly one fifth of