United States or Uganda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The most memorable eruption of recent years was that of Skaptár Jokul in 1783, when a new island was thrown up, and two torrents of lava issued forth, one 45 and the other 50 miles in length, and which, according to the estimate of Professor Bischoff, contained matter surpassing in magnitude the bulk of Mont Blanc.
"Well, in the first place, I wish to ask what are this Jokul, this Sneffels, and this Scartaris, names which I have never heard before?" "Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Liepzig. Nothing could be more apropos. Take down the third atlas in the second shelf in the large bookcase, series Z, plate 4."
With that she took out from under her cloak a sword well wrought, and a fair thing it was, and then she said, "This sword was owned by Jokul, my father's father, and the earlier Waterdale men, and it gained them many a day; now I give thee the sword, and may it stand thee in good stead."
Which bad Latin may be translated thus: "Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the jokul of Sneffels, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the kalends of July, and you will attain the centre of the earth; which I have done, Arne Saknussemm." In reading this, my uncle gave a spring as if he had touched a Leyden jar.
She's a very good woman, sir, and, if you please, I'll get her to make you some coffee when we get back to Reykjavik." So goes the world, thought I, from the Skjaldbraid Jokul to a cup of coffee! Why bother our heads about these troublesome questions, which can only result in proving us all equally ignorant. The wisest has learned nothing save his own ignorance.
"Now, Zoega," said I, "how do you make it out that this came from the Skjaldbraid Jokul?" "Well, sir, I don't know, but I think it came from the inside of the world." "Why, Zoega, the world is only a shell a mere egg-shell in Iceland I should fancy filled with fiery gases." "Is that possible, sir?" cried Zoega, in undisguised astonishment. "Yes, quite possible a mere egg-shell!"
Striking as all this must have been, it sinks into comparative tameness and insignificance, beside the infinitely more terrible phenomena which attended the eruption of another volcano, called Skapta jokul. Of all countries in Europe, Iceland is the one which has been the most minutely mapped, not even excepting the ordnance survey of Ireland.
There are, however, a number of volcanoes in the world which in certain features surpass Ætna as much as that crater does Vesuvius. Of these we shall consider but two Skaptar Jokul, of Iceland, remarkable for the volume of its lava flow, and Krakatoa, an island volcano between Java and Sumatra, which was the seat of the greatest explosion of which we have any record.
As sediment of homogeneous composition, when discharged from the mouth of a large river, is often deposited simultaneously over a wide space, so a particular kind of lava flowing from a crater during one eruption may spread over an extensive area; thus in Iceland, in 1783, the melted matter, pouring from Skaptar Jokul, flowed in streams in opposite directions, and caused a continuous mass the extreme points of which were 90 miles distant from each other.
The clear open weather gave us a good view of Myrdals jokul, which overhangs it. The cape is merely a low hill with steep sides, standing lonely by the beach. The Valkyria kept at some distance from the coast, taking a westerly course amidst great shoals of whales and sharks. Soon we came in sight of an enormous perforated rock, through which the sea dashed furiously.
Word Of The Day