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Here it pursued a course similar to that which flowed through the channel of the Skapta, filling up the deep gorges, and then spreading itself out into great fiery lakes over the plains.
Within a few more days the basin of the lake itself was completely filled, and having separated into two streams, the unexhausted torrent again recommenced its march; in one direction overflowing soiree ancient lava fields, in the other, re-entering the channel of the Skapta, and leaping down the lofty cataract of Stapafoss.
Toward the end of May, a light bluish fog began to float along the confines of the untrodden tracts of Skapta, accompanied in the beginning of June by a great trembling of the earth. On the 8th of that month, immense pillars of smoke collected over the hill country towards the north, and coming down against the wind in a southerly direction, enveloped the whole district of Sida in darkness.
The Skapta branch attained on the plains a breadth varying from twelve to fifteen miles that of the other was only about half as much. Each of the currents had an average depth of 100 feet, but in the deep gorges it was no less than 600 feet. Even as late as 1794 vapors continued to rise from these great streams, and the water contained in the numerous fissures formed in their crust was hot.
Where it was imprisoned, between the high banks of Skapta, the lava is five or six hundred feet thick; but as soon as it spread out into the plain its depth never exceeded one hundred feet. The eruption of sand, ashes, pumice, and lava, continued till the end of August, when the Plutonic drama concluded with a violent earthquake.
One of these streams filled up a large lake, and, entering the channel of the Skaptâ, completely dried up the river. The volcanoes of Iceland may be considered as safety-valves to the region in which lie the British Isles. This group of volcanic isles rises from deep Atlantic waters north of the Equator, and the vents of eruption are partially active, partially dormant, or extinct.
On the 8th, volcanic vapors were emitted from the summit of the mountain, and on the 11th immense torrents of lava began to be poured forth from numerous mouths. These torrents united to form a large stream, which, flowing down into the river Skapta, not only dried it up, but completely filled the vast gorge through which the river had held its course.
The stream which flowed down Skapta is calculated to be about fifty miles in length by twelve or fifteen at its greatest breadth; that which rolled down the Hverfisfliot, at forty miles in length by seven in breadth.
When this fresh stream reached the fiery lake, which had filled the lower portion of the valley of the Skapta, a portion of it was forced up the channel of that river towards the foot of the hill whence it takes its rise. After pursuing its course for several days, the main body of this stream reached the edge of a great waterfall called Stapafoss, which plunged into a deep abyss.
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.
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