The whole of the houses belonging to the Episcopal See of Skalholt having been in this manner destroyed, the University was necessarily neglected during the following winter. In the parish of Skeide, in the district of Aarnes, we are informed that all the farm-houses, two only excepted, had fallen to the ground, and that three persons in this district had lost their lives by the earthquakes. Besides which, these destructive earthquakes had every where caused great mischief, not only in this district, but also in the western part of Rangevalle, and, according to accounts that have been received, have damaged two hundred and fifty farm-houses on the estate belonging to the Bishopric of Skalholt, besides eleven churches, and have totally thrown down six other churches. On the other hand, both in the eastern district, and likewise at Vestmannoe*, as well as over the whole

* According to Mr. Sysselman Sivertsen's information, transmitted to the Royal Treasury, at the first shock which took place on the 14th of August, large rocks were torn from the mountains, and fell down on Vestmannoe, which was covered with smoke from the base to the summit: and, as the smoke arose from

of the south country, although they have been very perceptible, yet they have not caused any great devastation. How far they may at the same time have been felt with any violence in the district of Skaptefield is not yet known here: thus much only we can say with certainty, that some slight shocks had been perceived in the beginning of the month of August, at which time, the smoke appeared to have gathered strength in the wild and mountainous districts to the northward of Siden.

I am well aware that many people may be led to conjecture that these earthquakes must have proceeded from great revolutions in the bowels of the earth, or even possibly from the circumstance of new eruptions having taken place in the vicinity of the for

several places at once, it was natural for the neighboring peasantry to be in great apprehension of more general destruction; but, nevertheless, no other remarkable damage appears to have been sustained than that of the largest and most valuable part of the Bird-mountain (a hill of the greatest value to the inhabitants), having been cleft and thrown down, and consequently rendered unserviceable for lodging the nests of the sea-fowl in future.

mer fire, and therefore must in that district have caused the greatest destruction. But, for my own part, I should rather be tempted to believe that, as these latter shocks were most violent in the district of Aarnes, weaker in Rangevalle and other southern districts, and so slight as to be scarcely perceptible either in the northern or the western parts of the island, that they owed their origin to some internal commotion in the earth, in the vicinity of Hecla; if they are not (which God forbid) a prelude to an eruption of the mountain itself.

It has also been shewn, that the annals of Iceland cannot produce an instance of an earthquake equally destructive as that just mentioned, which, exclusively of its having in a manner destroyed whole parishes and districts, has also reduced many of the inhabitants of the district of Aarnes to the most deplorable state, as the small stock of meat, and particularly of the common articles of food, such as butter, &c., which they had with the greatest difficulty secured during the preceding summer, were by this deplorable calamity spoiled by being buried

under the ruins of the habitations: but above all it is to be lamented that this misfortune should take place just at the season of hay-making. The want of horses, too, is a circumstance very distressing to the country in general, and to the places destroyed by the earthquakes in particular, since, as observed above, without the assistance of these animals, the inhabitants can neither procure the timber necessary for building, nor any supply of provisions from the sea coast. It is therefore much to be feared that several of the farm-houses that are damaged must, for the present, remain uninhabited; especially as the hay has been almost entirely destroyed by this sudden misfortune, and by the long continuance of rainy weather following almost immediately upon it.

A consequence of these severe earthquakes has been, that the face of the country appears to be heaved up in the form of billows, and during the continuance of the shock it looked as if covered with a dark cloud of dust. All waters, as well the flowing as the stagnant ones, were sensibly disturbed and be

came white as milk; but the rivers themselves resembled the most furious millstreams. Many Hverar, or boiling-springs, and other brooks and pools were dried up, though some of these after a while again made their appearance in fresh places. The hot-springs about the Geyser, and above all the Geyser itself spouted out its torrents with a fury never before witnessed, and the same was also the case with the springs of this kind about Skalholt. It is very remarkable that, in the very place where I bored into the ground between these spots last year, there has sprung up, according to Bishop Finsen's account, dated the 14th of August following, a fresh fountain of boiling water.

We are also informed that the pastures in the district of Aarnes had, by these shocks in the ground, suffered such convulsions, that all the moss growing in damp places was forced out of the soil, and lay so thick upon the grass that scarcely any more hay could be cut; whilst in hard and dry places great cracks and apertures, nay, in some spots, even deep holes were formed in the earth.