VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN ICELAND.
(From the Times.) Mr Eirikr Magtmsson writes to us from Cambridge :—“ The accounts just received by the last mail from Iceland assume a far more serious aspect than the first news would have led one to anticipate. A resident in Bardardal, a valley at a short distance west of the locality of the eruption, writes : ‘ What fearful times we have had of it north here this winter ! First we were visited by earthquakes, which, in some places, terminated all but fatally, and then came the eruption, with its concomitant dust-gloom and fall of ashes. The Dyngjufjoll are incessantly vomiting fire ; every day we watch the smoke column rising to an apparently unmeasured height into the air. The eruption is spreading steadily over the wilderness, and it may be said that the whole region of the Myratn mountains is one blazing fire.’ It appears that westerly winds have been chiefly prevalent, and have borne the ashes over the East Firths, covering a very large area, including the country sides of Jbkuldal, Fell, Fljotsdal, Eydathingha, Vellir, Skriddal, Reydarfjord, Nordljord, Mjoifjord, and Seydisfjord, and many more no doubt, although reliable news does not, as yet, reach further. On March 29 the fall of the ashes was so excessive that it co ?ered the eastern country sides, Jbkuldal especially, with a coat six inches at its thickest; and all that day, although it was bright and sunny, the people spent in absolute pitch darkness. Fountains and rivulets were dammed by tbe ashes, and every mountain stream, always of a crystalline purity in Eastern Iceland, where there are neither glaciers nor moraine , ran dark and muddy between banks covered with drifts of ashes. The farmers have fled out of the ash-covered country sides with their cattle in quest of pastures not yet destroyed by the scoria but with what chance of saving their live stock does not appear. To all appearance, the present eruption seems likely to become a calamitous event for Iceland.”
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD18750823.2.21
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Evening Star, Issue 3899, 23 August 1875, Page 3
Word count
Tapeke kupu
332VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN ICELAND. Evening Star, Issue 3899, 23 August 1875, Page 3
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
No known copyright (New Zealand)
To the best of the National Library of New Zealand’s knowledge, under New Zealand law, there is no copyright in this item in New Zealand.
You can copy this item, share it, and post it on a blog or website. It can be modified, remixed and built upon. It can be used commercially. If reproducing this item, it is helpful to include the source.
For further information please refer to the Copyright guide.