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642 VON TROIL’S LETTERS ON ICELAND,
little or no fodder the enfuing winter for their cattle: thefe frofts are generally followed
by a famine, many examples of which are to be found in the Icelandic chronicles *.
Befides thefe calamities, a number of bears yearly arrive with the ice, which commit
ereat ravages, particularly among the fheep. The Icelanders attempt to deftroy thefe
intruders as foon as they get fight of them ; and fometimes they aflemble together, and
drive them back to the ice, with which they often float off again. For want of fire-
arms they are obliged to make ufe of {pears on thefe occafions. The government itfelf
takes every poilible method to encourage the natives to deftroy thefe animals, by pay-
ing a premium of ten dollars for every bear that is killed, and by purchafing the fkin
of him who killed it. ‘Thefe fkins are a prerogative of the king, and are not allowed
to be fold to any other perfon.
It is as abfurd to fuppofe that this floating ice confifts principally of falt-petre, as that
it might be employed in making gun-powder ; and yet there are fome perfons who pre-
tend to fupport this opinion, but they are certainly undeferving the trouble of refutation.
_ 1 muft mention two other inconveniences to which Iceland is fubjeét, the Skrida and
Snioflodi : the name of the firft imports large pieces of a mountain tumbling down, and
deftroying the lands and houfes which lie at the foot of it. ‘This happened in 1554,
when the whole farm of Skideftedr in Vatndal was ruined, and thirteen people buried
alive. The other word fignifies the effects of a prodigious quantity of fnow, which co-
vers the tops of the mountains, rolling down in immenfe mafles, and doing a great deal
of damage. ‘There was an inftance of this in the year 1699, during the night, when
two farms, in the fyffel of Kiofar, were buried in the fnow, with all their inhabitants and
cattle ft.
The climate is not unwholefome, as the ufual heat is not extreme, nor the cold in
general very rigorous. However, there are examples of the mercury in Fahrenheit’s
thermometer falling quite down into the bulb, which is twenty-four degrees under the
freezing point; when at other times it has rofe to one hundred and four degrees.
It cannot be determined with any degree of certainty how much the cold has increafed
or decreafed prior to 1749, the year when Horrebow began his obfervations on the wea-
ther ; which were afterwards continued by the provoft Gudlaug Thorgeirffon to the
year 1769: fince which period obfervations have been made by Mr. Eyolfs Jonfon,
who was formerly affiftant at the Round Tower at Copenhagen, and receives a falary
as firft obferver in Iceland {. His obfervatory is at Arnarhol, near Reykarwick ; and,
_ * The cold feems to have become more intenfe in Iccland fince the time when thefe here-before-men-
tioned fir trees were growing, and before the ocean was fo very much covered with floating ice.
Thefe faéts feem to confirm very much the opinion of Count Buffon in his Epoques de la Nature ; in
gonfequence of which he believes that the country towards the poles was formerly more habitable than it is’
at prefent : he is of opinion, that the fkeletons of elephants found far north in Siberia, are almoft irrefra-
gable proofs of the formerly milder temperature of the air; fince they could fcarcely be found in Siberia in
fuch numbers unlefs they had exifled there. Buffon Epoques de la Nature, p. 165, & feq. The eaflern
fhores of Greenland were formerly inhabited by a colony of Norwegians, and they had there a bifhop’s fee,
called Gardar, to which belonged farms, woods, paftures for cattle, granges, and fillage-land. See Crantz’s
Hiftory of Greenland, vol. I. p. 245, which evidently proves the mildnefs of thefe now inhofpitable regions..
Ships failed formerly to the eaftern coaft ; whereas for a great number of years pait it has been inacceflible,
on account of the immenfe mafles of ice found there. Are Frode in Scheda de Iclandia, Oxon. 1716, cap. 2.
p. 10, fays, that at the firft landing of the Norwegian colonifts, Iceland was covered with woods and forefts
in the {pace between the fhores and mountains.
+ Snioflod, or Snowflood, is a very expreffive word for this dreadful accident, which is not uncommon in
all alpine countries, efpecially Switzerland. ‘The italians call fuch a rolling down of maffes of fnow, Lae
vine; the French, Laivaches; and the Germans, Lauihnen.
¢. This ingenious gentleman died in 1775, not many. months fince the writing of this letter,
what
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