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744 KERGUELEN’S VOYAGE TO THE NORTH.
SECOND PART.
Containing a Defcription of Iceland.
Durine my ftay in Iceland, I neglected nothing in making myfelf acquainted with
what was remarkable in this ifland, {uch as the mode of living of its inhabitants, their
manners, their religion, and government. I paid attention to all thefe, and the fre-
quent converfations which I had with Mr. Olave, who had dwelt a long time at Patrix-
ford, and who was very learned, gave me information on every fubject which can be
gratifying to the reader relative to this country. Some writers have fpoken of this
ifland but merely from the report of a few fifhermen, or failors, very ill informed, and
very incapable of giving due regard to things. Mr. Anderfon, burgomafter of Ham-
bourg, who publifhed the natural hiftory of the country in German, obtained all that
he collected relative to Iceland from the oral teftimony of fifhermen. Mr. Horrebows
alfo has given the world an hiftorical and phyfical defcription of the ifland, in the Ger-
man tongue, with critical obfervations on the hiftory of Mr. Anderfon. Thefe two
authors frequently contrad:<t each other. We have as well a defcription of Iceland by
Pieriere, author of the fyftem of Padamites. ‘Thefe are the three writers who have
furnifhed us with any knowledge of Iceland; but as all their hiftories are replete with
errors, I conceive that the reader will not object to a more exact and faithful account
here offered him. I fhall follow the fteps of Mr. Horrebows, who was born a Dane,
and is beft informed.
The ifland of Iceland is fituated in the north fea, between 63° and 67°, N. Latitude,
and between 15° and 30° W. of Paris. ‘The etymology of the word is derived from
Ice and land. ‘The frolt, which is fo fevere, and in the mountains, which are conftantly
covered with fnow and ice, gave origin to the word.
Iceland is one hundred and thirty leagues long, of twenty-five to a degree, and feventy
leagues wide; it is only feventy-eight fea-leagues diftant from Ferro, and thirty-five
from Greenland ; which, on the coaft oppofite to Iceland, is inaccefiible, from the ice
and rocks which furround it. |
Hiftory does not pofitively fix the period of the difcovery of Iceland ; fome writers
have taken it to be the Thule of the ancients mentioned by Virgil, lib. 1. Georg. I
rather imagine this Thule to be Ireland, one hundred and fixty-four leagues from Ice-
land. Angrinus Jonas, author of the Icelandic Chronicles, refutes the opinion of
writers, efpecially Pontanus, who contended for Iceland being the ancient Thule, in his
Specimen I/landicum.
This ifland was difcovered in 798 by Nadocus, who called it Sneeland, on account
of the great quantity of fhow with which it was covered. In 872 a Swede, named
Gardanus, obferved it more particularly. The following year a Norwegian pirate,
called Flocco, gave it the name of Iceland; and in the year 874 Ingulf, or Ingultus, a
Norwegian nobleman, took refuge here, in confequence of having killed two barons of
his country. He found it uncultivated, and very thinly inhabited ; he is faid to have
been its firlt king. ;
Every thing | have faid fhews that Iceland was very little known, and the firft ideas
we have had of the country originated in Mr. Anderfen and Mr. Horrebows.
‘The maps of this ifland have been hitherto very defective. Europe had no other
map of it than that of Andrew Velleius, a Dane, engraved in 1585, copied by the
Duich in 1698, and by Mr. Bellin in 1751, for his reduced chart of the North Sea.
‘Lhis fkilful hydrographer, whofe ufeful labours have furnifhed us with fo fine a col-
icétion of plans and charts of every kind, prefented me with a map of this ifland on a
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