, 1874-04-04
hollands MILLENNIAL-S74-1874.
From the n. y. Herald)

This is the age of national jubilees, and, not
to be behind the rest of the world, the remote
island of Iceland will this year celebrate the
mlilennial anniversary of its colonization. At
midsummer its scanty population of seventy
five thousand, scattered over an area little
less in size than the State of New York, will
flock to the old lava plains Of Thingvellir, to
hold an Althing, or national assembly, on the
same site and with the same forms as in the
days Of the islands turbulent but independent
medl9val Republic. The little college and
cathedral at Reykjayik, the arctic capital, will
witness a series of ecclesiastical and scholastic
festivities while those sons of Iceland who
are passing there lives in other parts of Scan
dinavia or in Great Britain, fer the sake of
study or an easier livelihood, will doubtless
seize the occasion to revisit the singular land
OF their birth. Happily for the island the fes-
tlval occurs in a period of increasing material
prosperity. The present century has been
comparatively free from the scourges of VOL
Canio e~ruptions and pestilential diseases which
In the preceding ones more than once threaten
ed to depopulate the land. The re-establish-
ment of representative government in 1645,
the abolition in 1855 of the oppressive trade
monopoly enjoyed by the Danes, the augment
ed value of the exports resulting from the
OpClllS VI iu6 lSldHu ) IOckDOunu narDOrS TO
the commerce of the world, and the SUBSEQUENT
development by British capital of its fisheries
and its mines, have infused new hope into
every farmstead and hamlet.
The interest attaching to Iceland is we'll
known to students of natural history and ethno.
logy. Physically it is a region in which nature
has delighted to exhibit, in their supremest
development. both her positive force of heat
and her negative force of cold, making q land
of contrasts and anomalies, of fame and frost,
of geysers and glaciers. Ethnologically it is
the only polar land inhabited by a member of
the great Aryan race, and its language is the
oldest spoken idiom of the Teutonio stock.
Historically it furnishes one of the most splen-
did examples of the struggle of man against the
destructive energies Of nature, and of a people
creating, in the midst of innumerable obsta-
Giles a social system, a government and a litera-
ture. The story of its colonization is told by
one of the Oldest of its literary monuments, the
Landndmab0k-a record of early settlement
such as no other nation pOSseSseS-which gives,
with marvellous detail, the name and origin of
more than three thousand of the primitive in
habitants. The island was discovered and
visited between $50 and $40 by several of the
rowing vikings of the northern seas, but it was
In 874 that Ingolf Arnarson and his companion
ACAI' WV ANO WOSI0un VI SOOu GoldlcS uldU0 Lu0
first formal and fruitful efforts at colonization.
These pioneers were speedily followed by the
families of other Norwegian chiefs, driven to
seek a new home by the loss Of their indepen-
dence and of their petty dominions, which had
fallen a prey to that centralizing and feudal.
izing oonqueror, Harold the Fairhaired. The
spirit of emigration to the island soon became so
strong that it was caught by many of those
Norwegian exiles who had latterly won
themselves residences on the Scottish islands
and mainland and on the Irish coasts, where
Harold's fleets could still reach them, so that
fully one-half of the original population of Ice
land was derived from this source. Thus the
best blood of Norway, that of its nobility, long
accustomed to rule, and that of it's maritime
adventures, long accustomed to enterprises
of boldness, was poured into the newly found
i3le. The period of colonization extended
from 874 to 928, 1t was marked by the same
features which have characterized all the nota-
bic migrations Of. the world. The wave of set
Element began on the southwest coast, moving
steadily nOrthward and then eastward and
southwark, until it had encompassed the whole
island and peopled all its pleasant valley bot.
toms near the sea. Every new occupier pre-