Arizona weekly enterprise., 1882-03-18
Iceland's PomneiI.

From the geyser there is plain view of Hecla, that awful volcano that has so often threatened the very existence of the people of this unfortunate island. It is interesting only on account of its his- tory, and looks so much like other mountains that, unless you were geol- ogist, you could net tell it from hun dretls of others. Being 5,364 feet high, 1t has particular charms for Englishmen, who seem to be born with hereditary propensity to climb, but SIS most of the ponies that have attempted to climb 1t came down with rush over its treach- erOus pumice- lined sides, no sane Amer ican has yet been mp to it's top. About the time they celebrate the next millen- nial here, when they put up Jacobs ladder, as they have t at Mount Wash l ington, and introduce @ railroad, with calcium-iigiit effects, as the hayS- at !, Yesuyius, Arnericans, Ll9Ea-no doubt, vii be-4ilisslteG G71elaent st the summit Eheir repIesentauve IS there now, for 1t is a fay3rite streeching place of the eagle. The reputation Of Hecla is Ike many othefs-noFe than her due. She IS heard-of IL all lands, vet Skapta Jo- kul has done twice as much in volcanic
 
 In my "reminiscences l was almost for getting about Skapta Jokul. Shal,tI may be said 10 occupy tine southwestern por5on of Iceland. She Is 10 ordinary ..ill, fer she has pre- emptod 8 space bigger than Rhode Island for herself I5 isn't that she | 50 pig a5 that she re- 1uires so much room for what she don't want. Skaptt's greatest effort was per formed ill l7S3, seventeen years after Hecla had done the best she knew how. The reading of the account Of Skaptas work will invigoTate the imagination, for she gets away with anything the penny-dreadful author ever thought of About the beginning of June, of the year named, the usual preliminary noise be- gan ill the neigibJ hood of tle mount uus, and on the Sth Of the month s !raat volume of smoke and ashes spread over the whole district of Sida, going in the direction against the wind. On the I0th tie river Skapta overhowed with tetid water and then suddenly disap- peared. Fire broke cut on the mount ;lin, and two days later stream of lava came ooz.ng o9t of the dry bed of the river Notwithstanding that the channel was 500 feet deep md 200 wide, the iaya ovel flowed the banks and inundated the Meddelland country, lifting the grass as. 1 1t went as water would float q film of oil. The stream finally hoated into the Med. deiland lake, filled it up, and then di- vided into two streams, one of them igain seeking the course of the river md finally leLping, maddened and hol, into the sea, over the great cataract of 5tapafoss, whose brink Is 3u0 feet above yl.e sea level. The other stream, after rayersing wide section of lowland country, found 8 line of least resistance n the Hverhsfi;ot river bed. This l;tst stream of lava, as far as it has been sur 1 veyed-theIe IS much of 1t, how much no one knows, in country over which no man has ever been-is forty miles in length and seven in width. That which
 went over tlle cataract is fifty mics lollg tnd fifteen bread. The lava ceased to 1 d0w in August, and the convulssJn end- d with a grand earthquake. For < l whole year 1t continued to lain cinders and dust and thousands of acres of grass iaad were buried and withered under the hot showers. It is estimated that 190,- JUG sneep, 28, ,000 horses, Il, ,000 cattle l and 9,OgO mei. died as 9 result of the eruption. Since then there has been nothing worth mentioningin the volcano line.-Lettcr from Ic4iand.