The 3rd of August brought fresh accessions to the flood of lava still pouring from the mountain.  There being no room in the channel, now filled by the former lurid stream, which had pursued a northwesterly course, the fresh lava was forced to take a new direction towards the southeast, where it entered the bed of another river with a barbaric name.  Here it pursued a course similar to that which flowed through the channel of the Skapta, filling up the deep gorges, and then spreading itself out into great fiery lakes over the plains.

The eruptions of lava from the mountain continued, with some short intervals, for two years, and so enormous was the quantity poured forth during this period that, according to a careful estimate which has been made, the whole together would form a mass equal to that of Mont Blanc.  Of the two streams, the greater was fifty, the less forty, miles in length.  The Skapta branch attained on the plains a breadth varying from twelve to fifteen miles—­that of the other was only about half as much.  Each of the currents had an average depth of 100 feet, but in the deep gorges it was no less than 600 feet.  Even as late as 1794 vapors continued to rise from these great streams, and the water contained in the numerous fissures formed in their crust was hot.

The devastation directly wrought by the lava currents themselves was not the whole of the evils they brought upon unfortunate Iceland and its inhabitants.  Partly owing to the sudden melting of the snows and glaciers of the mountain, partly owing to the stoppage of the river courses, immense floods of water deluged the country in the neighborhood, destroying many villages and a large amount of agricultural and other property.  Twenty villages were overwhelmed by the lava currents, while the ashes thrown out during the eruption covered the whole island and the surface of the sea for miles around its shores.  On several occasions the ashes were drifted by the winds over considerable parts of the European continent, obscuring the sun and giving the sky a gray and gloomy aspect.  In certain respects they reproduced the phenomena of the explosion of Mount Krakatoa, which, singularly, occurred just a century later, in 1883.  The strange red sunset phenomena of the latter were reproduced by this Icelandic event of the eighteenth century.

Out of the 50,000 persons who then inhabited Iceland, 9,336 perished, together with 11,460 head of cattle, 190,480 sheep and 28,000 horses.  This dreadful destruction of life was caused partly by the direct action of the lava currents, partly by the noxious vapors they emitted, partly by the floods of water, partly by the destruction of the herbage by the falling ashes, and lastly in consequence of the desertion of the coasts by the fish, which formed a large portion of the food of the people.

ERUPTION OF MOUNT HECLA