“The effect of this dreadful calamity may in some measure be imagined when it is known that, although Iceland did not at that time contain more than fifty thousand inhabitants, there perished nine thousand human beings by this single eruption, making nearly one in five of the whole population. Part of them were destroyed by the burning lava itself; some by drowning, other by noxious vapors which the lava emitted, and others in consequence of the famine, caused by the showers of ashes, which covered a great proportion of the island and destroyed most of the vegetation. The fish, also, on which the inhabitants depended, in a great measure, for food, entirely deserted the coast.” The quantity of lava which Skaptar Jokul emitted during this eruption was almost beyond belief. The two principal branches were respectively forty and fifty miles long. The branch which crossed the Skapta was from twelve to fifteen miles wide; the width of the other was seven miles. The usual depth was one hundred feet; but two and three hundred were frequent; and where the streams dashed across gorges or narrow valleys the depth was six or seven hundred. It would be quite safe to estimate the average depth at one hundred and fifty feet. These two principal streams were, then, sufficient to cover one thousand square miles to a depth of one hundred and fifty feet. Contrast with this the twenty million cubic meters estimated to have been poured forth in one of the great Vesuvian eruptions. This last would cover one square mile to a depth of twenty-five feet. Vesuvius sinks to an insignificance that is pitiable; its great outbreak produced but one-six thousandths as much as the single eruption of Skaptar Jokul! Such calculations may give us a comparative estimate of the two; but no figures can give us any conception of the force required to elevate such a stream of melted rock through the crust of the earth. And if we compare the resultant fatality, it is clear that this great convulsion, in a very sparsely settled island, destroyed more lives than all the outbursts of Vesuvius in its densely populated neighborhood.