Where it was inclosed between the precipitous banks of the Skapta, the lava is five or six hundred feet thick, but as soon as it spread out into the plain its depth never exceeded one hundred feet. The eruption of sand, ashes, pumice, and lava continued till the end of August, when at length the vast subterranean tumult subsided. But its direful effects were felt for a long time after, not only in its immediate vicinity, but over the whole of Iceland, and added many a mournful page to her long annals of sorrow. For a whole year a dun canopy of cinder-laden clouds hung over the unhappy island. Sand and ashes, carried to an enormous height into the atmosphere, spread far and wide, and overwhelmed thousands of acres of fertile pasturage. The Faeroes, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys were deluged with volcanic dust which perceptibly contaminated even the skies of England and Holland. Mephitic vapors obscured the rays of the sun, and the sulphurous exhalations tainted both the grass of the field and the waters of the lake, the river, and the sea, so that not only the cattle died by thousands, but the fish also perished in their poisoned element. The unhealthy air, and the want of food--for hunger at last drove them to have recourse to untanned hides and old leather--gave rise to a disease resembling scurvy among the unfortunate Icelanders. The head and limbs began to swell, the bones seemed to be distending. Dreadful cramps forced the patient to strange contortions. The gums loosened, the decomposed blood oozed from the mouth and the ulcerous skin, and a few days of torment and prostration were followed by death. In many a secluded vale whole families were swept away, and those that escaped the scourge had hardly strength sufficient to bury the dead. So great was the ruin caused by this one eruption that in the short space of two years no less than 9336 men, 28,000 horses, 11,461 cattle, and 190,000 sheep--a large proportion of the wealth and population of the island--were swept away. After this dreadful catastrophe followed a long period of volcanic rest, for the next eruption of the Eyjafialla did not take place before 1821. A twelfth eruption of Kötlugja occurred in 1823, the twenty-sixth of Hecla in 1845–46; and ultimately the thirteenth of Kötlugja in 1860. Since then there has been repose; but who knows what future disasters may be preparing beneath those icy ridges and fields of snow of Skapta and his frowning compeers, where no human foot has ever wandered, or how soon they may awaken their dormant thunders?