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
After this frightful eruption, no serious volcanic disturbance took
place in Iceland until 1845, when Mount Hecla again became disastrously
active.
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