Climbing Hekla - A Historical Mountaineering Account of Expeditions to Iceland

By Read Books Ltd.

Climbing Hekla contains historical accounts of mountaineering expeditions to Iceland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: May 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473390423

Book preview

Yates

Hekla.

ICELAND, the Ultima Thule of the ancients, is the largest island in the North Atlantic. It lies at a distance of 130 miles east of Greenland, and 500 miles north-west of Scotland; and extends from N. lat. 63° 22′ to 60° 44′, or 202 geographical miles, and from W. long. 13° 38′ to 11° 25′, or about 168 geographical miles. Its circumference is variously given at 752 to 830 miles, and its superficial area at 37,000 and 40,000 square miles. It is about five times the size of Sicily, about one-sixth larger than Ireland, and one-fifth the size of Portugal. Owing to the character of its soil and climate, its population is very scanty; assuming it to number 70,000 souls, it rates only at 1.75 per whole area.

Early writers have been accustomed to speak of Iceland as a realm of fire and frost,—a region of almost perennial winter, where Nature presents herself in her most savage and inhospitable aspects. Thus, Chasby asserts that the whole of Iceland may be described as a burnt-out lava-field, from eruptions previous to the peopling of the country. Henderson speaks of it as a most rugged and dreary country, where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds all monstrous and prodigious things. Even Professor Forbes paints it in the gloomiest colours. Undoubtedly, the island has been the scene of volcanic phenomena on a startling scale. Undoubtedly, it has suffered severely from wintry storms, and rains, and avalanches; and the greater portion of its table-land consists of black rock and glittering ice. There is no prodigality of colour, though vivid contrasts are not wanting. The sunny freshness and fairness of southern lands is nowhere visible. The green shadows of the woods are absolutely wanting in valley, and plain, and on sloping hill. But let it not be thought that Iceland can show the traveller no landscapes worthy of his admiration, or that it is one un-broken waste of snow and lava. "During the delight-fully mild and pleasant weather of July and