Abstract
THE LAVA DESERT OF ÓDÁÕAHRAUN IN about the central region of Iceland, on the northern skirts of Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Europe, is situated the most extensive occidental lava desert, the Ódáõahraun, covering a total area of about 16,000 square miles English. The whole of this wilderness is almost entirely one barren mass of lava, though here and there the traveller may observe patches filled with drifts of sand giving growth to some few stray tufts of upright lyme-grass (Elymus arenarius); but frequently a journey may be made through this region for days together without one single blade of grass being sighted. The total ab sence of vegetation and water in these tracts makes travelling here excessively arduous and risky, and these difficulties are still more aggravated by the elevation of the country above the level of the sea, in consequence of which it may frequently happen, even in the midst of summer, that the traveller is enveloped in blinding snow storms, which preclude all attempts at further progress while they last. In such predicaments no reliance can be placed on the compass, because of iron enter ing so very largely into the composition of the lava-masses. Hence this desert has hitherto remained a terra incognita, and has never been surveyed; yet volca noes of gigantic dimensions are found here, and many natural phenomena beside, which command great scientific interest. Not only to the world of science has Ódáõahraun been an unknown region, but even the in habitants of the surrounding country-side have at all times entertained the most vague and ignorant ideas concerning it. For ages they pictured it to themselves as the home of trolls and mountain sprites. Even as late as the present century it was commonly believed that up among the volcanoes there were to be found verdant valleys containing a whole population of outlaws; a belief which took its rise and received its fortification from the fact that jets of steam issuing from the crevassed moun tains were taken by distant beholders for smoke ascend ing from the chimneys of the abodes of outlaws. The outlaws themselves were pictured to the imagination as either human beings of a savage type, or as some preter human race of gigantic strength. So firmly ingrained in the people was this belief, that even as late as 1830 an armed expedition was despatched from Mývatn for the purpose of exploring the haunts of these communities of I outlaws, the result of which, I need not say, proved discouraging.
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THORODDSEN, T. Explorations in Iceland . Nature 30, 563–565 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/030563a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/030563a0