taining a vast store of information, but miser-?
ably deficient in arrangement. Olaf Olafsen
printed, in 1/80, his (Economical Travels
through Iceland, containing much valuable
matter. Jon Soemundsen has written on the
volcanic eruptions that have happened in the
neighborhood of the lake Myvatn; and
Bishop Finnsen on Heela; and Mr. Ste-
phensen’s Account o f the Eruption q f Skap-
tedeld Jokul will be found translated into
English, in the latter end of this journal.
Mathematics and astronomy are but little
cultivated, though the elder Mr. Stephensen
and Stephen Riornsen have written on these
subjects.
In the fine arts no progress whatever has
been made; but, as a proof that this deficiency
is rather to be ascribed to the situation
of the people, than to a want of original
genius, Dr. Holland remarks, that Thorvaldsen,
the son of an Icelander, dwelling on
the classic ground of Rome, is second only
to Canova among the statuaries of Europe.
The remains of antiquity in Iceland are
few and of small importance,, since the
eountry has been plundered of all its old
manuscripts. Of ancient edifices scarcely
any traces remain; for the mode of building
practised in the island with pieces of rock
without cement is of itself naturally unfa-?
vorable to the duration of the walls, and has
also greatly facilitated the attempts of the
natives to take them in pieces as often as
they wanted the materials to erect others.
The mere foundations of large structures are
alone now and then to be traced, one of
which that served as a pagan temple is distinguishable
by the Blodsteim or stone for
sacrifice, which is of an oval form, a little
pointed at the top.
Equally insignificant are the ancient inscriptions
that have been found in the island ;
the most remarkable among which is that at
Borg, in Myrar, the epitaph of one Kartan,
a man of regal extraction, who fell by the
hands of an assassin. I t is engraved in
Runic characters upon a kind of rock resembling
basalt.
Some fragments are still preserved of the
armour of former days, such as a halbert,
long kept in the cathedral of Skalholt; and