were soon covered with their unwelcome
guests. Many people have assured me that
they even found numbers of them still living
among the hay, in the depth of the ensuing
severe winter; and, what is yet more extraordinary,
that they left their quarters after
a day or two of thaw or mild weather.
I have no reason to think that the thickness
of the air had any apparent effect upon
the grass in the late summer of 1784. The
hazy atmosphere before described, which
was occasioned by the smoke arising from
the lava, was but seldom observed out of
the district of Skaptefield, and the weather
was likewise very mild and warm, from the
latter part of the month of April till the
end of July; yet still the growth of grass
was almost every where indifferent, and
the pastures occasionally frozen, especially
where the soil was firm and level. Some
hopes, however, are entertained, that, notwithstanding
the very moderate crops of
grass, a supply of fodder, however scanty,
may be secured for the surviving cattle.
The case is quite different in Siden and
Medallandet, and perhaps in the whole of
the district of Western Skaptefield; for there,
provided the continued rains have not altogether
prevented the hay from being harvested,
there is no fear of a similar scarcity;
the grass having grown in the greatest luxuriance,
nay, even in an almost incredible
quantity, both in the Medallandet and in
Siden, and likewise on the two most easterly
and deserted farms of Nupstad and Rauda-
berg, in Fliotshverfet.
I am strongly inclined to believe that this
extraordinary degree of fertility is chiefly
ascribable to the ashes which have been
thrown out by the volcano, and have fallen
into the vallies, serving them both as the
means of protection to the herbage and
as manure. The great and rapid growth of
the forests around .ZEtna * has always been
attributed to a similar cause, and it has
likewise been remarked in Iceland that a
luxuriant vegetation generally succeeds the
eruptions of Hecla'j-. This, therefore, in-
* See Brydone’s Letters through Sicily and Malta,
p. 89-93.
t See Bishop Finseris Account o f Hecla, 1 7 6 6 , p. 38.
vol. ii . a