duces the opinion that we must seek for
the cause of the failure of the crops of grass
all over the country, except in the places
just mentioned, in the dreadfully severe
frost * and cold of the preceding winter,
when the earth was frozen to the depth of
five or six feet; so that it was not entirely
thawed in the beginning of the month of
July, even in the neighborhood of the fire.
The loss sustained in this district by the
destruction of the ground which used to
produce the Sea Lyme-grass (Elymus are-
narius) is the more deeply felt, since this
plant has become an article of consequence
among the inhabitants. The flour it yields
is considered to be finer in quality and more
nutritive than any which is imported ; so
that, although the drying and preparing of
* In the winter of 1784, the thermometer upon
Reaumur’s scale varied from ten to twenty degrees of
cold, and at Skalholt, Bishop Finsen once remarked
Reaumur’s thermometer at twenty-one degrees below
the point of congelation. The excessive severity of
that season continued till the end of the month of
April.
f See Olafsen and Povelsen's Travels in Iceland. § 810,
the grain are but imperfectly understood in
this district, it was nevertheless in so general
use, that little or no other corn was
bought at the trading towns. There are,
however, notwithstanding the general calamity,
some few of these grounds still remaining
uninjured, and these, so early as
the latter end of the month of July last
year, appeared in a most flourishing state;
for the remark, already made as to grass
in general, holds good also with the Elymus
arenarius, that volcanic ashes are its best
manure.
In the district of Western Skaptefield,
and especially at Siden, the Hvannarot (the
root of Angelica Archangelica), the Holt-
tarot, or Hardasoe (the root of Silene
acaulis), and the Gelldingarot (the root
of Statice Armeria), have also been used
by the inhabitants as common articles of
food, particularly in the spring, or in seasons
of scarcity. They are also not unacquainted
with the means of preserving their stock of
Angelica root, which they gather in the
autumn, and secure during the winter, by
burying it a sufficient depth in the earth to
be out of the reach of the frost, or bv l a y i n g