the parent stream. But it may be asked,
what has then become of all these rivers and
brooks ? To give a full and satisfactory reply
to this question, and to ascertain the course
now taken by the remnants of the streams,
much local information is required, and it is
above all necessary to be well acquainted
with those parts of the rivers that were first
stopped up, and with the obstructions arising
from the natural situation of the adjacent
country. I shall now endeavor to lay
before the reader, all that it has been in my
power to collect upon this subject, and shall
first direct his attention to the eastward, beginning
with Hverfisfliotet,
§ XXII.
Hverfis- The upper part of the river Hver-
fisfliot, which still continues to run
freely as far as the lava, becomes at this
place a confined and stagnant water, the
lava having not only entirely filled up the
channel of this large river, but also extended
itself to a considerable distance over its
banks, so that the stream has been constrained
to work its way under the superincumbent
volcanic mass, visible only where
it fills up such hollow places as it occasionally
meets with. It is owing to this
circumstance, that we find several pools of
stagnant water below those places in the
channel of the river that had been stopped :
but no such are to be seen to the north of
this place ; and, as the vast quantity of water
which was continually rushing down from
the ice-mountains could not by any means
make itself a sufficient outlet through the
lava, the nearest hollows and crevices of
which, had been already filled up with the
impeded waters, it became necessary that
some of it should discharge itself farther on,
along; the side of the rocky hills, and on the
east of the lava; where a considerable broo
is now, consequently, visible. This stream
forced its passage in many places with great
violence, especially to the eastward of the
farm-house of Eystridalur, and thence continually
ran in a direction parallel with that
of the lava, stretching toward the sandy
districts to the south. On the western side
of the lava there was likewise a brook
running past the farm of Thvera, and parallel
with the lava. This, also, at length,
empties itself into the southern sandy dis*