f i
can ever be brought to a thriving condition,
it muft certainly be under the
preient indefatigable governor, who
has the welfare of the country much
at heart, and, in conjunction with the
government, ftndies every poffible
means to promote it.
I confider theie violent winds, and
the Greenland floating* ice, which every
year does great damage to the country,
as the chief caufe of the diminution o f
the growth o f wood, as well as o f the
ill fuccefs in the late attempts for introducing
agriculture.
This ice comes on by degrees, always
with an eafterly wind, and frequently
in fuch quantities, as to fill up
all the gulphs on the nortli-weft fide
o f the iiland, and even covers the fea
as far as the eye can reach ; it alfo
fometimes drives to other iliores. It
generally comes in January, and goes
away in March. Sometimes it only
reaches the land in April, and remaining
there a long time, does an incredible
deal o f mifchief. It confifts
partly of mountains of ice [fiall jakar)
■that are fometimes fixty fathoms
high
high above water, and announce their
arrival by a great nolle, and partly o f
field-ice [helhi-is) o f the depth o f one
or even two fathoms. O f this laft
fome parts foon melt, and other parts
remain undiffolved many months, often
producing very dangerous effecfts
to the country*.
The ice caufed fo violent a cold in
1753 and 1754, that horfes and iheep
dropped down dead on account o f
it, as well as for want o f food ; horfes
* T h e immenfe maiTes o f ice that are fo dreadful,
andafFecH: the climate of the country along the northern
and northweft coafl of Iceland, arrive commonly
with a N.W. or N.N.W. wind from Greenland. T h e
field-ice is of two or three fathoms thicknefs, is fe-
parated by the winds, and lefs dreaded than the rock
or mountain ice, which is often feen fifty and more feet
above water, and is at leail nine times thefame depth
below water: thefe immenfe maiTes of ice are frequently
left in fhoal water, fixed, as it were, to the ground,
and in that flate remain many months, nay years, un-
diflolved, chilling all the ambient part o f the atmo-
fphere for many miles round. When many fuch lofty
and bulky mafles of ice are floating together, the wood
that is often drifted along between them is fo much
chafed, and prefled with fuch violence together, that
it takes fire; which circumflance has occafioned fabulous
accounts of the ice being in flames: of the bulk of
fuch ice-mafles, fee Foriler’s Obfervations made during
a voyage round the world, p. 69, 1773 and 1774.
D were