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The Blog of Axel Lidenbrock : June 9th 1863

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 15:15:48 +0100
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

BlankFirst of all, my apolgies for not entering something for yesterday. The
reason for this was idle curiosity. Having been amazed at the amount of
information this machine that Doctor Smith gave me, I wondered if I could
use it to find out as much about Iceland as I could before I got there and
sure enough it did exactly what I asked it to do.

  a.. Iceland is located 186 miles to the south east of Greenland and covers
an area of 39,758 square miles
  b.. The average July temperature is 52°F (although I should point out that
at the summit of Snefells it will be more like 42°F) and gets about 34
inches of rain a year (which suggests it could well be snowing at the top as
well)
  c.. Iceland was first settled in the late 800's by Norweigan Vikings
  d.. Iceland is home to the world's oldest parliament (some 900 years old
already)
  e.. Declared itself Norweigan in 1262, but following the union of the
Norweigan and Danish crowns in 1380 was confirmed Danish in 1397.
  f.. Had a major smallpox outbreak in 1707 that lasted two years and killed
33% of the population
Some other interesting facts I found out is that next week is Iceland's
National Day (so perhaps if we haven't started out by then I might be able
to join in the celebrations), the local currency is called the krone which
is made up of a 100 aurar (but do not ask me how many marks there are to the
krone), and the native language is Icelandic which is connected to the same
type of languages found in Norway and the Faeroe Islands.

However, there was one fact that made me very frightened. Just 80 years ago
almost to the day the Laki volcano in Iceland exploded and didn't stop
erupting until 8 months later. When it had finished, an area of 1,521 square
miles (or to put it another way nearly 4% of Iceland's land area) was
covered in lava and as a result of the eruption, several hundred thousand
people across the whole of Europe lost their lives. I know that my uncle has
assured me that Sneffels is extinct, but what if he is wrong, what if it
explodes and I am killed? What will my poor Gräuben do then?

Received on Mon 09 Jun 2008 - 17:15:58 IDT

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