Árbók Háskóla Íslands - 02.01.1925, Síða 247

Summary
I. Demography. Materials.
Since Iceland still remains to the European public a distant
and far off Ultima Thule, a short account of landandpeople, and
of earlier anthropologicai researcli in Iceland besides his own
work seerned desirable to the author.
A. Land and People.
1. Iceland has an area of more than 100.000 squ. kilo-
metres, only 40.000 of which may be considered habilable
country. The rest is uninhabitable, mountains, lava streams,
glaciers. About 100 volcanoes are known to exist. The coast
lands, and the valleys intersecting the central plateau, are most-
ly inhabited. The climate is, on the whole, cold, damp and
unsettled, so tliat grain does not ripen and trees only reach
the size of brushwood. Tlie winters are mild but the summer
is short, with a low temperature. The average annual tempera-
ture was, in 1910 to 1922, in South Iceland 3.8° Centigrade,
in East Iceland 3.5°, in West Iceland 3.1°, and in North Ice-
land 2.6°. (Table p. 2).
Iceland is divided into four quarters (South, West, Norlh,
East) which again are subdivided into 25 counties. (Table p.
4, map p. 5).
2. T h e P e o p I e. —T he settlement of Iceland
began in A. D. 874. The island was then uninhabited, though a
few Irish monks and hermits had sought refuge there. The
.settlers were mainly Norwegians (about 84%), who emigrated
to escape the tyranny of king Harald Fairhair, but a certain
percentage (about 13%) came from the British Isles, from
Scotland, Ireland and the Hebrides. Still, many of the last na-
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