Jökull - 01.12.1960, Blaðsíða 7

Fig. 2. Part of Bishop Gudbrandur Thorláksson’s map of Iceland of 1590, showing some of
the inland plateau glaciers. Full scale of the original map.
Hluti af Islandskorti Guðbrands biskups Þorlákssonar, fyrsta korti, er sýnir jökla sérstaklega
leiknaða.
only a short while and come at long intervals
only. In the meantime the weather is fair al-
though the cold is intense. For it is in the
nature of the glacier [viz. the inland ice, auth.
comm.j to throw continuously from its surface
a cold wind which drives the snow showers
away from its face so that the sky above is
usually clear. But the neighbouring lands often
have to suffer becáuse of this, for all the re-
gions that lie near get severe weather from this
ice, inasmuch as all the storms that it drives
away from itself come upon others with keen
blases” (p. 153). — Here, in fact, the glacial
anticyclonal theory is put forward six ancl a half
centuries before W. H. Flobbs advanced it.
Quite a lucid description of Iceland, Qiialis-
cunque descriptio Islandiae (Ed. F. Burg, Ham-
burg 1928), was written about 1590. Earlier
scholars ascribed it to Sigurdur Stefánsson, the
Headmaster of Skálholt, but it is now consider-
ecl to have been written by Bishop Oddur Ein-
arsson (1559—1630). In this work we find the
first mentioning of glacier changes in Iceland,
indicating that the glaciers were then increasing
in size. The author writ.es (p. 6): “Ac sæpe uno
vel altero die vel nocte tanta copia conglome-
rantur novæ nives in montibus et locis campe-
stribus, ut earum profunditas aliquot cubitorum
altitudinem excedat, unde quotannis major fit
nivium accessio in locis montanis, quam debilis
illa caloris operatio, qvæ in ista est regione,
satis possit eam liqvores dissolvere”. The same
treatise also contains an excellent description
of the arctic drift ice and its influence on the
climate of Iceland.
W. Ygls map of Tirol from 1604 (Fig. 3) has
been regarded as the oldest land map where a
glacier (Ötztaler Ferner) is represented with a
special signature. But in Additamentum IV.
Theatri orbis terrarum by A. Ortelius, published
in Antwerp 1590, there is a map of Iceland
drawn by bishop Gudbrandur Thorláksson in
Iceland (1542—1627). On that map (Fig. 3),
which Ygl may well have seen either in Orte-
lius Atlas or in Gerhard Mercator’s Atlas pu-
blished in Duisburg in 1595, the glaciers are
designated in a similar way.
In this connection it may be pointed out,
that not only were in olden times frequent
travels across the central highland of Iceland,
between the big plateau glaciers, but the biggest
plateau-ice, the Vatnajökull, was also in all
probability crossed many times. In the 15th ancl
16th centuries fishermen from North Iceland
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