Jökull - 01.12.1962, Page 42

SIGURDUR THORARI NSSON :
International Symposium dedicated to the 200th Anniversary
of Sveinn Pálsson
July 12—15, 3962 an international symposium
on North Atlantic Biota and their History was
lield in Reykjavík under the auspices o£ the
University of Iceland and the Museum of Na-
tural History. The symposium was sponsored
by the NATO Advanced Study Institutes Pro-
gram. The initiative to this symposium was
taken by prof. A. Löve, Université de Montréal,
Canada, who also was a president of the or-
ganizing committee. Participants from abroad
were 54 from 10 countries.
This symposium was dedicated to the 200th
anniversary of Sveinn Pálsson, a distinguished
Icelandic naturalist and pioneer glaciologist.
At the opening session in the University, Sig-
urdur Thorarinsson gave a lecture on Sveinn
Pálssons life and work.
The glaciological work of Sveinn Pálsson and
its importance has been dealt with in Jökull
10, 1960, pp. 10—14. The following is quotecl
from Thorarinssons lecture at the opening ses-
sion.
„Sveinn Pálsson, the naturalist to whose rne-
mory this Symposium is dedicated, spent much
of his life as a physician in the same district
to the south of Vatnajökull. He was born on
April 25, 1762 in Skagafjörður in northern Ice-
land, the son of a farmer and a midwife. He
grew up on a farm, but in the autumn of 1783
he went as an apprentice to Jón Sveinsson,
Medical Officer of Health for Iceland, at Nes
near Reykjavík, with whom he stayed for four
years studying medicine. In the autumn of 1787,
he went to Copenhagen for further medical
studies. At the University of Copenhagen he
soon became interested in natural history, fol-
lowing courses 'in several of its branches; for
instance, he studied botany under the famous
Martin Vahl, mineralogy under Elvius Mangor.
Having passed his examinations in natural
sciences “cum laude” in 1791, he spent tliree
and a lialf summer on journeys in Iceland
on zoological, botanical and geological studies.
For these studies he got a stipendium o£ 300
Riksdaler a year from the then recently found-
ed Natural History Society of Copenhagen. On
closer study we find that the scientific program
he was meant to carry out for this limited sum
was really overwhelming. He was to collect and
describe plants, study fishes and birds, dissect
higher and lower species of animals, study the
geology of the country, collect stones ancl min-
eral specimens, make a particular study of the
hot springs, and even give an account of the
industries of the country and the Icelandic way
of life. In view of the difficult communications
existing in Iceland at this time, this program
was really inpracticable. But what Sveinn Páls-
son managed to accomplish is virtually beyond
belief.
He travelled both in inhabited and unin-
habited areas, climbed mountains and glaciers,
and was the first man to climb the highest
mountain of the countrv, Oræfajökull. His
journeys along the southern margin of Vatna-
jökull during the summers of 1793 and 1794
became particularly instructive and fruitful,
ancl so was his tour to the crater-row Laka-
gígar in 1794. His diaries from these years,
which were not published until 1945 — and
then in Icelandic — are some of the most im-
portant works of nature studies ever brought
out in Iceland.
In the spring of 1794 Sveinn Pálsson lost the
stipendium he had received for his research.
He continued his research, however, to the fol-
lowing autumn, but had to give it up tlien,
owing to lack of funds. He applied for a posi-
tion as a teacher in Reykjavík, but was not
accepted. In the autumn of 1795 he married
a fine girl, Þórunn, daughter of Bjarni Pálsson,
Medical Officer of Health, who had travelled
with Eggert Ólafsson in Iceland in 1752—1757.
Now Pálsson became a farmer, lived in poverty
40 JÖKULL