Jökull - 01.01.2014, Side 132

Society report
Klifin Herðubreið
Kristján Sæmundsson
Íslenskar Orkurannsóknir, Grensásvegi 9, 108 Reykjavík, Iceland
Kristjan.Saemundsson@isor.is
Abstract — Í „Ódáðahrauni“ Ólafs Jónssonar er fyrirsögn eins kaflans „Saga Ódáðahrauns“. Þar er rakin
saga rannsókna og leiðangra um Hraunið. Einn af þeim sem þar kemur við sögu er William Lee Howard. Um
hann hefur Ólafur á að byggja frásögn hans sjálfs í New York Tribune 19. október 1881. Þar greinir Howard
blaðamanni frá helstu afrekum sínum á Íslandi, en flest er þar með slíkum ýkjum að Ólafur líkir honum við
Vellygna-Bjarna. Ólafur greinir frá helstu ýkjunum, en sleppir hinu sem meira vit er í og þá var ofarlega í huga
fólks, svo sem harðindunum 1881 og Vesturheimsferðum mormóna. Mesta afrek sitt taldi Lee Howard vera að
klífa Herðubreið fyrstur manna og fá sönnun þess að hún væri eldfjall. Aðferð hans við klifrið er hins vegar í
meira lagi skáldleg. Ólafur Jónsson á bágt með að trúa því að Lee Howard hafi getað greint rétt frá byggingu
Herðubreiðar nema hann hafi klifið hana, enda sé lýsing hans réttari og greinilegri í verulegum atriðum en
Þorvalds Thoroddsen. Til fróðleiks fylgir hér blaðagreinin úr New York Tribune.
DISCOVERIES IN ICELAND
Talk with W. L. Howard who has just returned from a
visit to the island
William Lee Howard has just returned from cold
Iceland where he was sent early in the summer by
the American Geographical Society in order to settle
some disputed points in the topography of that island.
Monday evening he was visited by a TRIBUNE re-
porter to whom he gave an account of his summer’s
travel.
„I left New-York“ said he „in March last and went
to Leith, Scotland where a ship was fitted out for
me, and then I went directly to Iceland. Last year I
skirted the island with a horse, going into every fiord
around it and left some ponies there for my use the
past summer, but they had all died in consequence of
the scarcity of food. One of the most important dis-
coveries that I made was in determining whether Her-
dubried was a volcano or simply a mountain. That
now is settled satisfactorily to my mind; it is a vol-
cano. I climbed to the top of it – 6,740 feet above the
sea level. The only way to ascend for 1,500 feet was
to use a large kite, with an anchor attached, and a rope
fastened to the anchor. After securing the anchor to
the rocks above my head I would pull myself up by
means of the rope. By repeating the operation many
times I made the ascent in 38 hours. The volcano is
composed of three parts; the lowest is palagonite, the
middle, and steepest part is a basalt cliff, while the top
is a lava. This shows conclusively that it is a volcano
and not a mountain. On the summit it was blowing
and snowing so hard that I could not see fifty feet from
me. Old topographers had agreed that this was not a
volcano.
This was only a part of my task. No one had
ever traversed across the island, but I crossed it in
four directions. The standard map of Iceland was con-
structed after twenty years labour by Skjolfnderfjlot,
but he marked many lakes on it and traced several
rivers that he had never seen. Of course he left out
many that I have visited. During the four months I
was on the island our party of fifty-six men travelled
1,764 miles, 600 of them on foot. We worked, on
an average, nineteen hours a day. During all our stay
there, it was constant daylight. Several times when
hurried, we worked twenty-five hours without obtain-
ing an hour’s sleep. I laid a base line and triangulated
132 JÖKULL No. 64, 2014