Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Blaðsíða 338

298
LE NORD
About a century later another
Icelandic divine, Bishop Þórður
Þorláksson of Skálholt, a descen-
dant of GuSbrandur, drew three
very fine maps of Iceland, con-
taining a number of new place
names and several other improve-
ments, but these, as well as the
maps he drew on a smaller scale,
remained buried in the archives,
and thus had no influence on the
work of subsequent cartographers.
One of them was published in 1926,
but it is only Professor Norlund’s
recent publication which has en-
abled wider circles to appreciate
this side of Þórður Þ orláksson’s
life-work. He too was a gifted and
versatile scholar. He was a man
of wide literary culture and a con-
noisseur of music, and he was artist
enough to make his own woodcuts
for the books he caused to be print-
ed at the press installed by him-
self in his diocese of Skálholt.
Mention must also be made of
Sveinn Pálsson, a physician and
naturalist, who during the years
1792—95 drew maps of the Ice-
landic glaciers. In his investigations
of the latter he was far in advance
of his time. Sveinn Pálsson was a
first-rate observer and a pioneer in
the field of physical geography,
but his work remained buried in
the archives for a hundred years.
His maps were published for the
first time in Professor Norlund’s
work.
Another Icelander who has made
an important contribution to the
mapping of his country is Bjorn
Gunnlaugsson. Gunnlaugsson stu-
died at Copenhagen and was
awarded the Gold Medal of the
University. He was then for some
time Danish assistant Government
Surveyer, and subsequently teacher
of mathematics in the grammar
school of Bessastaðir. It the begin-
ning of the 19th century the coast
line of Iceland had been mapped by
Danish Government surveyors, but
cartographic knowledge of the in-
terior was still very imperfect, most
of the central portion of the coun-
try remaining an empty space on
the map. This was now partly fil-
led by the surveys which Gunn-
laugsson undertook during the sum-
mers of 1831—43. During the win-
ters he worked up the data he had
thus collected and sent the results
to Copenhagen for fair copying. It
is surprising that one man should
have been able single-handed to
carry through this gigantic task,
and that an investigator working
under such unfavourable conditions
as Bjorn Gunnlaugsson should have
succeeded in making such an im-
portant contribution to geograph-
ical research. For a century, his
maps remained the basis of the con-
temporary idea of the principal
features of Icelandic topography,
and his work is a striking evidence
of the intellectual energy charac-
teristic of his nation, even in a
period of difficulties and economic
distress.
Maps and records preserved in