An American in Iceland

The American zoologist, physiologist and naturalist Samuel Kneeland (1821–88) published this account of his travels through the Scottish islands and to Iceland in 1876. It shows the breadth of his interests, from the Norse origins and history of the Icelanders to volcanoes, their geological causes, and their flora and fauna.

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Samuel Kneeland (1821–88), educated at Harvard and in Paris as a doctor, served as an army surgeon during the American Civil War. After the war, he returned to lecturing on physiology, and expanded his academic interests to zoology and to natural history in general. His expedition to Iceland was fuelled by a fascination with volcanoes, volcanic islands and the flora and fauna that abounded on them, but Kneeland was as much a cultural and historical tourist as a scientist, enjoying the millennial celebration of the first settlement by Norwegians, the spectacle of geyser eruptions, and the Norse history and traditions of the Icelanders. This 1876 work offers a chronological account of his party's travels through the Scottish islands and around Iceland, bringing a very individual touch to a description of the country, its culture and its outstanding landscapes.