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Iceland's Rivers and Iceland's Mountains

Among the works of surveyor Samúel Eggertsson are Iceland's Rivers and Iceland's Mountains that contain a great amount of knowledge. Iceland's Mountains depicts how tall the country's main mountains are and Iceland's Rivers depicts all of the country's rivers, lined up by their position from west to east so that their length can be compared.


Samúel Eggertsson was born in Melanes at Rauðasandur in 1864. He studied at the agricultural school in Ólafsdalur from 1887 to 1889 where he learned various agricultural subjects, including surveying. Surveying suited him well since he was skilled with a pen and had started doing calligraphy and drawing maps after moving to Reykjavík with his family in 1909. Samuel worked at cartography, teaching and surveying in various places in the country and produced a number of maps, drawings and plans, some of which are very detailed and include various visual information. As well as his surveying maps, Samúel drew a number of pictures that depicted historical information, such as Iceland's settlement and population numbers in the country at various times. His images appeared in books but were also printed as postcards and in 1930 he published the book Saga Íslands – línurit  með hliðstæðum annálum og kortum (Iceland's History: A graph with parallel chronicles and maps). Samuel also wrote articles for newspapers and magazines about landscape, astronomy and other subjects.

Lbs 298 NF

The National and University Library of Iceland