science

The Natural History of Iceland

The Natural History of Iceland is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Natural History of Iceland rather than just read about it. In short: The Natural History of Iceland (Danish: Tilforladelige efterretninger om Island) is a natural history of Iceland by Danish lawyer Niels Horrebow. It was published in Danish in 1752, with an English translation in 1758.

Key takeaways

The Natural History of Iceland belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Natural History of Iceland to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Natural History of Iceland from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Natural History of Iceland (Danish: Tilforladelige efterretninger om Island) is a natural history of Iceland by Danish lawyer Niels Horrebow. It was published in Danish in 1752, with an English translation in 1758.

History of the work The book was intended to correct errors in past natural histories of Iceland, particularly the work of Hamburg mayor Johann Anderson, who had written about the island without ever actually visiting it. Anderson had relied entirely on accounts from German and Dutch sea captains, but Horrebow lived in Iceland for two years, studying the animals, plants, weather, and geological features. He also made note of the cultural practices of the Icelandic people. Horrebow's resulting work was published in Danish in 1752, then translated into German (1753), Dutch (1754), English (1758) and French (1764).

"Concerning Snakes" The Natural History of Iceland is often noted for its seventy-second chapter, "Concerning Snakes", which, in its English translation, consists solely of one sentence:

No snakes of any kind are to be met with throughout the whole island. Several works of English literature make light of this brief passage. For example, James Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791) relates how Samuel Johnson bragged to a friend that he could recite the chapter in its entirety. And William Morris' utopian novel News From Nowhere (1890) contains a short chapter called "Concerning Politics", in which a resident of "Nowhere" tells the narrator, "We are very well off as to politics,—because we have none. If you ever make a book out of this conversation, put this in a chapter by itself, after the model of old Horrebow's Snakes in Iceland." The original Danish version of the chapter on snakes was actually a full paragraph, rather than just one sentence. It was a direct response to a paragraph in Johann Anderson's book, which claimed that snakes could not survive the cold of Iceland. Horrebow's full chapter was translated into English in an 1870 issue of Notes and Queries:

Serpents there are none in Iceland, as our author [Anderson] truly observes. But when he gives as a reason for this the intense cold of that country, he has been led into an error by false information. We have already spoken of the cold in Iceland, and it may be seen from the accompanying meteorological observations that the cold in the South of Iceland is not more severe than with us in Denmark, so that serpents could as easily live there as here. But since these creatures have not come to Iceland it is well, for no one is likely to trouble himself to transplant them thither. Although the contributor to Notes and Queries remarked that "Horrebow's chapter is ... not so ridiculous as generally supposed", the earlier English translation of the chapter is still much better-known. The phrase "snakes in Iceland" is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is traced to the 1758 translation and defined as "something posited only to be dismissed as non-existent".

Notes

External links An excerpt from the book, concerning Icelandic houses

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Natural History of Iceland

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Natural History of Iceland claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Natural History of Iceland before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Natural History of Iceland ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Natural History of Iceland

In research: The Natural History of Iceland appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Natural History of Iceland in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Natural History of Iceland is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1752 in science, 1752 non-fiction books, Books about Iceland, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Natural History of Iceland outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “The Natural History of Iceland” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study The Natural History of Iceland in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Natural History of Iceland means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Natural History of Iceland out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Natural History of Iceland in simple terms?

Why does The Natural History of Iceland matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Natural History of Iceland?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Natural History of Iceland.