Greetings:

We are watching these developments with great concern from here in North America as well. Anne Price and I begin a mini-tour of the London area with our respective spouses on May 6, and we fear our plans may be in jeopardy. But while that is important to us personally, it is only a minor concern compared to the great economic disruption that has already occurred and which can substantially worsen in very short order.

Beyond that are the potentially large scale agricultural, public health, and social disasters waiting to happen. The news commentators are already talking about a similar eruption in Iceland in 1783-1784 that killed about one-fifth to one-quarter of that country's human population, up to one-half of its livestock, and which may have contributed to the death of as many as 20,000 people in Ireland, Great Britain, and on the Continent.

--- Steve