390 Scientific Intelligence — Geology. 



often renewed ; but these shew the extent on the ground of the old 

 houses. The equality of all ranks in those circumstances of lodging, 

 food, clothing, fuel, furniture, which form great social distinctions 

 among people of other countries, must have nourished a feeling of 

 independence of external circumstances, — a feeling, also, of their 

 own worth, rights, and importance, among the bonders, and must 

 have raised their habits, character, and ideas to a nearer level to 

 those of the highest. The kings, having no royal residences, were 

 lodged, with their court attendants on the royal progresses, habitually 

 by the bonders, and entertained by them. At the present day, there 

 are no royal mansions, or residences of the great, in Norway, 

 different from the ordinary houses of the bonders or peasant pro- 

 prietors. His Majesty, Carl Johan, had to lodge in their houses in 

 travelling through his Norwegian dominions ; and no king in Europe 

 could travel through his kingdom, and be lodged so well every night 

 by the same class. In ancient times the kings lived in guest- 

 quarters, — that is, by billet upon the peasant proprietors in different 

 districts in regular turn ; and even this kind of intercourse must 

 have kept alive a high feeling of their own importance in the bonder 

 class, in the times when, from the want of the machinery of a 

 lettered functionary class, civil or clerical, all public business had to 

 be transacted directly with them in their Things. — The Sea Kings 

 of Norway. By G. Laing. Vol. i. p. 119. 



33. Desert of Sahara. — Let us not be misled by the word desert, 

 as applied to Sahara. In the strict sense of the term it is much less 

 applicable than is usually supposed to the regions bordering the Atlas 

 chain of mountains. From time to time the traveller meets with 

 delightful oases in the neighbourhood of perennial springs, where 

 the fertility of nature is doubly agreeable, and where there are per- 

 manent habitations, not of a hw families merely, but of large and 

 flourishing communities. These inhabitated places, which are de- 

 fended against the solar heat and the destructive simoom by groves 

 of palm and fruit trees, are called *' Fiafi." Again, there are 

 sandy districts, which, being well watered by the wintry rains, afford, 

 in the spring of the year, a good pasturage for the flocks and herds 

 of the nomadic tribes, which encamp and remain on the spot as long 

 as any grass is to be found, and these are termed " Kifar." The 

 real desert wastes are distinguished by the name of " Falat," the 

 arid sandy plains which every wind agitates like the ocean. For- 

 tunately for humanity, these irreclaimable parts of the wilderness are 

 much less extensive than is generally thought in Europe. The 

 population, therefore, of Northern Africa, small as it unquestionably 

 is in comparison with the vast extent of territory, is serious enough 

 to embarrass any European power that may come in contact with it. 

 So it was with the Romans, so it was with the Portuguese, and so 

 it is with the French. 



34. On the Permeability of Metals. By Professor Henry. — 



