56 SIB WILLIAM RAMSAY 



volunteered to accompany us to Hitter in Flekkefjord, where 

 large pegmatite veins occurring in the 4 Norite ' of the island 

 had recently been opened up and found to contain many rare 

 minerals. Accordingly after a night's rest at Christiansand we 

 caught a coastwise steamer going north, which landed us on 

 Hitter. There was no inn on the island, but we got comfortable 

 quarters in a fisherman's house which was built on a ledge of 

 rock overhanging the fjord. Here we fed sumptuously on trout, 

 salmon, eggs, milk, flad brod, and coffee, our first experience of 

 genuine Norwegian fare. The granite veins of the island were a 

 sight never to be forgotten. The crystals of felspar, mica, and 

 quartz were of enormous size, compared with anything we had 

 previously seen, and mingled with them and projecting from the 

 roof and sides of the cutting were large bosses of euxenite, orthite, 

 and other minerals of the rare earths. On receiving Holland's 

 assurance that there was no objection to our helping ourselves, we 

 secured a goodly supply of fine specimens most of which are 

 now in one or other of our museums and dispatched them to 

 Christiania to await our arrival there. Long afterwards, when 

 Eamsay was engaged on his search for sources of the rare gases 

 of the atmosphere, he bethought him of our Hitter finds and made 

 a systematic examination of them. The only one, however, 

 which gave him any positive results, was c Malacon,' a hydrated 

 variety of zircon, which he found to contain helium. Helland 

 returned direct from Hitter to Christiansand and we crossed 

 to the mainland and made our way by carriole, train, and steamer 

 to Bergen and thence sailed up the Hardanger Fjord to Odde. 

 We made many acquaintances in Bergen and on board the steamer, 

 some of whom we met again and again in the course of our tour. 

 Amongst them I particularly remember two daughters of the 

 Federal General Lee. As we sailed up the Fjord we were con- 

 stantly reminded, especially in the lower reaches, of our own 

 Scottish lochs. The last part of the sail, where the Fjord narrows 

 and the mountains seem in places to rise sheer from the water, 



