*4 NATURAL H IS TO R Y of NO R TV AY, 



winter rages with fuch feverity in the eaft parts of Norway, that 

 all the frefh-waters are frozen, the lakes and bays are open on 

 the weft-fide, though lying in a dired line with the eaftem parts ; 

 the air is mifty and cloudy, and the frofts feldom are known to 

 laft a fortnight or three weeks. In the center of Germany, which 

 is two hundred leagues nearer the line, the winters are, generally, 

 more fevere, and the frofts fharper than in the diocefe of 

 Bergen, where the inhabitants often wonder to read in the pub- 

 lic papers, of froft and mow in Poland and Germany, at a 

 time when no fuch weather is felt here. The harbours of Am- 

 fterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, and Liibeck, are frozen ten 

 times oftener than ours ; for, with us, it is generally known 

 not to happen above two or three times in a whole century $ 

 and, which is yet more extraordinary, when the harbour of 

 Bergen is frozen, the Seine, at Paris, may be concluded to be 

 in the fame condition. Thus our winter at Bergen is fo very 

 moderate, that the feas are always open to the fifhermen and 

 mariners ; and it is feldom that the bays and creeks are froze 

 over, except thofe that reach far up the country towards Filefield, 

 where they meet with keen and dry north-eaft winds, blowing 

 from the land *. In the other parts, towards the weftern coaft* 

 it is but feldom, as has been before noticed^ that any hard 

 winters, or lafting frofts, are heard of, though travellers, who per- 

 haps come from, or beyond, Filefield, about 20 miles eaftward, 

 fay, they have had fevere winters there for fome time paft. 



SECT. V. 

 The wife and This amazing difference is, according to the wife defign of the 



bountiful de- ° . r , r . 



fignofprovi- creator, requinte for the well-being or the country; for, as 1 nave 



dence in this. 1 ■ _ • i j • r i ■ 



already obferved, the eaftern parts require a hard winter tor their 

 fubfiftence, and a mild winter, and open weather is no lefs ne- 

 ceffary to the weftern parts, where the inhabitants chiefly main- 



* As far as the 80th, or 82c! degree, the north- fea continues open and navigable 

 both winter and rummer, except in the creeks, and along the more, in Finmark, 

 Iceland, and Greenland, from whence the large irrafTes of ice being detached, are feen 

 to float 'in the fea. In winters of extraordinary feverity, when the Baltic is frozen up, 

 the fwans, which otherwife are not to be claffed among the birds of this country, 

 tranfmigrate hither, to procure themfelves water, which they are there deprived of-, 

 and I have been credibly informed, that the few fwans, which are frill to be feen at 

 Syndfiord, and other places within my diocefe, were refugees from Denmark, in the 

 years 1708 and 1740. 



! tain 



