46 NATURAL HISTORY of IVOR WAT. 



Scheuchzer, in a particular tra£t, fhews this meafure to be vaftly 



exaggerated. 



iSfadw, The hei § ht of the h #eft mountains in Switzerland, which 

 vol. 35, no j u li us Caefar terms, fummas alpes, is according to his conjecture, 

 no more than 987 ells. Floeyfield, in the neighbourhood of Ber- 

 gen, which, however, I do not imagine to be half fo high as 

 Hornel or Sneehorn on Sundmore, was by a trigonometrical 

 menfuration performed laft winter, found to be 200 fathom, or 

 600 ells high; confequently, Ulrich, which ftands clofe by it, 

 cannot be lefs than 800 ells v 



Some of thefe mountains are peculiarly remarkable for their figure 

 and appearance. On the left hand, failing up Joering creek, one fees 

 fuch a groupe of crefts of mountains, as refembles the profpect of a 

 large city, with towers and old gothick edifices, and fome of them 

 being continually covered with fnow, whilft the chafms in others 

 make a way for the light to penetrate, the profped fills a ft ranger 

 with aftonifhment. Not far from thence, in the parifh of Oerfkoug, 

 is the mountain called Skopfhorn, of which the mariners andfifher- 

 men have a view at 16 leagues diftance, when they have loft fight 

 of the reft. On the higheft creft of this mountain, it has the appear- 

 ance of a complete well-built fort, or old caftle, with regular walls 

 and baftions. It is an old tradition, that a girl who was attending a 

 flock or herd, for a wager climbed up to the top, and according to 

 agreement, there blew her horn, but was never feen after ; upon 

 which, her relations, according to an ancient fuperftition, imagined 

 fne had fallen into the hands of the pretended fubterraneous in- 

 habitants of the mountains. Perhaps the truth is, that the girl 

 was not fo fortunate in coming down as in getting up, and that 

 me fell into fome cavity, where her body never could be difcovered. 

 see plate n. Near Alftahoug, in the diftricl: of Helgeland, is a range of moun- 

 tains of a very fingnlar afpec~t, having feven high pinnacles, or 

 The seven- crefts, known by the appellation of the Seven Sifters, and which 

 are difcernible fix teen miles ofT at fea. A friend of mine, who 

 ventured to the top of the higheft of thefe crefts, thinks their 

 perpendicular height to be fomething above a quarter of a league *• 



* This appears a very extraordinary height, for one of thefe feparate hills, which 

 have always been accounted but fmall in comparifon of thofe of Dofre and File. I 

 have befides been informed by feveral maritime perfons, that towards the north, the 

 height of the mountains, immediately beyond Sundmoer and Nordmoer, decreafes, 

 as it increafes after palling Stavanger 5 and approaching towards Bergen- 



3 la 



