In Mundo 

 Subterr 



78 NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY, 



heard to a great diftance> and without any intermiiTlon, except 

 a quarter every fixth hour, that is, at the turn of high and low 

 water, when its impetuofity feems at a ftand, which fhort inter- 

 val is the only time the fifhermen can venture in : but this mo- 

 tion foon returns, and, however calm the fea may be, gradually 

 increafes with fuch a draught and vortex as abforb whatever 

 comes within their fphere of action, and keep it under water for 

 fome hours, when the fragments, fhivered by the rocks, ap- 

 n c° x. P ear a g am - Tfri s circumftance, among others, makes ftrongly 

 Lib. iii. P . againft Kircher and others, who imagine that there is here an 

 abyfs penetrating the globe, and ifTuing in fome very remote 

 parts, which Kircher is fo particular as to ailign, for he names 

 the gulf of Bothnia. But after the moil exact refearches which 

 the circumftances will admit, this is but a conjecture without 

 foundation ; for this and three other vortices among the Ferroe 

 iflands, but fmaller, have no other caufe, than the collifion of 

 waves riling and falling, at the flux and reflux, againfr. a ridge of 

 rocks and fhelves, which confine the water fo that it precipitates 

 itfelf like a cataract ; and thus the higher the flood rifes, the 

 deeper muff the fall be ; and the natural refult of this is a whirl- 

 pool, or vortex, the prodigious faction whereof, is fuhiciently 

 known by lefTer experiments. But what has been thus abforbed, 

 remains no longer at the bottom than the ebb lafts; for the ruc- 

 tion then ceafes, and the flood removes all attraction, and permits 

 whatever had been funk, to make its appearance again. Of the 

 fituation of this amazing Moikoeftrom we have the following ac- 

 Nordifch count from Mr. Jonas Ramus, " The mountain of Helfeggen, in 

 choro S raph. L f d en> lies a league from the ifland Ver, and betwixt thefe 

 two, runs that large and dreadful ftream called Moikoeftrom, from 

 the ifland Mofkoe, which is in the middle of it, together with 

 feveral circumjacent ifles, as Ambaaren, half a quarter of a league 

 northward, Iflefen, Hoeyholm, Kieldholm, Suarven, and Buck- 

 holm. Mofkoe lies about half a quarter of a mile fouth of the 

 ifland of Ver, and betwixt them thefe fmall iflands, Otterholm, 

 Flimen, Sandflefen, Skarholm. Betwixt Lofoden and Mofkoe, the 

 depth of the water is between thirty-fix and forty fathoms, but 

 on the other fide, towards Ver, the depth decreafes fo as not to 

 afford a convenient paflage for a veflel, without the rifk of fplit- 



ting 



