NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 105 



earth be cooled, the feeds are thrown on the ames, ftill fo hot 

 that they give a fmart crack, denoting that the huiks are fplit. 

 What remains is the expected rain to foak them ; and if this actu- 

 ally happens, the peafant may fit down in the certain hope of fuch 

 an exuberant rye-harveft, as will fcarce appear credible to fo- 

 reigners, tho' upon enquiry it will be found an undoubted matter 

 of fact ; for, without any extraordinary accident, a fingle bufhel 

 of burnt rye, will produce fix, fometimes, ten tun of the choicer!: 

 rye *. This is certainly the efTe6t of the concentration of the ve- 

 getative fpirit in the afhes, which, before it can evaporate, im- 

 pregnates the corn with fuch wonderful fecundity. And it is on 

 this vegetative fpirit that the chemifts ground their regeneration 

 of burnt plants, tho' in fuch an open place, a great part of them 

 mufr. certainly be diilipated ,by the intenfenefs of the heat. Thefe 

 conflagrations fometimes prove the occafion of dreadful mifchiefs, 

 as in the year 1739, at Oeyer in Guldbrandfdale, fome houfes 

 were burned, and feven perfons perifhed in them, proper notice 

 not having been given to the neighbourhood. The knops of the 

 pines moot along the air like rockets, and have been known to 

 fet fire to houfes at a considerable diftance. When the lire firfr, 

 feizes the green wood, it is not only very violent, but attended 

 with a boiflerous wind and dreadful roarings. 



SECT. V. 



Every part affords barley; but the belt, places for it are Nord- Barky. 

 land, the diocefe of Aggerhuus, the lordfhip of Nedenes in the 

 diocefe of Chriftianfand, and Sognefiord in that of Bergen, where 

 excellent malt is made of the common, and likewife of a parti- 

 cular kind, called David's-barley, or Heaven' s-corn. This barley, 

 which in threfhing lofes its hufk, and very much refembles wheat, 

 the peafants term Thor-barley, pombly from the opinion of the 

 ancients, who, in their chimerical ideas of the Heaven, or Wal- 

 halla of the idol Thor, where the Cup of Health went brifkly 

 round, imagined this corn to be fit for the banquets of the gods, 

 and heroes. Dr. Lochfter, in his Differtation de Medicamentis 

 Norvegiag, &c. extols the liquor made of it, both as palatable and 



* A buuiel, or in Danifh a fkiepp, is the eighth part of a tun, thus the produce 

 of one bufhel in feed is forty -eight, fixty-four, or even, eighty. 



whol- 



