NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



foil. However, here, as in other things, the difference in diffe- 

 rent provinces is very great. On the weftern-coaft, lome houfe 

 and fhip-timber are exported to Scotland * and Spain, but this 

 cannot come into account in comparifon with the exports from 

 Drammen, Fredericfhall, Fredericftadt, Chriftiania, Skeen, Aren- 

 dal, Chriftianfand, Chriffian's-bay, and Drontheim, where the 

 produce of the woods fupplies an immenfe trade ; the mails and 

 large beams being floated down the rivers, and the latter divided 

 into boards at the faw-mills. Sometimes piles of it are feen in 

 the ports like little mountains, that one would imagine it muff re- 

 quire a very long time to remove them, whereas a fingle embar- 

 kation for England, Plolland, France, or Spain, in a few days 

 fweeps them ail away; yet in a few weeks thefe places are again 

 covered with mountains of timber. The faw-works are the beff. 

 manufacture in Norway, an infinite number of families get a 

 comfortable maintenance from them, together with the felling 

 and floating of the timber. Before the year 1530, faw-mills were 

 not known in Norway, the ftocks were hewed down, and with 

 the ax fplit into two planks, whereas now they are fawed into 

 feven or eight, fo that moft of the wood was wafted into chips ? 

 which is the cafe to this day in fome places, where faw-mills are 

 not yet introduced, particularly at Sundmoer and in the province 

 of Nordland, where great numbers of boats and barks are built 

 of thefe hewn planks ; they are indeed much ftronger, but con- 

 fume too many trees, the greateft part of which is left on the 

 ground to rot. The tenth of all fawed timber belongs to Jiis 

 majefty, and makes a confiderable branch of the revenue, Nic. 

 Cragius in Vita R. Chrifliani III. informs us, that this duty was 

 eftablimed in the year 1645, and further, that even in thole 

 times, the large exportations to the Dutch, were at that time ap- 

 prehended to be detrimental to the national timber : " Regi 

 compertum magnam vim materia undiquaque ex Norvegia in 

 varias partes Europae exportari, ita ut fylvse ad vaftitatem multam 



* The Schot-laft, as it is called, annually exported out of the diocefe of Bergen, 

 unlefs brought under timely reftridtions, is a manifeft deftrudtion of the forefts, as it 

 confifts entirely of young pine-trees, all fo ftraight and pliable, that if left to grow to 

 mafts, they would yield an hundred rix-dollars each •, whereas now they are fold for 

 two marks and a half the dozen, and when larger, about twelve ells in height, the 

 dozen ufually goes at five marks, which, exclufwe of the wood, of which fo much 

 pains is taken to clear the country, does not fo much as pay for the labour, 



redi- 



