NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 163 



fome: depending from the roof of a cave, others {hooting out of 

 the ground like trees or plants, which he actually reprefents them 

 to be. His words are, II femble, que le nature nous avoit voulu 

 montrer par-la comment elle s'y prend pour la vegetation des pi- 

 erres, il femble, que ces troncs de marbre vegetent, car outre qu'il 

 ne tombe pas une feule goutte d'eau dans ce lieu, il n'eft pas con- 

 cevable, que des gouttes tombant de 23 ou 30 braffes de haut 

 ayent pu former des pieces cilindriques terminees en calotte, &c. 

 So far he is right, that another origin of thofe figures muft be 

 fought here, than thefe Stalactites, as they are called, or drop- 

 ftones, which are frequently found in fubterraneous caverns; yet 

 there is no neceility of recurring to the vegetation of marble; a 

 third caufe offering itfelf, that thefe long moots and drops are 

 unquestionably an immediate work of nature, and may, or rather 

 muit have been produced at one time, and if they muft be called 

 vegetables, they may have fprung up in a night, like mufhrooms, 

 or perhaps, in an hour, or even a minute; and that during or im- 

 mediately after the deluge, when the detached or liquefied ftony 

 /ubftances began again to fettle and confolidate. In that cafe, it 

 is not in the leaft improbable, that fome of the fofteft part of the 

 marble, confolidating laft, mould meet with a refiftance from 

 thefe parts of the marble, which had already Subsided, and run 

 into thefe moots, clufters, and other figures, in which they ap- 

 pear at prefent. This is moft evident in marble and other hard 

 Rones, not only from other indications, for they manifeftly con- 

 tain folidum intra folidum; but particularly from the beautiful 

 blendings of their colours, and fpots, veins and ftreaks, like a 

 dried mixture of oil colours, which, when cut through, fhew the 

 like intermingled ftreaks, as in our marble quarries. I myfelf am 

 pofTerTed of fuch a piece of artificial marble, though I confefs it 

 is much dearer, and deficient in folidity, which only it can obtain 

 in the laboratory of the Supreme mafter of nature *. 



* Poffibly the ancients had the art of giving it its proper hardnefs, as muft have 

 been the cafe, if we fuppofe thofe vaft columns and obelifks of Egyptian marble forty 

 eight ells in height not brought to Rome in one entire piece, which appears difficult 

 if not impofiible, but to have been fuch an artificial granate. Dr. Shaw, in his travels 

 to the Levant, T- n. Ch. iv. p. 81, 82, fays, fome have imagined Pompey's column 

 and the obelifks of Rome, and Alexandria, to be an artificial compofition of cement 

 and fands, caft in a mould. 



Part I. ■ Uu Moft 



