NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 169 



peatedly warned till cleared of all terene particles; then the flax *, 

 is dried in a fieve that the water may run off the fooner ; all that 

 remains now, is to fpin thefe fine filaments, wherein great care is 

 required, befides which, the fingers muft be foftened with oil, 

 that they may be the more hippie and pliant. That Kireher and 

 others mould have miftakeil this ftone for the alumen plumofum 

 % and imagined it to be an allum fire-proof, appears hardly pro- 

 bable, efpecially as allum has a very acrimonious and peculiar 

 tafte, which this ftone is fb far from having* that it is as void of 

 tafte as any other ftone can poflibly be. 



SECT. VII 



A phyfical Angularity here, is, that a country thus abounding No ^ hts ^ 

 in ftones has no flints, fo that thofe ufed in fire arms are imported 

 from Denmark, or Germany. In all my circuits, I have never 

 feen a flint-ftone in Norway* and all whom I have enquired of 

 agree that if there are any, they never have been difcovered : But 

 on the other hand, the mineral mountains produce a kind of py~ Fir ff 

 rites or fire-ftone, namely, the quartz, as it is called, which at or i**" 2 - 

 firft fight refembles the before-mentioned fpar, or fuch glittering 

 vitrious ftones; but that it is of a different kind appears from 

 hence, that in the fire it is not reduced to lime or ftucco as thofe 

 are; but becomes fluid, and is therefore ufed in the glafs-haufesi 



SECT. VIII. 



This quartz or marcafia, is of very near affinity to the Norway Cr ftal 

 cryflal, of which there are great quantities both here and in the Plate J s- 

 other provinces, and of a larger fize than moft of thofe in Swit- 

 zerland, Bohemia, and other parts. The mountains are the pro- 

 per native place of the cryftals, which fometimes are feen fuf~ 

 pended on them, and glitter in the fun to the amazement of 

 Pcrangers ; but thefe are liable to be warned away into the rivers s 

 and from thence into the lakes; and this is the only way I can 

 account for cryftal being found in the great mios* as it certainly 

 is. Mr. Peter Underlin in his topography of Norway, mentions 



* Dico itaque hunc lapidem effe compofkum ex certa aluminis feu talci fpeeie, MO 

 promde eum multi alumen fciffile aut alumen plums nominandum putarintj eftenim 

 muko mollioribus filamentis etc. Mund. fubterran. Lib. VIII. Seclr. III. cap. i. p. 6y. 



3 his* 



