I|l NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



mountain Nordenfield, which moft abounds in this metal, as Sori- 

 denfield doth in filver and iron. The excellency of our copper 

 hath recommended it fo much among foreign nations, that many 

 fhiploads of it are annually exported, tho' for the moft part un- 

 Wrought, which is contrary to the maxim of our neighbours the 

 Swedes. 



SECT. VI. 



the copper- The firft, and hitherto the richeft copper- work in Norway, and 



works at Ro- *, ri 



raas. hnce that of Falun in Sweden, is faid to be near exhaufted ; pofli- 



bly the richeft in all Europe, is that of Roraas, twenty miles N. E. 

 of Drontheim, and difcovered in 1 644, by Laurence LolTius, re- 

 finer at the mine of Quickne, and who at the expence of his fa- 

 ther-in-law M. Andrew Olfens, fuperintendant of Dalerne, and in 

 concurrence with him opened, and forwarded this great under- 

 taking. There are fome other particulars relating to this work re- 

 cited in a printed fermon of Mr. Peter Abildgaard, on occaiion of 

 a jubilee celebrated on the 9th of October 1 744, by the inhabi- 

 tants of Roraas, which is now a confiderable mine-town, in gra- 

 titude for the uninterrupted profperity of their mine during the 

 courfe of a hundred years ; and it is remarkable, that in this ju- 

 bilee year, a new fhaft of excellent ilate was difcovered not far 

 from the old mine of Storvart, which is one of the oldeft and beft 

 courfes. Thefe courfes of the copper-veins, agree in their direc- 

 tion with thofe of other parts, neither afcending nor declining, 

 but like other ftrata, traversing the mountains horizontally, tho' 

 thinner!: towards their centre, like a lump of dough, which preffed 

 betwixt two (tones, is thinneft where the preffure lays greateft. 

 From the nature and difpofition of the parts, Mr. Daniel Tilas, in 

 his difcourfe before the Swedifh Royal Academy of Sciences 1742, 

 borrows a very ingenious argument, and mews from fome other 

 correfpondent inftances, what I prefume has been already evinced 

 by me, to fome degree of probability, in the fecond chapter. He 

 likewife applies thofe inftances to Dr. Woodward's hypothefis on 

 the alterations of the terraqueous globe by the deluge. And this 

 entertaining little piece not coming into my hands till after I had 

 difcuffed that fubjecl:, to which it properly belongs, I mall here 

 infert that part of it which fpeaks of the copper-mines now under 



con- 



