NATURAL HISTORY of N RWAY. 203 



SECT. XVI. 



Sulphur is like wife to be found among our mines in great Sulphur. 

 plenty, but it is not thought worth melting and depurating, as is 

 done at Dylta in Sweden, the Iceland Vulcano's ejecting whole 

 torrents of fulphur *, which the company's mips carry to Copen- 

 hagen, in fufficient quantities to ferve all the powder-mills ; which 

 is the chief demand for it. 



SECT. XVII. 



Norway affords no viiible falt-mines ; but near Fredericftadt is Salt. 

 a faline fpring, tho' for feveral reafons it is neglected. Whether 

 this fpring arifes from the fea or from any fubterraneous mine is 

 not clear, though from its diftance of a Norway-mile from the fea, 

 it can hardly be fuppofed to derive from thence. I have already 

 fpoke of the fait, which in feveral places is boiled out of fea- Chap. in. 

 water, yet fhall here add the following fhort account of the royal 

 fait- work near Tonfberg, to be found in Mr. Midler's defcription Pa s e io 9- 

 of Tonfberg, lately published. 



In the year 1739? his majefly was pleafed to order fait- works of the fait- 

 to be ere&ed in the peninfula of^Valoe, a Norway-mile and a Tonfberg. 

 half from Tonfberg, which in the year 1742, was compleated 

 under the direction of Mr. Van Beuft of the privy-council. It has 

 two refining-houfes, each two thoufand feet in length, and di- 

 vided into fix refervoirs, to which the water is conveyed out of 

 the fea by a wheel worked by horfes, and running in channels 



* Among all the mountains of Norway no volcanoes have hitherto, God be 

 praifed, been known, though, from the following circumftances, fome fuch dreadful 

 phenomena may in the courfe of time break out. In Hardanger, near Diodne- 

 houfe, in the parifh of Kinzerwiig, is a mountain about two hundred fathoms in 

 height, the fummit of which, as old people affirm, a little above a hundred years 

 ago began to fplit and feparate, though then the clifc was fo narrow that an active 

 man could leap acrofs it, but in time it gradually enlaged to nine or ten ells ; upon 

 which the owner of the houfes, according to the devotion of this country, made a 

 vow of a yearly offering to Kinzerwug-church, fince which the apperture is faid to 

 have continued as it was -, but on the other hand, that part of the mountain which 

 lies toward the fouth, has funk perpendicularly, and is gradually finking ; this fide, 

 as I myfelf have feen, is fix or eight ells lower than the other : whether this be 

 not a fymptom of a fubterraneous fire, I will not take upon me pofitively to pro- 

 nounce. The Turin article, in the public papers of Auguft 21, 1751, informs us, 

 that the mountain Plainjou, near Paffi in Savoy, had lately burft in the like man- 

 ner, with a very copious evaporation of fulphur, which diffufed its fmell all over 

 the country, and occafioned the people to expect fiery eruptions, like thole of mount 

 Vefuvius. 



Part I. G g g through 



