NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



ufual grains of fand, or little round fmooth and pellucid ftones, 

 are fuppofed, by Mr. Buffon, in his Natural Hiftory, lately pub' 

 Killed, to be only glafs particles grinded, or a vitreous fubftance, 

 the remains of the great univerfal diiTolution, and of the vitrifica- 

 tion confequent thereupon, which our earth appears formerly to 

 have undergone : But on this we fhall enlarge in the fequel. 



Clay, both yellow and blue, is to be found in the creeks, but 

 in greater plenty every where further up the country, particularly 

 in Hedemark, and near Chriftiania and Drontheim, where they 

 have lately begun to ufe it for earthen-ware, and if the fame 

 manufacture was carried on in other parts of the country, we 

 might have a fufficient fupply without importations from abroad. 

 It is not much ufed for bricks, as moft of the houfes are built of 

 timber, or of a kind of building-ftone, which the Dutch, and 

 other foreigners, bring hither as ballaft, and fell them here. How- 

 ever, clay will, by degrees, come to be ufed for tiling, efpecially 

 in the country, as the price of na^er, or birch-bark, which has 

 hitherto been the ufual covering for houfes, rifes every year, and 

 great numbers of trees fuffer by the ufe of it. Other finer and 

 richer clays of a dark brown and yellow colour, and ufed by 

 painters, are alfo met with in feveral places, and particularly at 

 Ringerige, is a kind of black clay, not inferior in its finenefs to 

 Terra-figillata, and by the peafants ufed as blacking. 



Turff, both brown and black, which is the beft, is found in 

 many parts, and chiefly where the wife Creator forefaw, that in 

 the courfe of time it would be moft neceffary, namely, in the 

 lelTer and greater Peninfula's, or Udoers (tra&s of land projeding 

 into the fea to a considerable extent, and joined to the continent 

 only by a fmall neck) where the weft- winds hinder the growth of 

 woods, which are further thinned by ihip- building, fo that with- 

 out turf, the peafants and fifhermen would be very much di- 

 ftrefted, efpecially as they are obliged to fetch the greateft part 

 of the timber for houfes and barks from the continent. Now, as 

 amongft the turf, both here and elfewhere, there are at the 

 depth of fome yards, branches and roots, and many very large, even 

 flocks of firrs and pines, which the turpentine has preferved, this 

 {hews the earth to have been gradually filled and as it were grown 

 up from a mixture of leaves, twigs, mofs, reeds, and the like ; 

 3 and 



