NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 83 



k in like manner impelled^ and the agitation attended with a 

 very dreadful noife. A clear idea of what is defcribed in the 

 foregoing account cannot be perfectly conveyed by a defcription. 

 .The judicious reader will readily conceive, what a perilous place 

 fuch a vortex muft be in a hard gale of wind, and a full tide ; 

 iince even in a calm, when the current is moft gentle, and at the 

 turn of the tide, which is the only time fifhermen can venture 

 out, the boats are whirled round on the furface of it. 



The whirlpool, below the iile of Sand, continues circulating 

 to its innermoft centre, and is of no great depth in the middle. 

 The third whirlpool, betwixt the northward iflands, I have vifited 

 twice myfelf ; and upon approaching it, the boat was attracted 

 towards it, with fuch force, that it was with great difficulty the 

 people prevented the ftream from getting the better of us, labour- 

 ing at the oars on one fide, and fleering with them on the other. 

 If a boat be caught by the ftream, the current firft whirls it twice 

 round, and then twice round in a contrary direction, this alter- 

 native continuing four or five times ; from which the nature of 

 the bottom becomes eafily determinable. 



Thefe abyfles have engaged the attention of many ingenious 

 heads, the depth of the waters being fuch, that no one could, 

 for a long time, venture to found the bottom, fo that the general 

 opinion among the learned was, that they were gulphs, or abyfles, 

 fuch as caufed the ebb and flood. Among others, Kircher writes 

 of the famous vortex in Norway, called Mofkoeftrom, that it is L ^. m. By- 

 a fea- vortex, attracting the flood under the fhore of Norway, dr ° § " 

 where, thro' another abyfs, it is difcharged into the gulph of 

 Bothnia ; which opinion is embraced by M. Her bin, in a difler- 

 tation delivered by him at Copenhagen, 1670. But as this opi- 

 nion is only founded in weak reports, it is totally erroneous, as 

 will appear from the following arguments. Firft, this Mofkoe- 

 ftrom runs along the country, betwixt two fhores, or iflands, 

 where the bottom, or ground of the fea, is full of eminences, and 

 without any pits. Of the like nature alfo are all the vortices, both 

 in Ferroe and in Bothnia. Kircher likewife affirms, that many in Tabula 

 fuch abyfles are to be found throughout the whole world 5 but hX^ 

 always near the continent, or betwixt fmall iflands. Such is the "' 

 fituation of Scylla and Charybdis, in the fea of Sicily, the one be- 



Part I. Z low 



