170 NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



his having a piece of cryftal as a very extraordinary curiofity, of 

 four ounces weight taken from thence, but this is trifling in com- 

 parifon with a piece found in Hardanger, and now in my hands, 

 which i& within an ounce of five pounds in weight, twelve inches 

 in length, and feven in thicknefs, and I never faw fo large a fruf- 

 tum of the angular and conical kind, tho' it muft have been 

 larger, with little proje&ions from its fides, which the former 

 owner confeffes he broke off for prefents, fo that now there re- 

 main only four uniform angles -> but two of them have fmce had 

 the fate of the former. I have feveral fmaller pieces of an hexa- 

 gon figure, with the extremity terminating in a point *; thefe 

 regular, fexangular, and conical cryftals are by our peafants called 

 duergnagler, dwarfs-nails, from an old notion, that thefe were 

 nails which the dwarfs, who, they imagine, formerly dwelt in the 

 mountains, threw away as quite unneceflary to them, as being 

 without heads. But the general name for the cryftals here are 

 biergdraaber, mountain-drops, which name correfponds with the 

 accounts of the naturalifts of the origin of cryftals, and happily 

 expreffes that fort which hang on the mountains, in the fhape of 

 grapes, or other indeterminate figures. On the other hand, I 

 know from experience, the afore-mention'd. long and regular 

 pieces, which are all fexangular, are generated in a chalky porous 

 ftone, in ihape like a drop-ftone, having a piece of it which was 

 found in a mountain, near the parifh of Forde in this province of 

 Sundfiord; this is a little larger than a hand, though twice as 

 thick, but filled both longitudinally and tranfverfally with thefe 

 minute prifmatic cryftals, hundreds of them projecting, as if 

 drawn through with a larding-pin; fo that I place a great value 



* How this moifture of the quartz, or marcafia, dropping from the mountains be- 

 comes indurated, and in time produces a vitrifaclrion or cryftalization, is in fome 

 meafure illuftrated by J. Fr. Henken, in his pyrotoligy, chapter 5. page 354. and 

 likewife the caufe of its hexagon figure, in the manner of the faline rays, ibid. p. 362. 

 Likewife Kircher, in Mundo fubterr. Lib. VIII. Sett. 1. p. 25. Acl. Societ. Hafn. 

 Tom. III. p. 281. Leibnitz Protog. Sett. XXVIII. p. 44. Within thefe mountain- 

 drops, is fometimes inclofed another heterogenous fubflance mining like filver, and 

 by the ignorant thought to be fo. I have fome fuch pieces, which I accounted firffc 

 rare curiofities, till a more experienced friend of mine fhewed me, that upon bein°- 

 rubbed or pulverized their luftre vanifhed, and the fuppofed filver turned into a ter- 

 rene fediment. Argenti flores appellant fodinarum magiftri, albas guttulas, quas cryf- 

 tallis atque mineris infident et quafi fementum efTent argenti, apud eorum nonnullos 

 maximam habent eftimationem etiam raritatis titulo. Quamvis autem haberi et efle 

 forfan pofiint inchoamentum argenti, nondum tamen id penitus obfervationes perfua- 

 dere voluerunt. Aloyf. Com. Marfili. Danub. Panon. T. III. page 168. 



3 upon 



