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OLAFSEft AN# POVELSEft*S 



ing against such fatal accidents; nevertheless we shall commutiP 

 cate our opinion, which may be useful with respect to the 

 ordinary disruptions that occur almost every year. The inhabi- 

 tants, who pretend that there can be no remedy for these mis- 

 fortunes, have neglected the precautions that were taken by their 

 ancestors ; such as high inclosures, or stone walls, raised to stop 

 the progress of the fallen masses. These walls were composed of 

 two parts, which met and formed an acute angle opposite to the 

 crevice of the mountain, where it was supposed the fall would 

 take place: this angle was very thick, and constructed of the 

 largest stones that could be procured; the walls were continued 

 on the two sides of the angle, and formed two arcs of a circle, 

 the extremities of which ascended obliquely to the foot of the 

 mountain. The angle had a coating of stone within and 

 without; and the two walls which formed it diminished gradually 

 in strength from the point to their end. For a long time these 

 walls were carefully repaired every year ; even when the. fall had 

 been so great as to cover a large portion of the soil, and 

 destroy many houses : and when the fragments that fell were so 

 considerable as to form a hillock at the base of the mountain*, 

 they increased the hillock and made it serve as a wall, to secure 

 their habitations from the effects of similar accidents. 



REMARKABLE RIVERS, LARES, &C 



In the northern quarter there are a much greater number of 

 rivers and lakes of fresh water than in the western part, and they 

 all afford abundance of tine salmon and trout. There is a lake in 

 the canton Olafsriord, in the district of Vadla, which is well 

 worthy of attention from the remarkable circumstance that a 

 variety of sea-fish, and particularly the cod, are naturalized and 

 abound in it. In winter the inhabitants break holes in the ice, 

 through which they pass their lines, and catch these fish by the 

 hook. In the spring it abounds in trout : and the sea-fish taken 

 in it have a most exquisite taste, very different from that of the 

 same species caught in the sea; from which the lake is only sepa- 

 rated by a kind of jettee, formed of the mud and surf of the shore, 

 and heaped together by the impetuosity of the waves. The river 

 that descends into the lake has formed a narrow passage over this 

 bank into the sea. The lake is about a Danish league in length: 

 and it is very evident that it has been separated from the sea by the 

 effect of an earthquake, or subterraneous fires; that the same revo- 

 lution first formed the bank, and enclosed in it the species of sea-* 

 fish that it now contains; and that the river which empties itself 

 into it, by gradually depriving the first water of its saline quality, 

 naturalized the fish that.it contained, and which afterwards bred 

 in it. , 



