4804.7 Travels in Norway, by F.C. Fabricius, 889 
Renounce a claim injurious to thy powers, 
Content to fhine in this terreftrial ball ; 
A ftar can glitter but afew fhort hours, 
Whilft thou, fweet Maid, haf charms to 
gild them all. 
E.R. 
N. B.—Mr. Wakefield’s Epigram, 34 and 
4th line, fhould read thus ; 
‘Dextera quam rapido gladium rotat impete, 
culter 
Mox tua tam celeri ftrinxerit ora meus. 
Our introducing novacula inftead of culter, 
and forgetting to correct the adjetive meus, 
to anfwer it, occafioned the falfe concord :—— 
Quod abjit a Gilberto Wakefield ! 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
‘TRAVELS 12 NORWAY, by J. C. FABRI- 
c1us, lately publifbed at LEIPSIC, 
(Continued from page 115, No. 112.) 
N the 22d of July our travellers went 
from Drontheim, in a boat with four 
oars, for Oerland, there to fee the fithing. 
The weather was unfavourable, fo that 
they did not arrive at Oerland till the 
evening of the 23d. Oe5crland is a penin. 
fula of no inconfiderable extent. Its foil 
as partly peat-earth, and in part a com- 
mon vegetable-earth, with a mixture of 
fand, and confiderably fertile. On that 
peninfula ftands perhaps the largeft vil- 
lage in Norway. To it belong fixteen 
farms lying all in one neighbourhood.— 
The peninfula is deftitute of wood, but 
has abundance of turf for fuel. The 
peats are, when cut, fet up vertically to 
the number of four or five in every differ- 
ent aflemblage. After being in this pofi- 
tion confiderably dried, they are gathered 
in pyramidal heaps of confiderable buik. 
Tn thefe heaps they remain till the begin- 
ning of winter, and they are then carried 
home on fledges. This whole peninfula 
has been formed by alluvia ; and the in- 
habitants affirm that its extent is, by 
‘the fame means, every day enlarged. It 
‘is a curjous fact, of which confpicuous in- 
ftances were here.obferved, that the plants 
of the North are almoft all viviparous; 
that is, the feed unfolds its energies in the 
“very bofom of the corolla, out of which 
new buds arife. ‘By fuch means Nature 
triumphs in thefe regions over the difad- 
vantages of an ungenial climate and a 
barren foil, and in a manner doubles the 
‘umber of thofe few fummer-days which 
are favourable to vegetation. The ea- 
ports on thefe northern coafts are ne- 
‘wer frozen up: fhips come and go all 
Winter: but in autumn the fea ts ex- 
tremely tempeftuous; and the rockinefs 
ef the coaft renders its navigation at-all 
we 
times confiderably dificult, The granary 
ries and the ftorehoufes for butter, cheefe, 
bread, and other ’provifions, ftand apart 
from the other buildings, and are, at each 
place of refidence, ftuate for the mo& 
part in the middle of the court. They 
itand on eight poles, which forma pyra- 
mid, and {upport a work of boards broader 
than the bate, over which another pyra= 
mid is then erected. The fecond pyra- 
mid fuftains the roof. The board floor. 
ing between the two pyramids is at fuch 
a diftance above the level of the ground, 
that the rats and mice cannot climb up te 
it, Care is taken never to place ang 
thing near the edifice which thofe crea- 
tures might ufe.as aladder; for fhouid 
they once get in, it would prove extreme- 
ly dificult to clear it of them. Among 
other plants in this: peninfula Mr. Fabri 
cius obferved the Asppophaé Rhamnoides, 
which, if any, he thinks might, from 
its remarkable hardinefs, be very fitly uled | 
to form quickfet-hedges in thele parts.— 
It is a fine thrub in appearance, is never 
attacked by infects, and feems ever to 
thrive the beft in places which are the 
moft expofed to the wind. The whole 
morafs on this peninfula appeared by ma- 
ny circumftancts to have been formed by 
aretreat of the waters of the fea. The 
people even affirmed that different rocks 
which, thirty or forty years fince,; were 
entirely funken, and in no ftate of the 
tide vifible above the furface, now remain- 
edin part dry, even in the bighelt f{pring- 
tides. There are in the bay abundance 
-of falmon : two hundred or three hundred 
of them are taken annually by a very.fim- 
ple contrivance. A net is extended from 
the fhore toa certain diltance out in the 
fea ; a fecond net is attached to the far 
ther end of the former, fo as to float from 
it atright angles: as foon as the falmen, 
who.go always in a direction againit the 
wind, are perceived to have been ftopped 
by the firtt nei, the floa:ing-net is drawa 
round, and their efzape is preven ed : this 
is the whole contrivance. A good deal of 
oats and barley are produced here in mix- 
ture: this mixture 1s not ufed to make 
bread, butonly a fort of pottage,. called 
gruau, which is eaten by fervants: and 
by vhe pcor. The population of Oer- 
land had been augmented by the number 
of from three huadred to four hundred 
fouls within che twelve -years.immediately 
prec-ding the year 1773. The roots of 
the houlcs in the peniniula are ia general 
‘covered witb birchebark, and over that 
-with turds. 
Of late, im ieed,:the anhahi- 
tants had. begun tocaversthem rather, wih 
clay, 
et 
— 
Ee 
ee ee een ete 
—ver~ 
eee 
