center of the Moskoe-strom must be immeasurably greater; and no better
proof of this fact is necessary than can be obtained from even the
sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the
highest crag of Helseggen. Looking down from this pinnacle upon the
howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity
with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of
belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears; for it appeared to
me, in fact, a self-evident thing that the largest ship of the line in
existence coming within the influence of that deadly attraction could
resist it as little as a feather the hurricane, and must disappear
bodily and at once.

The attempts to account for the phenomenon now wore a very different and
unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generally received is that this, as well
as three smaller vortices among the Ferroe Islands, "have no other cause
than the collision of waves rising and falling at flux and reflux
against a ridge of rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that
it precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the flood
rises the deeper must the fall be, and the natural result of all is a
whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which is sufficiently
known by lesser experiments." These are the words of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. Kircher and others imagine that in the center of the channel
of the Maelstrom is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in some
very remote part--the Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in
one instance. This opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as I
gazed, my imagination most readily assented; and, mentioning it to the
guide, I was rather surprised to hear him say that, although it was the
view almost universally entertained of the subject by the Norwegians, it
nevertheless was not his own. As to the former notion, he confessed his
inability to comprehend it; and here I agreed with him--for, however
conclusive on paper, it becomes altogether unintelligible, and even
absurd, amid the thunder of the abyss.

"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old man, "and if
you will creep round this crag so as to get in its lee, and deaden the
roar of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you I
ought to know something of the Moskoe-strom."

I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.

"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigge