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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 Encyclopædia Britannica. Kircher and others imagine that in the
centre of the channel of the Maelström 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-ström."
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