The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-08-11
From the Boston Recorder
THE NORWEGIAN "MAELsTRCFM =,
The Truth at Last.

Editors Of the Boston Recorder:
| The celebrated vortex of oldeo Tim, hos had
hard work with the present century. Not the
descent OF the Norwegian mariner descr;b
ed with such terrific ninuteness by Edpar A
roe, nor all the pictures of the very whirlpool
i'SeH III our school biographies, have availed
10 Keep up ITS reputation with our untoward
| generation of unbelievers i'm the wonderful
The inclination has been to gradually wine
from the map the series Of little circles tina,
have stood so long where the stormy waves of
The North Sea dash between the last of the
bleak Lofodon Islands. Nobody knows exact
ly why, but the public mind of to-day seems
pretty much made up, that this great boiling
has been only great humbug from beginning
to end. An occasional paragraph in news.
paper, coming from nobody knew where has
gwen 1t hard cut and an occasional passage
IN the book Of traveller, who went an and
down the coast by the regular steam route. and
didn't see it, has finished the matter. There
is nothing there In fact, "A more unruf1ed
and quiet nook couldn't we'll be found among
all the Norwegian Isles.
Before | left Central Europe for year in
Scandinavia, my father enclosed me a news
pap3r slip, headed The Maelstroem." At the
top Of the slip he had written, Look out for
1t" and at the bottom he had written {" Look
out .t0r At, The one of which i concluded to
meap look out for it, and tell us something
abou' 1t, and the other look ont for a." and
dont get into it. The purport of the slip was.
that the Ming of Denmark had once sent out a
scientific commission to investigate the whole
afar-that they had sailed thither, and search
ed IN vain for any such place-that they had
sailed over all the waters about the described
locality, and couldn't find anything that could
ever have gwen rise to such fabulous hum
mug.
Mr.. Bayard Taylor, one of the most investi.
eating of travellers, tounds his report on CON
versation with the captain Of the steamer and
other competent persons. He was uniformly
advised that there was little or nothing remark
able III the motion of the water there He adds
remark, which, notwithstanding what he has
said before, might perhaps mislea6. He
speaks, il / rightly remember, flor have not
his book by me now,) of looking of in that d.
'ection, and finding the waters all calm and un-
ruliied if that fact might be taken in as a
cumulative argument, that there was no HaeI-
strocm in existence Mr.. Taylors personal o.
Serpatioa on this point would have been worth
Just much from Broadway in New York AS
from the deck of the steamer where he Was
A very good reason" wIste a friend, with
whom | had shortly hoGore made this trip "a
very good reason Taylor had for not seeing the
MaelsirCRIp in fact, it was for very much the
SaEDe reason that We didn't see the North Pole.
when we stood an The North Cape"
l4oyi puiierin, thorough going Young anna
teur navigator, who threaded his way through
fields of ice, i'll his own little yacht to the Island
of Spitzbcrgen, aludes incidentally to the Mael
stroenl in his 6 Letters from High Latitudes"
He was at the house of Mr.. Thomas, an Eng
lish gentlcH,AA of high standing, who had re
sided io8 many years in the northern part OF
Norway, and even became member Of the
Norwegian Storthing," or National Congress
Mrs. Thomas was Norwegian by birth, and
from one of the Lotuden islands Lord DUFF
ferin writes;
"Ihe stories about the violence of this ,shirI-
pool, MIR, Thomas assures me- are ridi.:ulously
exaggerated. On ordinary occasions the site
OF the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffed,
and it is only when strong weather tide is
running that any unusual movements in the
water can be observed, even then, the disturb
ance does not Nnsonnt to much more than a
rather troublesome race. Often and often,
when shey were girls, had his wife and her sis
hers sailed over its fabulous crater IN an open
boat. But in this wild, romantic country, with
its sparse population, rugged mountains, and
gloomy fiords,* very ordinary matters become
invested with a character of awe and mystery
quite foreign to our own matteroffact world,
and many Of the Norwegians are as prone to-
superstition as the poor little Lapp paSans who.
dwell among them"
Such reports as these certainly take off the
rough edge" from the sae,en, Maelstrnm. IL
seems, however, quite ,No bad to annihiIate the
venerable weaaeS 80 completely As some OF
them dst Vpuld all the stories of its terrors
have originated in nothinGp One is hardly
fain to believe it, after ell.
The best book which has ever been written
on Norway Is that by the Amman Blom, him
self Norwegian. 1t is written in German, and
has preface from the pen of DIR. Karl Ritter,
the great aeographer of Berlin. Blom devotes
little space to the MaelstrGm. He speaks,
however, Of boats having been drawn under the
waves there, dashed to pieces, and the pieces
thrown up in other places. This he would
scarce have said, without knowing well the truth
Of what he was reporting.
In passing up the coast of Norway, / was, of
course, interested to find out all could about
.ford pronounced precisely yord in one syllable