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partly fupplied from fome poor and flender veins of copper which are wrought near the spot. The ore of thefe veins contains a mixture of fulphate of iron. The rocky Strata of all the mountains in this territory confift of fchiftus and mica, with here and there a vein of quartz.

At fome diftance were feen the mountains of Leibo, famous in hiftory, because almost all the Swedish army there perifhed of cold, on their retreat in the laft war between Denmark and Sweden.

At length, Mr. Fabricius and his companion arrived at DRONTHEIM. It was without inns or furnished lodgings to let and they had, therefore, at the first some difficulty to find the accommodation which they wanted as travellers. Drontheim had been fome time before burnt to the ground; and was as yet but rifing from its afhes. The new houses are of wood, but large and hand fome. The freets are ftraight and fpacious, but not well paved. It has three churches; and the cathedral is a mafter-piece of Gothic architecture, By the water furrounding it on almost all fides, and by a rampart where it has not that advantage, this city is tolerably protected from any hoftile attack. It has alfo the two caftles of Christianftein and Munkholm; the former standing on an eminence belide the city; the latter on an infulated rock in the midst of the harbour. North of the harbour are fhallows, which fecure it against an attack by sea. Munkholm Caftle is used as a state-prifon. The harbour and the bay into which it opens are deep and capacious, affording excellent anchoring ground, and fhelter to fhips from any wind that blows. All the cop per of the mines of Roraas and, Mehlda len is exported by the way of Drontheim. That amounts, communibus annis, to 600 tons; the total value of which in money may be about 240,000 rixdollars. Mot of the copper is purchafed by the Dutch. A good deal of timber and falted fifh is Jikewife exported from Drontheim. The timber goes principally to the North of England. The fishery is a branch of industry, trom which this town derives large profits. Drontheim poffeffes not much fhipping of its own; the exports and imports being moftly carried in English and Dutch veffels. The Bishop of the Diocee, his chancellor, and the staff officers of four regiments refide in Drontheim. There is no other town in all Norway that has to many and fuch opulent charitable institutions. Drontheim is the feat of a Raval Society, which has done much for the advancement of fcience, and especially

by investigating the natural history of the country. Its founder was Bishop GUNNER, a man of great genius, knowledge, and zeal in fcientific purfuits. Five volumes of the Memoirs and Tranfactions of this Society had been publifhed in 1778. Meffrs. Fabricius and Weber inspected the Society's Library and its Cabinet of Specimens of Natural Hiftory. The Cabinet confifts chiefly of fpecimens collected by the late Bishop Gunner, and by him bequeathed to the Society. It is ill arranged and fome very valuable curiofities have been fuffered to perish by neglect. The herbal contains many fpecimens, but those in disorder, and ill-preferved. All the rare plants of the North, which have been defcribed by Gunner, are in it. The mineral fpecimens are principally copper-ores from the mines of Roraas and Mehldahlen; and filver and iron-ores from Kungsburg. There is a large collection of fhells. Among the infect fpecimens, there is nothing very remarkable except a variety of fmall crawfish preferved in spirit of wine. Thofe crabs are here fo numerous, that it is not poffible to take up a bucket of feawater that has not fome of them in it. Among the models, Mr.Fabricius-observed a fmall threshing-machine fomewhat like a fulling mill.-An excellent fort of cheese is prepared here and in other parts of Norway, in the following manner : milk is skimmed and curdled; then boiled for half an hour over the fire; and, while it is boiling, conftantly stirred. The cafeous part by this means coagulates and fubfides to the bottom. The whey is then carefully taken off. The curds are next taken out quite hot; put into moulds or cheffels; and in thefe kept for two days under a prefs: at the end of that time,they are taken out, and put on boards to dry in a place moderately warm, and having free accefs of air. After a few days, when they begin to ferment, the heat is increafed in order to harden the crust. The cheeses are thus kept till Autumn, then wrapped in ftraw, put in barrels, and depofited in the cellars, for exportation. At Roraas, they are accuf tomed to put the cheefes always in the fame cheffels, and never to cleanse thele: And by this means, the cheese acquires an exquifite peculiarity of tafte for which it is much valued by connoiffeurs. This Old Cheefe of the North, when good, is of a brown colour, is brittle, yet easily cut into thin flices, has a ftrong finell, and a very agreeable tafte. It is wholefome, favourable to digeftion, and in the effima

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tion of the people of the country, a fpecific remedy for certain complaints. A fpecies of cheese called Wye Smær Oft is prepared here from whey; and another fort named Kuage-Oft is made of buttermilk. There is a fugar-work at Drontheim, large, and in a thriving ftate of of manufacture and trade. In Angel's Orphan-house, fixty orphan children are brought up from eight to fixteen years of age, and are educated in reading, writ. ing, and the principles of religion. Mr. Angel was alfo the founder of an hofpital for old women in which fixteen are entertained at an allowance of 48 rixdollars annually for each of them. The hofpital is a ftone edifice, and was built at an expence of 16,000 rixdollars. Milk is here curdled by pouring a small portion of it quite hot upon the leaves of the plant pinguicula vulgaris. It becomes thus curdled and vifcid, and disagreeable to the tafte; but acquires at the fame time the quality of coagulating other milk. It is preferved for ufe, and fo employed in fmall portions whenever cheese is made. It has the name of Tate. Inftead of vinegar, the inhabitants of Drontheim ufe four whey; giving it the name of Syra. The water of Drontheim is not very agreeable for drinking.

(To be Continued.)

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

IN

SIR,

[N a felet collection of British plants, formed by the late Mr. Weighell of Sunderland, A. L. S. were two fpecimens of plants never hitherto confidered indigenous, whose real claim to a place in the British Flora it would be well worth the attention of any northern botanist to af

certain. The plants I allude to are the Plantago uniflora, found intermixed with the P. maritima, near Sunderland; and the Scheuchzeria paluftris, found amongst fome Carices in a boggy ground near Hil. ton Dean. It is poffible that these plants might have been only naturalized with feveral others introduced by ballaft, of which a large lift difcovered by Mr. Weighell, on and about the ballaft hills in the vicinity of Sunderland, is inf.rted in the "Plantæ rariores Agri Dunelmenfis," published, some time fince, by Mr. Robfon, of Darlington, A. L. S. introductory to a more complete Flora of that County. It is certain that no county, from the copioufnefs of its habitats of rarer plants, and naturalized fpecies, as well as its rich collection of Cryptogamia, efpecially of Lichens and Fuci, could afford a more ex

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tenfive or important Flora. The completion of this defideratum would be confiderably aided by a collection of the native plants of Northumberland and Dur ham, now forming under the direction of a Mr. Winch of Newcastle, for the Literary and Philofophical Society of that town. Should no fuch work be already in agitation, a plan has been digefted, if fufficient materials could be obtained from feveral botanical gentlemen whofe local fituation peculiarly enables them to afford them, for forming, under the title of a Flora Borealis, a complete history of the vegetable productions of the four Northern Counties of England. And it is not, perhaps, too much to premife, that, fhould fufficient encouragement be given to fuch a plan, whenever effectually undertaken, feveral very important acquifitions to the British Flora would be the refult of an accurate investigation of this district. The counties of Weftmoreland and Cumberland have already afforded many additions to our National Flora; and that of Northumberland, which has been, perhaps, lefs explored than any other in the kingdom, is prefumed to contain much interefting matter for the attention of the botanical enquirer. In a future letter I may enter more largely upon the objects of such an undertaking, and detail the means by which it would be most fuccefsfully effected. R. H. C.

January, 1804.

Errata. In my laft letter, vol. xvi. p. 532. line 22. for Bell's read Hull's British Flora. Page 533. line 6. for Wiggen read Wiggers, &c.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

AMONG the valuable, though neglect

ed, relics of antiquity, furnished by the neighbourhood of London, I think I may include ST. ALBANS. A year ago I paid it a fhort vifit with a friend; and as our walk included other objects of curious research, I venture to communicate the particulars:

We fat off from London December 26, 1802, upon the road to Hoddesdon, whose courfe is nearly parallel with the Roman Military Way, fince called Ermin-ftreet. The Hermen, or Ermin-street, came from the Sea fide, in Suffex, by Stane-ftreet, Croydon, and Streatham, paffed the Thames at the termination of a street in the parish of St. Mary Overy, ftill called Stone or Stoney ftreet, and branched off on the oppofite thore to Bishop Gate. It afterward ran by the priory of St. Mary

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Spital, to Kingsland, which its indiftinct remains leave upon the eaft by Kingslandgreen, and may be traced here and there among the green lanes that lead to Enfield. The first object which raised our curiofity was Waltham-cross, a memorial not only of Edward the firft's affection for his queen, but of his intellectual relish for the arts. It was about the period of this erection that the arts of elegance took a new turn, owing, perhaps, to the improvements which Edward had witneffed in Italy while returning from the Holy Land. Certain it is that he employed Italian artists; who feem to have commu nicated to us much of that elegant talte which was foon after fo confpicuoufly fhewn in all our Gothic churches. The crofs at Waltham has never received juftice from the graver: the fculpture of the figures round it deferves the highest panegyric, and might fairly occupy the atten

tion of one or other of our beft artists to advantage. Time and adventitious circumftances have fadly corroded its original beauty; and a few years will very probably complete its ruin.

In Chefhunt, to the right of the road, we faw the ftables which formerly belonged to Theobalds; they are of red brick, and, as a lumbering erection of the time of James the First, may be called handfome. The evening drawing in before we got to Hoddesdon, our observations for that day were at an end: but the next morning we left the high-road toward Stanstead Abbot, and visited the once celebrated fcene of the Rye-house Plot.

The Rye, for fo it is termed by the inhabitants about it, was one of the earliest and most curious brick manfions in the kingdom. In the thirty-fourth of Henry the Sixth, Sir Andrew Ogard and others obtained the royal licence, not only to impark the manor, but to erect a calle with battlements and loop-holes, and to have free warren there, and in the Vills of Stanftead, Amwell, Hoddefon, Ware, and Wideford, Of this manfion, the gatehoufe, where the plot was to have been executed, in the time of Charles the Second, is the only relic. It has a chimney fingularly wreathed, and in the pandrils of the gate are the arms of Ogaid, a mullet with fupporters and crest. The draw. bridge and the moat appear to have been almost destroyed together; and the whole has been appropriated for many years to the reception of the poor of Stanstead Abbot. Of Sir Andrew Ogard, the builder, little more is known than that, in 1447,

he was an executor to the will of Joha Duke of Bedford, Regent of France. The Rye, as an early inftance of the brick manfion, is, I believe, only exceeded in antiquity by the castle of Hurftmonceaux in Suffex.

Hence we proceeded, by the brink of the Ware-river, to Stanftead-Thele, and ther.ce, in front of Great Amwell, to Ware, a town filled with millers and malt-houses, and the abundance of water in whofe neighbourhood feems to have furnished that ufeful project in the days of James the firft, of conveying a New River to London.

About half a mile from Ware, on one fide the road that leads to Hertford, lies the fource of the New River. The fpring it arifes from is railed round, and forms a bafon of about thirty yards in diameter; the ftream that leaves it has little rapidity of motion, but is greatly increased at a fhort distance by the channel that joins it from the Lea, and which undoubtedly furnishes a large portion of its water. The place where it is fituated is called Amwell Parva; and weft of the fpring is a pillar with the following inscriptions:

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croft's Alms-houses, in the neighbourhood
of Bow. Hertford had once five churches,
which are now reduced to two; and when
its caftle was a palace of refort, it was a
place of far more confequence than at pre-
fent. A fhort distance farther in the town
we enquired for the priory, founded here
for Benedictine nuns, in 1093, by Ralph
de Limefie, as a cell fubordinate to the
abbey of St. Albans. Not a fragment of
its ruins could be feen. It has only left
its name to the farm that has arisen on the
fite. Having turned upon the road to
Hatfield, we found the caftle close upon
our right; which appears to have been of
confequence even earlier than the Norman
Conqueft. At the clofe of John's reign
it was befieged by Louis, the Dauphin,
who came over to affift the barons, and
who did not take it till he had fuffered con-
fiderable lofs. In the time of Edward the
Third, John, king of France, and David,
king of Scotland, were kept prifoners here
together. It is memorable alfo as the
place which Edward the Third granted to
John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, as an
habitation fuited to his quality, and where
his fon, Henry IV. kept his court at Ri
chard the fecond's depofition. Henry VI.
kept his Eafter here in 1429, and his
queen, Margaret of Anjou, was jointured
with it.
The area of the caftle feems
never to have been extenfive, and little of
the very old building, except the wall of
fortification, appears; the cattle as it is
now inhabited feems hardly older than
the time of Edward the Third, and has pro-
bably loft much of its ancient grandeur
by being adapted to convenience. The
Mount on the western fide has crumbled
materially away: It was fitted up as a
manfion-houfe by the Harringtons or
Coopers, and, till the clofe of laft
year, was inhabited by Lord Hilfborough.
The walls of the fortification are beauti.
fully throwded with ivy.

We now continued our route to Hatfield, and at the distance of about five miles took the fields, through Lord Salibury's Park, to Hatfield-houte. Bihop's Hatfield appears to have been fo called from its having anciently belonged to the See of Ely. In later times the kings of England refided here, on a fpot where, in the time of James the First, Sir Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, built the prefent manfion, of red-brick and ftone. It was here that Edward the Sixth received the greater part of his education, and Queen Elizabeth paft the latter part of her fif ter's cruel reign; and it is fingular that both Edward and Elizabeth were taken hence on

MONTHLY MAG, No. 112,

their acceffion to the throne. At a fubfequent period it was one of the hofpitable prifons of Mary Queen of Scots, of whom two portraits, (one genuine, 1578), are yet remaining. Lord Salisbury has alfo a portrait of Charles the first in the drefs in which he went to Spain.

In the road from Hatfield to St. Albans we paffed Wood-fide, where, in 1455, the firft blood was fp lt in the fatal quarrel of the Rofes; the battle was fought on the 22d of May; the Yorkifts were fuperior, and, without fuffering any confiderable lofs, flew five thoufand of their enemies. It need hardly be added, that this fight, in which Henry the Sixth was made prifoner, was the first of thirteen battles.

Having reached St. Albans, we rested for the evening, and in the morning vifited the abbey. At the eaft end fands the old cloifter, one corner of which is now occupied by the free-fchool. Nigh the fmall fouth entrance, is the back_part of the tomb of Humphrey the good Duke of Gloucefter; next to it that of Whetamitead, the learned abbot of St. Albans, with rebuffes of wheat-ears; and adjoining, the tomb of Abbot Ramrege. The front of Duke Humphrey's tomb is in a chapel behind the high altar, in the middle of which are fhewn the marks of four pillars, which fupported St. Alban's fhrine. On one fide, is the entrance to Duke Humphrey's vault, into which we went, and examined the bones remaining in the coffin. He appears to have been wrapped in lead, and afterwards inclosed in a rude cafe of wood. The entrance was difcovered early in the last century; and at that time a great part of the body was entire. The admiffion of the air, however, had a destructive effect; and the very pickle the body was then found in, is now dried to a kind of foft muddy confiftence. From the bones we conjectured him to have been a well-made man, above, rather than below, the middle fize. In a fort of Thefaurarium, on the north fide, we were shown a piece of small black and white teffellated Roman pavement, found in the church, and another, of coarfe red and white tile, from the parifh of St. Martin. The fcreen of the high altar is very rich, and was probably erected early in the fifteenth century.

The lower part of the choir of the church, on the north fide, has four rich pointed arches, joined toward the east by five others, rude and femi-circular. The pillars on the oppofite fide fupport none but pointed arches. Against the upper pillar on the north fide is an obliterated

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painting;

painting; what remains appears to reprefent God the Father, with the nimbus round the head, and at a distance from it the femi arc of the rainbow; and below, apparently, the figure of an abbot, with another which we could not understand. Over one of the arches, by the north tranfept, is the portrait of King Offa upon the wall; but not older than three hundred years. What, in fome of the Plans, is called the old font, in the choir, is nothing more than a pifcina, intended to carry off whatever might remain of the confecrated elements; and which, no doubt, indicates the fite of an ancient altar. A fmall room at the upper end of the fouth tranfept has a number of very curious femicircular arches-probably the chapter-room. The choir, with St. Alban's chapel behind it, the north and fouth tranfepts, and part of the nave, as far as the fcreen, were, I believe, built by Paul, the fourteenth abbot, in 1076, with red bricks, which made the whole appear of fo rude a workmanship. When thefe materials failed, ftone was introduced, and the style improved; till in 1115, the church was completely built, and confecrated. Warinus, the twentieth abbot, left an hundred marks to rebuild the west end of the abbey. And the fcreen of the chapel and altar of St. Cuthbert, across the nave, were built by Abbot Richard, between 1097 and 1119; although, throughout the interior, a judicious eye will difcover an hundred improvements fubfequent to the general building.

Nigh the weft end of the nave, ftands the ancient gate-house, for the abbey's defence, now the only remains of the monaf tery, the figns of whofe foundations are clearly feen in the field between the abbey and Old Verulam.

Having croffed to the mill upon the Colne, we paffed on the agger, which Dr. Stukely fays was made from the ruins of the ancient town, to the north-east point of Verulam, where the finest fragment of the wall ftill remains, with a triple courfe of Roman bricks among the flints that compofe it. Upon the field directly in front of this wall, ftood the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, built by Abbot Ulfinus. We now traced the fragments of the wall, in many places very large, along the eaft. ern fide of the old town, accompanied by a very fine and perfect fofs; which, at the turn to the fouthern fide, is, for fome hundred yards, doubled. The outermoft of thefe laft was supposed by Dr. Stuke

ley to have been the only fence of the first city, which Boadicea deftroved before the walls were built; and these reduced the whole into a fquarer form. The fofs becomes again fingle upon the spot where the Watling-ftreet falls into the Hempstead road. Along the fouthern fide the remains of the wall are crowned by an hedge, but the whole has in one or two places yielded to the plough. On these spots, by the affitance of a fhower of rain, which fell the overnight, we picked up many little fragments of pottery, evidently Roman, which appeared fcattered over the ploughed land in great abundance. The particular spot where these remains feemed most numerous was the field on the eaft fide of the road to Hempstead.

Leaving the Watling-ftreet, we pushed forward in the fofs, every now and then obferving the Roman wall within the hedge, till we came to a large and bold unfheltered fragment, called by the country people, from its vicinity to Gorhambury, Gorham block; this, likewife, exhibits the triple courfe of Roman bricks. Here the fortifications of Verulam, forming three fides of a figure nearly fquare, feemed to end. Dr. Stukeley's map, made in the year 1721, and published by the Antiquary Society, gives a line where the ancient wall may be fuppofed to have continued through the meadows on the oppo. fite fide of the Gorhambury road; and here it is but juftice to, own, that we met with more than one workman, who affured us that in the meadows just mentioned they had feveral times difcovered the founda tions of the wall in its continuance from Gorham-block. Hence extending our walk by the ancient boundaries, we left St. Michael's church to our right, till we had paffed the fpot where once stood St. Germain's chapel, a little beyond which we again met with the fine fragment of the wall we had fet out from. Above where the chapel of St. Germain food, are, one beyond the other, the remains of two Roman roads or ftreets; the dorfum of each of which may be traced by the gravel and materials. The Veftigia and Cavitas, mentioned by Dr. Stukeley, near the fouth-east extremity of Verulam, are ftill remaining, though they probably receive continual injury from the plough. In our return from Gorham-block, just below St. Michaels, we saw, to our left, Kingfbury, which, as Mr. Gough fays, in Camden, fhews confiderable earthworks on the north and east fide, the latter double-trenched. Beyond Kingsbury lie

the

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