Abstract
WE learn from Naturen that the little island in the Hardanger Fjord, known as Bömmeloen, which two years ago was an uninhabited and desolate spot, is now a busy scene of extensive gold-digging. Numerous English artizans and Norsk bricklayers and carpenters have for months been actively engaged in boring and sinking shafts into the rock, and in preparing houses and shelter for the men and machinery that have been drawn hither by the report of the discovery in 1882 of gold in the Storhangen mine. This discovery had been anticipated in 1862 by the find of a piece of pure gold, which was at once deposited in the mineralogical museum of Christiania, where it has since remained apparently unheeded, although the place and time at which it was found are duly marked on the corresponding label. After twenty years gold was again found in 1882, at the Storhangen mine, which was then being worked for copper ore. The result of this discovery wras the purchase, in 1883, of the works by an English firm, trading under the title of the Oscar Gold Mining Company, which is worked under the scientific direction of Mr. Murchison. Considerable amusement seems so have been created among Norsemen by a somewhat ambiguous statement, set forth in the Company's circulars, which oracularly announces that “the gold finds at Bömmelöen are either Nature's greatest success or her greatest illusion” !
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A Scandinavian Land of Ophir . Nature 31, 303 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/031303a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031303a0