The Maelstrom
When the elders of the generation now passing away read Schiller’s tragic story of “The Diver,” they recall the teachings in their childhood’s geographies of the Maelstrom off the northwestern coast of Norway. A late report on the fisheries of the Lofoten Archipelago says that the Maelstrom is only one of many whirlpools between the islands, and that it is so lightly regarded by the sailors that they pass and repass it in their little vessels at all stages of the tide, only avoiding it in fogs or storms. So far from drawing whales into its vortex, it is a favorite resort of the fish, and the fishermen reap a rich piscatorial harvest from its bosom. Even in stormy weather the rate of the tide does not exceed six miles an hour.