Maelstrom or moskoestrom: this is what they call a famous whirlpool located near the coast of Norway, located approximately forty miles to the north of the city of Trondheim. [1] In this area of the sea one finds a series of five islands called the district of Lofoten, although each of these islands has a specific name. The passage between each of these islands is never more than a quarter of a mile wide, but in the southwest of the district of Lofoten, there are another two inhabited islands called Værøy and Røst , which are separated from Lofoten and from each other by passages or straits that are quite wide. Between this row of islands and Helgeland, which is a portion of the continent of Norway, the sea forms a gulf. It is between the promontory of Lofoten and the island of Værøy that the current called the Maelstrom passes. Its width from north to south is approximately two miles; its length from east to west is approximately five miles. There is also a current between the island of Værøy and that of Røst, but it is less strong than the Maelstrom. In the middle of the strait separating Lofoten and Værøy, but a little closer to the south, lies the rock called Moskoe, which forms an island perhaps a third of a mile in length, and somewhat less in width; this island is uninhabited, but as it has good pasture, the inhabitants of the neighboring islands leave their sheep to graze there in the winter and summer. It is between this island of Moskoe and the tip of Lofoten that the current is the most violent; it becomes less perceptible as it approaches the islands of Værøy and Røst.

In several accounts one can find astonishing descriptions of this whirlpool and of this current, yet the majority are only founded on popular rumor; they say that this whirlpool makes a horrible sound, and that it draws in from a very great distance whales, trees, rowboats, and vessels that have the misfortune to approach it; after having drawn them in, it reduces them to pieces against the pointed rocks at the bottom of the trench. The name Maelstrom, which means current that grinds , comes from this supposed feature . They add that after several hours it rejects the debris that it had consumed. This contradicts the thought of Father Kircher, who claimed that in this place, there was a hole or abyss which went to the center of the earth, and which connected with the Gulf of Bothnia. Several authors have asserted that this current, as well as the swirling which accompanies it, has never been tranquil; but in 1750 in volume XII of the memoirs of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, a description of the Maelstrom was published, which no longer leaves anything to desire for Physicists and which, by removing all that is fantastical, reduces all of these phenomena to the simple truth. Here is how they describe it to us.

The direction of the current is north to south for six hours, and then from south to north for six hours; it constantly follows this course. This current does not follow the movement of the tide but instead has a completely opposite direction; in effect, when the tide rises and flows from south to north, the Maelstrom goes from north to south, etc. When the current is most violent, it forms large eddies taking the form of an inverted hollow cone that can have a depth of approximately two fathoms, or twelve feet; but far from engulfing and breaking everything that finds itself there, it is during the time when the current is strongest that one can fish with the greatest success; and even by throwing a piece of wood into it, one can diminish the violence of the vortex. It is during the times when the tide is highest and lowest that the whirlpool is calmest, but it is very dangerous during storms and tempestuous winds, which are very common in these seas, and so during these times ships keep a careful distance from it, and the Maelstrom makes a terrible noise. There are no holes or abysses in this place, and fishermen have found with a sounding line that the bottom of the whirlpool is composed of rocks and a white sand which can be found as deep as twenty fathoms. M. Schelderup, State Councillor of Norway, to whom this description is due, says that all of these phenomena come from the arrangement of this row of islands, between which there are only narrow passages that make it so that the waters of the open sea can’t pass easily through them, and in this way accumulate and remain in some way suspended while the tide rises; on the other hand when the tide withdraws, the waters which are in the gulf that separates these islands from the continent cannot drain promptly through these same narrow passages. See the memoirs of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, year 1750, volume XII .

Sailors usually give the name Maelstrom to all the swirling water to be found in the sea. Travelers report that there is a very large one in the Ocean between Africa and America; navigators avoid it with great care. The whirlpools of Scylla and Charybdis are also types of maelstroms .

1. This measurement is inaccurate both in French historical miles and current measurement units. The actual distance between modern Trondheim and Lofoten is approximately 550 miles.