The religious establishment of Faroe is now under the superintendance of a provost. There are seven parishes, and 39 places of worship, so that the duty of the clergy is exceedingly laborious. The stipends are inconside rable, and are chiefly paid in kind. To the glebes a per manent stock of sheep, and sometimes a few cows, is at tached. Glebes are also provided for the widows of the clergy.
The civil establishment is under the direction of a mili tary officer, commanding 30 men, who maintain the form of mounting guard, and keeping a look out for ships. Un der the commandant are, the landfoged or treasurer, and the sysselmen, or governors of districts.
The natural history of these islands, if we except the .,apartment of mineralogy, presents nothing that is un common to other countries in the same latitude. On the contrary, they are very deficient both in their botanical and zoological productions; and to enumerate what they do possess would be quite uninteresting. The islands are formed almost exclusively of trap; beds of wood coal, and pitch coal, forming the only exception. The most common
characters of the trap are amygdaloidal and porphyritic ; greenstone occurring chiefly in the columnar form, and basalt in veins assuming commonly the same form. The amygdaloids contain every known variety of zeolite in the greatest perfection; and in the island of Nalsoe, native crystallized copper occurs in the same kind of rock. A great variety of beautiful chalcedonies, common and semi opal, are to be found in great abundance; and the island of Suderoe furnishes elegant jaspers. There are some very remarkable geological facts to be seen in different parts of the islands; but as these are closely connected with some, equally curious and important, which were discovered in Iceland, we will defer giving a particular account of them, till we come to that article.* Sec Lucas Debes Feroa Reserata, 1670. Description of the Faroe Islands, by the Rev. G. Landt, translated from the Danish, London, 1810.
Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. vii. 1814.