ERIK

PONTOPPIDAN (1698—1764)  , Danish author, was born at Aarhus on the 24th of August 1658 . He studied divinity at the university of Copenhagen, and for some time acted as a travelling tutor . In 1735 he became one of the chaplains of the king . In 1738 he was made professor extra-ordinary of theology at Copenhagen, and in 1745 bishop of Bergen, Norway, where he died on the loth of December 1764 . His principal works are: Theatrum Daniae veteris et modernae (4to, 1730), a description of the geography, natural history, antiquities, &c., of Denmark; Gesta et vestigia danorum extra Daniam (3 vols . 8vo, 1740), a laborious but uncritical work; Annales ecclesiae danicae . (3 vols., 1741—1747) ; Marmora danica selectiora (2vols. fol., 1739—1741); Glossarium norvegicum (1749); Det forste forsog Norges naturlige hisiorie (4to, 1752—1754) ; Eng. trans., Natural History of Norway (2 vols., 1755), containing curious accounts, often referred to, of the Kraaken, sea-serpent, and the like; Origines hafnienses (176o); Menoza (3 vols., 1742—1743), a religious novel . HisDanske Atlas (7 vols . 4to), an historical and topographical account of Denmark, was mostly posthumous . See an article by S . M . Gjellerup in Danish .Biografisk Lexikon (vol. xiii., 1899) .