The narrator is unimpressed by Jonas Ramus's account of the titular phenomenon, though he finds himself agreeing with the fanciful explanation proposed by Kircher.  
Three years prior to the day on which this work is set, the first character who speaks in it underwent an experience that turned his hair white in a single day.  It begins atop the Cloudy Mountain, Helseggen, in the dreary district of Lofoden, where three men look out at a group of islands that includes Ambaaren and Vurrgh.  The narrator is unimpressed by Jonas Ramus's account of the titular phenomenon, though he finds himself agreeing with the fanciful explanation proposed by Kircher.  The story has an epigraph from Joseph Glanville which compares God's works to the well of Democritus, and at a key point it features a footnote referring to a work by Archimedes.  Most of the story is told by an old man who saved his life by lashing himself to a water-cask, though his brother is killed by a natural phenomenon.  FTP, name this story about a Norwegian fisherman who survives the titular downward journey, a work by Edgar Allan Poe.
Three years prior to the day on which this work is set, the first character who speaks in it underwent an experience that turned his hair white in a single day.  
"A Descent into the Maelstr?m"