36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



NOTES ON NOEWEGIAN INDUSTRY 



By Professor JAS. LEWIS HOWE 



WASHINGTON AND LEE UNI-VTEESITY 



THE kingdom of Norway occupies about one third of the Scandi- 

 navian j^eninsula, and covers approximately 100,000 square 

 miles of territory. From Vardo, its most northern point, to Lindesnas 

 on the extreme southern coast is 1,100 miles, 400 miles of this line 

 being north of the Arctic circle. The northern portion of Norway is 

 very narrow. A strip of Russian Finland extends westward to within 

 sixty miles of the Atlantic coast, and to within twenty miles of tide- 

 water on Bals-fjord. Mo, at the head of the Ranen-fjord near the 

 Arctic circle, is but twenty miles from the Swedish frontier. At 

 Trondhjem Norway has a width of eighty miles, but from here south- 

 ward it rapidly widens, till north of Bergen it reaches its extreme 

 breadth of about 250 miles. 



The surface of Norway is for the most part barren highland, ex- 

 cept in the south largely covered with great snow-fields till late sum- 

 mer, and much of it uninhabitable. The whole coast line is deeply 

 indented by fjords, each with its many branches, all of deep water, and 

 except in the extreme north rarely covered with ice. Into these fjords 

 descend valleys, generally short and narrow, with precipitous sides. 

 A few important valleys, generally in the south, are longer and 

 broader, with gentler slopes. Each valley has its stream, fed from the 

 upland snow, and often widening into a long, narrow lake. Along the 

 coast are countless rocky islands, known as the Skjaergaard, which so 

 fringe the shore that it is possible for a steamer to pass from Vardo to 

 Kristiania with but few occasions to traverse the open sea. Norway 

 thus resembles a chain of mountains with deeply dissected valleys, 

 which has been sunk many himdred feet into the ocean. Such indeed 

 may be considered the bare outline of a part of its geological history. 

 In the north, Sweden is the more gradual eastern slope of this moun- 

 tain chain. 



The history of Norway has been largely determined by its physiog- 

 raphy in the past, and we can not doubt that the same will be true in 

 the future. The only habitable portions of the country being the nar- 

 row shores of the fjords and the restricted valleys, the pasture land 

 being greatly limited and the arable land yet more so, the population 

 was sparse and scattered, and few cities of any considerable size arose. 

 To-day Norway has less than two and a half million inhabitants; of 

 these about 230,000 are in Kristiania, 80,000 in Bergen, while Trond- 



