82 Prof. Hausmann on the Physiognomy of Scandinavia. 



their way. Where they are unable to overpower these, becom- 

 ing impatient of their barriers, they throw themselves head- 

 *long, with a frightful crash, from a high precipice, and often 

 still maintain their entire breadth. Upon the rocks which 

 border, these powerful waterfalls, a host of saw-mills are boldly 

 placed, in order that their wheels may be driven more swiftly 

 round, by the increased force which the water gains by its 

 descent. 



During the more severa season of the year, the regions of the 

 north are clothed in a very different, but not for that reason 

 less beautiful, vesture. Unmeasurable fields of ice, covered 

 with crystals, are in the room of the lakes. Their margins are 

 then contrasted by the dark-green colour of the never-fading 

 pine trees. The snowy pinnacles of tjie higher mountain range 

 glancing in $jje sun ; and the aqua-marine tint of the icicles 

 which fringe the glittering rocky masses, — and produce views 

 of indescribable beauty, which are greatly enhanced by the al- 

 most constant serenity of the dark-blue sky. But the magnifi- 

 cent splendour of the north, when arrayed in its winter garb, 

 appears to most advantage when, during the star-light night, 

 the bright, or bluish, or fire-red r^ys of the aurora borealis, arise 

 above the northern horizon, and shoot forth with the swiftness 

 of an arrow towards the zenith. Then their incessantly vary- 

 ing brightness is reflected once more to the eye of the observer, 

 by the bright phosphorescent fields of snow. 



Hitherto this brief representation of the characteristics of the 

 north of Europe, has entirely overlooked the regions which could 

 leave only unpleasant impressions, and neither is Scandinavia en- 

 tirely without such regions, any morelhan other large countries. 

 There are in Norway, as well as in Svyeden, very extensive tracts, 

 nay entire provinces, which are marked with the stamp of the 

 greatest wildness and unfruitfulness, in the midst of which a per- 

 son may almost forget the agreeable impressions produced by 

 the scenes before described. To the above regions belong the 

 ridges "and declivities of the principal mountain-chain of Scan- 

 dinavia ; this extends^n its principal direction from south-south- 

 west towards the north-north-east, and for about two-thirds of 

 its extent forms the boundary between Sweden and Norway. 

 The higher parts of this mountain-range — which, in Southern 



