VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF NORWAY. 2k 
Norway is essentially a mountainous country, in 
which the mountains form the most prominent feature, 
whilst the valleys or lowlands occupy but a subordinate 
part. 
The loftiest ranges are to be found between lat. 60° 
and lat. 62°, in which there are peaks from 8,000 to 
9,000 feet above the level of the sea. 
Nothing can exceed the desolate wildness of these 
regions, the native home of the wild reindeer, to which 
the Cladonia rangiferina and other lichens impart 
a sombre and yellowish tint, adding not a little to the 
depressing uniformity of the landscape. It is in this 
part that most of the glaciers are found. 
In the south-eastern parts of the country the direc- 
tion of the valleys is from north to south; but on the 
western coast the sea makes deep indentations into the 
interior from west to east, forming the fjords or firths. 
They are often of considerable length ; ¢.7., the Sogne 
Fjord is not less than twenty-two geographical miles 
from its mouth to the extremity of its innermost arm. 
Sometimes they are, so to speak, narrow fissures in 
the rocky mass, the sides of which rise perpendicularly 
from the sea, and never permit the full light of day to 
penetrate to their bottom, as nm Lyse Fjord in Ry- 
fylke, and Sor Fjord in Hardanger; and sometimes, 
though less frequently, they form capacious basins 
as the Throndhjem Fjord, the sloping and even sides of 
