132 



THE OCEAX. 



enormous trendies, hollowed out in the thickness of the continent ; 

 others are divided into several lateral fjords, which make the inland 

 waters an almost inextricable labyrinth of channels, straits, and 

 bays. The total development of the coasts is so much increased by 

 these indentations, that the western shore of the peninsula, whose 

 length in a straight line is about 1180 miles, is increased to above 

 8000 miles by the bends and turnings of the shore, which is more 

 than the distance from Paris to Japan. 



The plateaux of Scandinavia, terminating abruptly above the North 

 Sea, the slopes which command the sombre defiles of the fjords, are 

 almost always very steep ; there are some which rise in perpendicular 

 or even overhanging walls, serving as a pedestal to high mountains. 

 It is thus that the Thorsnuten, situated to the south of Bergen, on 

 the shores of the Ilardanger Fjord, attains an elevation of above 

 5250 feet at less than 2 J miles from the shore. In many a bay of 

 western Norway cascades are seen to leap from the top of the cliff, 

 and prccijjitate themselves* in one jet into the sea, so that vessels can 

 glide between the walls of the rocks and the parabola of the roaring 

 cataracts. Below the water the escarpements are continued also in 

 most of tlie gulfs, so that in certain defiles of rocks, whose breadth 

 from cliff to cliff is only from 300 to 600 feet, the lead must be 



Fig. 43.— Lysefjord, Norway, 



thrown to a depth of from 272 to 327 fathoms before touching the 

 rocky bottom.* In the Toilers of the Sea Victor Hugo correctly cites 

 the Lysefjord as most fearful to contemplate among its gloomy ap- 



* Berghaus, Was man von der Erde u-etss, p. 280. 



