DEPRESSED COASTS 



263 



distance inland and to almost every part of the land surface 

 near the coast. 



When the country was first settled, these water courses 

 were most advantageous to the settlers, as the produce of 

 the farms could be transported to sea-going ships with 

 comparatively little difficulty, much more easily than would 

 have been the case if 

 it had been necessary 

 to carry it by land. 

 There was little need 

 of building roads, as 

 each farmer had a 

 protected water high- 

 way to his door. 

 Thus a part of this 

 region was known as 

 "Tide-water Vir- 

 ginia." 



In Norway the 

 deep fiords conduct 

 the sea from the is- 

 land-studded coast 

 far into the interior. Their sides rise steeply, sometimes 

 for several thousand feet from the water's edge, and 

 descend so steeply below it that large vessels can be moored 

 close to the shore. Generally there is not sufficient level 

 land along the sides of the fiord for building roads. The 

 villages are usually situated where a side stream has built 

 a little delta, or at the heads of the fiords where the un- 

 submerged portion of the valley begins. 



It was such a coast as this which bred the ancient North- 

 men, to whom the Sea of Darkness, as they called the 



A NORWAY FIORD 



Showing large vessels anchored in the deep 

 water close to the shore. 



