-l82 SEA AND LAND 



extension, even where the fiords are only moderately devel- 

 oped, may be judged by the following- examples. The direct 

 distance from Portland to Calais, Maine, is only a little over 

 two hundred miles, but the aggregate coast-line of mainland 

 and islands between these two points is more than ten times 

 as great. The beautiful fiord termed the Bras d'Or on 

 Cape Breton, an island at the eastern extremity of Nova 

 Scotia, though one of the smaller inlets of this description, is 

 said to have an aggregate coast-line, including the periphery 

 of the islands which it contains, of more than one thousand 

 miles. The aeofreeate leno-th of the coast-line of the Scan- 

 dinavian peninsula and its associated islands is probably much 

 greater than the circumference of the earth. We understand, 

 therefore, how it is that the people who dwell on coasts of 

 this description naturally become trained for a seafaring life. 



The indentations of the shore which are to be considered 

 as belonging to this class are formed where the upfolded 

 strata which constitute mountain ridges lie in such a posi- 

 tion that the sea may penetrate for a greater or less distance 

 between the axes or lines of the elevations. /\lmost all 

 mountainous belts are composed of such more or less dis- 

 tinct ridges, separated by equally definite troughs. In general 

 the mountain ranges of any country run parallel to the shores 

 near which they lie, but it occasionally happens that the end 

 of such an association of elevations and furrows abuts against 

 the sea, in which case the ocean waters may enter the valleys 

 for a sufficient distance and form considerable bays. In- 

 stances of this nature, though rare in North America, are 

 frequent in the Old World. Thus where the western ex- 

 tremity of the Pyrenees, or rather the western prolongation 

 of that range, comes to the Atlantic at the northwestern angle 



