1 8 Norway and the Norwegians 



in the Christiania Fjord, a little to the west of Christiania 

 itself. Its deepest point lies in the Skagerrak, between 

 Arendal in Norway and the Scaw, the extreme northern 

 peak of Jutland. Here it is upwards of 400 fathoms 

 deep. Off Lister it has a depth of 200 fathoms. Off 

 the Bommelo, opposite the mouth of the Hardanger 

 Fjord, it is 120 fathoms deep ; and this is its shallowest 

 part. It begins to increase in depth as we pass farther 

 north. Off the Sogne Fjord it is again more than 200 

 fathoms deep, and it continues to deepen until, by the 

 Cape Stad, it debouches into the deep channel of the 

 North Atlantic Ocean. 



There is, as the reader probably knows, a great sub- 

 marine bank beneath the waters of the North Sea 

 which unites Denmark with the British Isles, and which 

 stretches out some little way beyond the west coasts of 

 Scotland and of Ireland. To the east this bank stretches 

 as far to the north as Cape Stad, or Statt, the most 

 westerly point of the Norwegian mainland. Therefore, 

 when the Norwegian canal has passed Cape Stad, the 

 bank beside it suddenly dips down to the channel of the 

 North Atlantic, and the canal is merged in the deep sea. 



When the Great Glacier had disappeared from the 

 face of the country, or rather when it had shrunk into 

 those fragments which we now find lying on the high 

 lands of Norway, the territory which it laid bare was 

 the peninsula of Scandinavia which we have to-day. It 

 is a territory which, in the extreme north, is almost a 

 plain — an extremely sad-looking barren and rocky plain, 

 with but stunted birch bushes instead of trees. But as 

 you travel southward the trees grow higher, firs and pines 

 appear, and, at the same time, the land begins to rise 



