588 THE SCANDINAVIAN ALPS. 



Rocky Mountains, where the waters pour through a valley walled on 

 either side with tier upon tier of pillars, to the height of fully a 

 thousand feet. 



The Trachytes, massive rocks of excessive roughness, occasionally 

 appear in the shape of cones, at times in that of domes or enormous 

 balloons, and at times as cupolas with spire-like points, like minarets. 

 The chalks, the sandstones, the diorites, have all their characteristic 

 aspect, and give to the mountains where they dominate, and to the 

 landscapes which surround them, an easily recognizable physiognomy. 

 And, finally, everybody knows the particular configuration affected 

 by the volcanic mountains. 



The great mountain-chains are unequally distributed in different 

 parts of the world, and their disposition varies in a remarkable 

 manner in the two great continents. For the most part it agrees 

 with the direction of the principal land masses in each. Thus, in 

 the Old World, the chief ranges assume an easterly and westerly 

 course, following the parallels of latitude ; in the New, a northerly 

 and southerly direction, like that of the meridians of longitude. 



In Europe, the mountains are numerous, but generally of very 

 moderate elevation. In the north, we find the Scandinavian Alps, 

 covering nearly the whole of Norway and some part of Sweden. 

 From the Naze, or Cape Lindesnaes, they roll far away, like foam- 

 crested billows, to the very shore of the Frozen Sea. The central and 

 highest part of the mass, between latitude 62 and 63, is called the 

 Dover-feld ; the more northerly portion, the Koelin Mountains ; the 

 more southerly, Lang-feld and Hardanger-feld. Their summits are 

 comparatively flat felds, or fields, as the name indicates ; on the 

 eastern side they slope gradually to the plains bordering the Gulf of 

 Bothnia, their sides clothed with dense forests of pine and fir ; on the 

 west they rise abruptly from the margin of the ocean, and their steep, 

 barren, and swarthy flanks are broken up by numerous inlets, or fiords, 

 where the waters lie cradled in gloom and desolation. Their highest 

 point is now known to be Skags-tol-tind, in the Lang-feld range, 

 upwards of 8000 feet. All the loftier summits rise above the snow- 



