WITS 



FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. 



M. Du CHALLU, in his volume entitled The Land of the 

 Midnight Sun, writes : ' There is a beautiful country far 

 away towards the icy north. It is a glorious land ; with 

 snowy, bold, and magnificent mountains ; deep, narrow, 

 and well- wooded valleys ; bleak plateaux and slopes ; wild 

 ravines ; clear and picturesque lakes ; immense forests of 

 birch, pine, and fir trees, the solitude of which seems to 

 soothe the restless spirit of man ; large and superb glaciers, 

 unrivalled elsewhere in Europe for size ; arms of the sea, 

 called fjords, of extreme beauty, reaching far inland in the 

 midst of grand scenery ; numberless rivulets, whose crystal 

 waters vary in shade and colour as the rays of the sun 

 strike upon them on their journey towards the ocean, 

 tumbling in countless cascades and rapids, filling the air 

 with the music of their fall ; rivers and streams which, in 

 their hurried course from the heights above to the chasm 

 below, plunge in grand waterfalls, so beautiful, white, and 

 chaste, that the beholder never tires of looking at them ; 

 they appear like an enchanting vision before him, in the 

 reality of which he can hardly believe. Contrasted with 

 these are immense areas of desolate and barren land and 

 rocks, often covered with boulders which in many places 

 are piled here and there in thick masses, and swamps and 

 moorlands, all so dreary, that they impress the stranger 

 with a feeling of loneliness from which he tries in vain to 

 escape. There are also many exquisite sylvan landscapes, 



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