40 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



Tbeophrastus calls Aale, Pliny calls Abies, and Linnaeus 

 Pinus picea, while the tree that Pliny calls Picea, which is 

 our spruce fir, is named by Linnaeus Pinus abies. ' This 

 tree is found principally/ writes Dr. Broch, ' in the eastern 

 portion of the country and in the diocese of Drontheim. 

 On the west coast it is now met with growing wild to the 

 south of 62 N., but it is found in plantations in many 

 other places. It is only in the interior of Hordaland at 

 Mo, an annex of Hosanger, 60 48' N. ; and at Voss 66 

 38' N., that it is met with in a wild state. To the north 

 of Cape Stat it is found along with the pine even 

 on the islands along the coast to 65 N. lat. ; beyond 

 that it becomes more rare ; and it ceases to form forests 

 somewhere near the Arctic Circle. In east Finmark, on 

 the contrary, it is found in Syd-Varanger, near the lake 

 Kjolmejare, 69 30' N. lat. ; but in separate trees or in 

 quite small groups. In certain localities in southern 

 Norway the fir attains on mountains almost the same 

 elevation as the pine, but, as a general rule, its limitation 

 of vegetation is from 60 to 100 metres below the limit of 

 that tree. 



' In Southern Norway the pine and the fir attain to their 

 greatest dimensions, but continually the trees of great size 

 are becoming every year more rare, in consequence of the 

 felling of the large trees increasing with the improvement 

 of roads, and of means of transport. In illustration of the 

 magnitude attained, there was felled some years ago at 

 Lorn, in Nordre-Gulbrandsdalen, 61 53' N., at an 

 elevation of 560 metres, a pine, the trunk of which 

 near the ground had a diameter of 1*2 metre, 4 

 feet, and a diameter of 0*5 metre, 20 inches, at a 

 height of 16 metres, or 53 feet 4 inches. At Nordre- 

 Aurdal, and Valders, 60 57' N., there stand still two pines 

 called the Soesterfuruer, or Sister Pines, of which the 

 larger, measured in 1864, had a height of 28 metres, 93 

 feet 4 inches, and a diameter of 1 metre, 40 inches, at the 

 height of 1 metre from the ground. In Northern Norway, 



