86 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



different localities in the course of the winter, but also, 

 and perhaps still more, on the rapidity with which the 

 snow is melted under the heat of spring and summer. In 

 the southern portion of Norway the period of the summer 

 stolstice in 1860 everywhere produced the greatest floods 

 witnessed in the course of the century. On the high 

 mountains the summer heat does not tell with effect till 

 later, producing ordinarily towards the end of July a 

 second, but lesser, flood. The great neVes and the ever- 

 lasting glaciers of the high mountains, the lower extremity 

 of which is being continuously melted by the heat of the 

 sun, produce flowing affluents in winter and in summer 

 alike; the affluents from lower lying lands, on the con- 

 trary, diminish, and the lesser of them cease even to flow 

 during the winter, 



' In autumn again, towards the end of August, and in 

 September, and during the first days of October, there is 

 generally a flood, but of lesser magnitude, produced by 

 the abundance of rain, or of snow which melts at once 

 through the action of warmer currents of air. This 

 autumn flood is ordinarily much less than the spring 

 floods ; but for all that it may assume great proportions. 

 Thus, for example, in the beginning of the month of 

 October 1795, the autumn flood in Southern Norway 

 attained everywhere almost the same magnitude as the 

 great spring flood of 1860. 



' This spring flood is of great importance for the floatage 

 of wood, which in the forest districts is carried on so long 

 as the affluents have water enough for the purpose. An 

 insufficent flood occasions great loss and damage to the 

 proprietors of forests and to all engaged in timber trade. 

 But a flood too strong may equally occasion difficulties in 

 the floatage of the wood. 



' In the western part of Norway the rivers are shorter 

 and receive their affluents from the nave's and glaciers. It is 

 only in the valley of Romsdal, and in the two prefectures 

 of Drontheim, that we meet again with large rivers. These 

 have fewer lakes, and the flood is more violent, and often 



