180 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



The designation fjeld is, according to Forbes, given to 

 extensive plateaux, or table-lands of great breadth, and 

 generally more or less connected together, though 

 occasionally separated by deep but always narrow valleys. 

 As seen from the lowlands they appear mountain ridges 

 mountain ranges they are, but they can scarcely be called 

 with propriety mountain ridges. ' They are often/ writes 

 Forbes in his volume entitled Norway and its Glaciers, 

 1 interminable wildernesses, undulating, or varied only by 

 craggy heights devoid of majesty, rarely attaining the 

 snow line, but spotted over with ungainly patches of 

 white.' 



Of the Dovrefjeld graphic descriptions have been given 

 by Forbes and also by Bayard Taylor, as well as by 

 many other tourists. 



1 They are often so level that upon what may almost be 

 called their summits a coach -and-four,' says he, 'might be 

 driven along or across them for many miles did roads 

 exist, across which the eye wanders for immense 

 distances, overlooking entirely the valleys, which are 

 concealed by their narrowness, and interrupted only by 

 undulations of ground, or by small mountains which rise 

 here and there with comparatively little picturesque effort 

 above the general level.' 



And in another connection he mentions that the forms 

 of the Norwegian mountains, contrasted with the Alps, 

 have been aptly enough compared by Wittich the 

 former to the embrasure of a parapet, the latter to a ridge 

 and furrow roof, the depressions in the former represent- 

 ing the profound gorges which intersect the rocky 

 plateaux; in the latter the usual alternations of moun- 

 tain and valley. 



Of the ravines which cut up the plateaux a picture has 

 been given in connection with what has been told in 

 regard to the Marie Stegen and the Binkan Foss 

 [ante p. 24]. The perpendicular precipice so frequently 

 characteristic of the ravine is not unfrequently met with 



