74 SCANDINAVIA-. 



and Varangians have left a deep mark in history as conquerors and seafarers. 

 Later on, when modern Europe was already constituted, the Swedes, with a firm 

 footino- on the eastern and southern shores of the Baltic, were ahle to carry their 

 arms in one direction as far as the Vosges, the French Jura, and the Upper Danube, 

 in another to the Eussian steppes bordering on the Black Sea. But then came the 

 fatal field of Poltava, ushering in the period of political decadence. Even before 

 the loss of all their outlying possessions the Swedes were threatened on their 

 native soil, and, at the very time of the first partition of Poland, Frederic II. was 

 planning the dismemberment of Sweden. During the Napoleonic wars the sudden 

 political oscillations and dynastic changes, accompanied by the final loss of all 

 territory on the mainland, showed how largely the destiny of the Scandinavian 

 states depended on their powerful neighbours. 



Notwithstanding the mildness of its maritime climate, Sweden is still, on the 

 whole, too cold to allow its population to increase in the same proportion as that of 

 more southern lands. Compared with Germany and Central Pussia, it has 

 remained almost unsettled. The population of Sweden and Norway combined 

 exceeds that of Belgium only by alout one-fifth, while the area is twenty-six times 

 greater. 



Physical Features of Norw^ay. 



In the peninsula Norway is the land of plateaux and mountains, Sweden a 

 region of vast sloping plains. The main ridge stretches north and south at a 

 short distance from the Atlantic, but very irregularly, and with many serious 

 interruptions. Within its political limits, Northern Norway consists of little more 

 than a highland strip facing the Atlantic ; and here are found the highest summits 

 of the peninsula. The mean length of the Norwegian is scarcely more than 

 one-fourth of the Swedish slope. About one-third of the area of Norway, and not 

 more than one-twelfth of Sweden, stands at an elevation of 2,000 feet, and the 

 whole mountain mass has been compared to a vast wave solidified in the act 

 of breaking. 



The main ridge, extending 1,150 miles from Varanger-fiord to the Naze, is far 

 from presenting the appearance of a continuous range, such as it was figured on the 

 maps before Munch had correctly described its true character. Norway consists, 

 on the whole, of detached plateaux and mountain masses, raised on a common base 

 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, and pierced at intervals by profound inlets. The plateaux 

 form two distinct groups — on the north the Kjolen, extending from Finmark to the 

 Trondhjem table-land ; on the south the Dovrefield and neighbouring masses. 

 The mean height of the Norwegian summits is only one-half that of the Alps, 

 whereas the general base of the Scandinavian system is one-third broader than 

 the Alpine. 



Even in the extreme north-east, throughout the whole of Finmark, there is no 

 ridge properly so called. The entire country, with an altitude of about 1,000 feet, 

 forms a vast irregular plain, composed of palaeozoic rocks, above which here and 

 there rise mountain masses, with a mean elevation of 1,700 feet, and culminating 



