102 SCANDINAVIA. 



the level of the lakes. But while they receive the overflow, these reservoirs 

 distribute it evenly amongst their outlets, reducing the amount of each during the 

 floodings, while husbanding the supply for the dry season. The annual variation 

 of level in the lacustrine basins oscillates between 3 and 12 feet, although the 

 rise has occasionally been much greater, owing to the refuse blocking the outlets. 

 Thus in 1795 the Vormen, which carries off the overflow of Lake Mjosen, was 

 completely barred by fallen masses of rock, causing a rise of 22 feet in the level of 

 the lake. The choking of the valleys at the outlets of the lakes has in many places 

 facilitated the construction of dams, completely regulating the discharge according 

 to the amount needed to drive the mills, or, in the season, for navigation. 



The floating ice also is seldom dangerous, owing to the southerly course of all 

 the large rivers, AYhen the thaw sets in the frozen masses are broken up first at 

 their mouths, and so on from south to north, so that no block takes place through 

 any sudden rush at the narrows. 



But although in other respects well regulated, the Scandinavian streams are 

 not generally available for navigation, except at a few points about their mouths 

 or in the neighbourhood of the lakes traversed by them. The undeveloped state 

 of the river beds, still disposed in terraces, is favourable to industry by affording 

 good motive power, but not to traffic, which is interrupted by the rapids and dams. 

 Many are so involved with successive falls and lakes, and even with other basins, 

 that they seem to have scarcely yet acquired a distinct individuality. Thus the 

 Torneâ, on the Russian frontier, belongs really to two systems, one of its branches, 

 the Tarando, flowing to the Kalix, the other to the Muonio. Many also ramify 

 before reaching the sea, not sweeping round alluvial deposits, but enclosing rocky 

 masses, their branches being old marine channels converted into beds of running 

 water. Such is the Gota-elf, whose bifurcation encircles the large island of Hisingen. 



The chief beauty of the Scandinavian rivers is due to their falls and rapids. 

 On the Norwegian side all the streamlets may be said rather to be precipitated 

 than to flow seawards. In many places there are clear falls of several hundred 

 yards, and even some of the larger Norwegian rivers have sudden plunges of over 

 300 feet. The Vorings-fos, near Trondhjem, descends at one leap 472 feet, and 

 the Rjukan-fos, formed by an affluent of the Skien-elv, in Telemark, is precipitated 

 a vertical height of 804 feet. Much lower in elevation, being only 70 feet high, 

 but far more considerable for the volume of its waters, is the Sarps-fos, on the 

 Glommen, where even in winter a mass of 3,500 to 5,000 cubic feet, escaping from 

 its icy fetters, rushes headlong down a series of cascades, below which it again 

 disappears beneath the ice. The mean volume of the Sarp falls is about 28,000 cubic 

 feet per second, or double that of the Rhine at Schaffhausen. A recently 

 constructed railway bridge commands a full view of the entire series of cascades, 

 and of the seething waters appearing here and there below the dense vapours. 

 Notwithstanding their proximity to Christiania, these Glommen falls, the mightiest 

 in Europe, are less known than those of the Gota-elf, the famous Trollhattan, or 

 "Wizard's Cap," descending 110 feet in three successive leaps, and enclosing 

 grassy rocks between their rushing waters. The force of the Trollhattan, estimated 



