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 névés 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. 
‘Tn the western part of Norway the rivers are shorter 
and receive their affluents from the névés 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 
