126 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
the most bare, the most snowy, the most wintery, the most 
desert, the most gloomy of this plateau, stretches along 
the western declivities of the precipice. “ 
: From these mountain chains and elevated plateaux in 
Southern Norway come down systems of mountains of 
lesser attitude, dominated. in certain places by elevated. 
summits, but which, as a general rule, form wooded ridges 
of little elevation. And last of all come the low lying 
lands, but which only in certain places stretch themselves 
out in great plains: ; 
In all the Vesteraolen, Lofoden, and Sonjen groups: of. 
islands, lying considerably to the north of Drontheim, the 
mountains—lofty, .sharp-edged, and tooth-shaped, or ser- 
rated, often conical or pyramidal—have a precipitous 
descent towards the sea, leaving but rarely a narrow littoral 
strip of turfy soil, On some points only do the mountains 
recede far enough to give rise to small valleys, generally 
filled with marshes, .The interior of the large islands i8 
in like manner filled with bogs, which are often, as is the 
-Dvergbergmyr, in the Andoe,-of considerable extent, and 
eovered with cloudberry (Aubus chamaemorus). The sum- 
mits of the mountains rise often to from 800 to 1,300 
metres, or 3,700 to 4,350 feet. On the island of Andoe, 
the most northern of the Vesteraolen, the mountains are 
lower and the summits more rounded. 
On many parts of the Lofoden Islands and Vesteraolen 
Islands on the coast looking towards the Arctic Ocean are 
found remarkable bird mountains called Myker, inhabited 
by marcareax (Mormon articus)—common penguins (Alea 
Torda), Large guillemots (Uria troile), and three-toed 
mews (Larus tridactyllus). The Nyker are composed of 
steep pyramidal mountains, which shoot up directly from 
the sea, without any cincture of rocks, so it is only after a 
long calm, and when the wiad blows off the land, that it 
is possible to land upon them. They are often covered 
with a layer of sandy vegetable earth of the thickness of 
from 50 to 60 centimetres, 20 to 24 inches, the surface of 
