192 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
valley, the river winding through a fine wooded plain, and 
round about green knolls and mounds, that have a very 
complicated appearance even from above. On descending 
the valley, and walking a few miles down it, the structure 
upon which the peculiar appearance depends becomes 
evident. 
‘There are two very distinct kinds of valleys commonly 
met with in mountainous countries: one, the long narrow 
ravine, a mere stone trough, formed by the rocky slopes of 
tbe mountain sides meeting each other at an angle; this 
angle being more or less choked with fragments of fallen 
rock, among which a torrent roars. These valleys vary very 
considerably in their features according to their elevation, 
the steepness of their sides, and the character of the rock 
composing them. Some are deep gorges, with barren and 
almost perpendicular walls; others have a more gradual 
incline, and their sides are covered with woods, or culti- 
vated ledges and slopes. The other is the open, basin- 
shaped valley. This, like all valleys of any considerable 
extent, gives path to a river or small stream; but if the 
wide basin-shaped valley be deepest in the middle, as is 
usually the case, the river fills the hollow, and forms a 
lake, spreading itself out in calm repose after its fitful 
journey among the rocks above. Thus, the lake of 
Geneva is the sleeping Rhine. That of Constance is the 
Rhine reposing in like manner. The Mediterranean is a 
larger valley filled with waters, where many rivers sleep. 
And the ocean is the main valley of the world, the final 
resting-place of all the rivers. 
‘ There is-another modification of this open basin-shaped 
valley, where a lake of earth, generally fertile soil, takes 
the place of the outspread river. This is easily accounted 
for. The toiling river brings a burden with it, which it 
‘lays down at its resting-place. So long as it continues in 
rapid motion, stirred and eddied by the resisting rock, it is 
turbid and milky with the suspended particles it has 
abraded from the mountain sides, but when it becomes 
quiescent, these sink to the bottom, the largest first, and 
