162 On (he Physical Geography of Norway. 



depending for their origin and nutrition upon these snow- 

 beds, are complicated phenomena, referable by analysis to a 

 variety of causes or conditions. Of these, the most impor- 

 tant are the configuration of the soil and the climate, which 

 last is itself a complex and somewhat undefined fact. 



I shall, for greater distinctness, reduce my remarks to dif- 

 ferent heads ; and under some of these I shall endeavour to 

 classify several of the facts incidentally referred to in the 

 previous chapters. 



§ 1. On the Configuration of Norway. 



As there are few parts of the world where snow lies in 

 summer at the level of the sea, the existence of perpetual 

 snow depends in Norway, as elsewhere, upon the greater or 

 less elevation of the mountains. The general height of moun- 

 tains in Scandinavia is inferior to that of the Alps, Andes, 

 Caucasus, or Himalaya, and is therefore so far in accordance 

 with the generally received opinion, that the elevation of the 

 land diminishes from the equator towards either pole. The 

 highest ground in Norway is 8500 feet above the sea level, 

 in latitude 61J° ; but whilst the country is justly accounted 

 a mountainous one, it is so rather in respect of its general 

 elevation than from the conspicuousness of its isolated sum- 

 mits. Sweden is comparatively low and tame ; Norway de- 

 fends it, like a huge breakwater, from the invasion of the 

 North Sea, whose force is indeed still tremendous, but which, 

 from the traces of former convulsions, would appear to have 

 been the seat of powers still more energetic. The ragged 

 outline of the coast, the depth of its inlets or fiords, the bold- 

 ness of its headlands, the multitude of its islands, often al- 

 most undistinguishable from the mainland, are facts fami- 

 liarly known. They seem to shew that the boundary of sea 

 and land has been decided only after a prolonged struggle, 

 and that great masses of the latter have gradually been un- 

 dermined or abraded, so that a tolerably permanent condi- 

 tion has only been obtained when, after the crumbling of 

 ksser obstacles, the mountains themselves have become the 

 buttresses of Scandinavia. 



