On the Physical Geography of Norway. 165 



Kielhau's map, I find that the portion of the surface of Nor- 

 way, south of the Throndhj em-fiord, which exceeds 3000 feet 

 above the sea, amounts to very nearly 40 per cent, of the 

 whole ; and when it is recollected that only one summit 

 exceeds 8000 feet, and that the spaces exceeding 6000 are 

 almost inappreciable on the map, it will be more clearly 

 understood how completely the mountains have the charac- 

 ter of table-lands, whose average height probably rather falls 

 short of. than exceeds 4000 feet.* 



The centre of gravity of the elevated country preserves a 

 rough parallelism to the coast, although from the prodigious 

 indentations made by the larger fiords, the bases of the 

 higher mountains are often washed by salt or at least brack- 

 ish water. Of the outlying portions which approach nearest 

 to the sea, the most remarkable are the mountains of Justedal 

 and the Folgefond, both of which are covered with perpetual 

 snow. 



In the northern district of Scandinavia, where the theory 

 of a ridge is in some respects less inaccurate than in the 

 south, its insufficiency was clearly discovered by the difficulty 

 or impossibility of defining the line of demarcation between 

 Norway and Sweden by that of a continuous water-shed. 

 Such a ridge, if it exist at all, must be held in some cases 

 to run up to the very coast of Norway, or even beyond it 

 into the islands ; in other places it dies out altogether, and is 

 resumed with a change of direction. \ The present boundary 

 between Norway and Sweden was defined by a joint com- 

 mission of engineers in the middle of the last century, and is 

 represented on nearly every map as the exact direction of a 

 slightly zigzag chain of mountains called the Kjolen or 

 Kcelen. This is assumed, in most maps, to be prolonged 



* These estimates refer to German or Rhenish feet, which are about 3 per 

 cent, longer than English. 



t Pontoppidan was not unaware of this, for he states, that in Finmark the 

 Kcelen ridge in many places breaks into large valleys, and consequently is not 

 so continued as farther towards the south, and that it seldom reaches above 

 four leagues in a continued chain. (Nat. Hist, of Norway, i., 40.) The worthy 

 Bishop of Bergen, though not unjustly accused of credulity, was evidently well 

 read in the science of his time in several departments. 



