166 On the Physical Geography of Norway. 



along the border of the two countries, considerably to the 

 south-east of Throndhjem, and it was even long maintained 

 that a mountain mass existed there of prodigious elevation, 

 from which a great many rivers, particularly the Glommen, 

 the Gota, and the Dal, take their rise. The height of this 

 fabulous mountain was even assumed to be 12,000 feet. It 

 is, however, only a slight and lower extension of the plateau 

 of the Dovre-field beyond the deep valley of the Glommen, 

 and its greatest height does not amount to 5000 feet. 



Perhaps, however, those Scandinavian geographers go too 

 far who insist that the existence of the Kjolen is purely 

 mythical, and that they must be " hunted and expelled " 

 from our maps. The able researches of Wahlenberg, Keilhau, 

 Vibe, and Munch, and the improved charts of the coast, have 

 thrown the greatest light on the form of the country. The 

 contoured map of Keilhau, though, of course, in many places 

 conjectural, gives us a tolerably accurate picture of the gene- 

 ral relief; and though the Kjolen range be broken, sometimes 

 almost annihilated, now pushed inland, and now bounding the 

 very shore (as at Fondal, lat. 66%°, and Lyngen, lat. 70°), it 

 must, I think, be admitted, that it is worthy of being classed 

 amongst mountain ranges.* It has not in the far north the 

 peculiarly tabular form of the southern mountains, and is 

 distinguished by many summits of noble forms, and a grandeur 

 disproportioned to their absolute elevation, as the Seven 

 Sisters, the Lofoddens, and the Peppertinderne. It attains 

 its greatest elevation (I speak now of the northern division) 

 at Sulitelma, in lat. 67&°, being no less than 6200 English 

 feet. Sulitelma is not an isolated mountain, but forms part 

 of a wild and extensive group, first visited and clearly de- 

 scribed by Wahlenberg, who justly characterizes it as the 

 centre of the Alps of Lapland. 



It is true that there are at intervals passes across the 

 Kjolen mountains, which are extremely low, such as the 

 frequented road from Throndhjem to Sundsvall on the Baltic, 



* Wahlenberg, surely a most competent authority, continually speaks of the 

 " alpium jugum" in describing the course of the mountains between Norway 

 and Sweden. 



