sible heights are robed in a constant garb of bridal whiteness.
No known portions of the globe have more extensive glaciers or
snowfields, unless, possibly, it be some portions of Alaska or
Greenland. There are glaciers in Norway which cover from four to five
hundred square miles, descending from plateaus three and four thousand
feet in height, down to very near sea-level.

Though the highest point in the peninsula is only about eight thousand
five hundred feet above the sea,--an elevation which is reached only by
Jotunfjeld, or Giant Mountain,--still no highlands in Europe surpass
those of Scandinavia in terrific grandeur. Mont Blanc (Switzerland) is
nearly twice as high as this Giant Mountain, but being less abrupt is
hardly so striking.

The elevations of Norway are intersected by deep, dark gorges and
threatening chasms, roaring with impetuous torrents and grand
water-falls, constantly presenting such scenes as would have inspired
the pencil of Salvator Rosa. The mountain system here does not form a
continuous range, but consists of a succession of table-lands, like the
Dovrefjeld, and of detached mountains rising from elevated bases. The
length of this series of elevations--mountains and plateaus--is that of
the entire peninsula from the North Cape to Christiania, some twelve
hundred miles, which gives to the mountains of Norway and Sweden an area
larger than the Alps, the Apennines, and Pyrenees combined; while the
lakes, waterfalls, and cascades far surpass those of the rest of Europe.
It has been said, somewhat extravagantly, by those familiar with the
geography of Scandinavia, that could it be flattened out into plains, it
would make as large a division of the earth as is now represented by
either of the four principal continents.

The ratio of arable land to the entire area of Norway is not more than
one to ten, and were it not that the support of the people came mainly
from the sea, the country would not sustain one-quarter of its present
population. Undismayed, however, by the prevalence of rocks, cliffs, and
chasms, the people utilize every available rod of land to the utmost.
The surroundings of many habitations seem severe and desolate, even when
viewed beneath the summer sun; what, then, must be their appearance
during the long and trying winters of their frosty regions?

It is not uncommon to see on the Norwegian coast, farm-houses surrounded
by a few low buildings, perched among rocks away up on som