e districts the
cascades are innumerable. In the Romsdal, for instance, an English
traveller once counted within a mile no fewer than seventy-three
waterfalls, "none of which were less than 1,000 feet high, while
some plunged down 2,000 feet." But the majority of these would only
consist of a single thread of water, not of that great, broad sheet
which is the feature of the more famous falls.

Which of Norway's many waterfalls is the finest is a matter of
opinion. Some people give the palm to the Rjukanfos (Telemarken), some
to the Skjaeggedalsfos [2] (or Ringedalsfos), some to the Voeringfos,
while others maintain that the Vettifos, the Tvindefos, and the
Tyssedalsfos are without rivals. The fact is that each of these
(and other falls which could be named) has its own particular charm,
and the last one visited always seems to be the best. A great deal
also depends on the time of year, and on the amount of snow which has
fallen on the mountains during the preceding winter. For, it must be
remembered, it is the rapid melting of the snow in the spring that
gives to most of the Norwegian waterfalls such a volume of water in
the early months of the year.

But the summer rainfall on the high fjelds is always heavy, and
even after all the snow of the year has melted, an immense amount
of water has to drain away to the lowlands, and so to the sea. At
first it collects in the tarns which fill the hollows of the mountain
plateaux, but these, overflowing, soon send their surplus water by
certain channels away over the cliffs.

The greater waterfalls, however, are those which indirectly carry off
the water from the snowfields, the mountains capped with perpetual
snow; for, except during the frost-bound months of winter, these
falls are always full.

The snowfields are of themselves of immense interest, but so intimately
are they connected with the glaciers that we shall speak of the two
together. A snowfield may exist without a glacier, but a glacier
cannot exist without a snowfield--that is to say, the glacier is made
by the snowfield.

How snowfields came into existence nobody knows for certain, but it
is generally supposed by learned people who have studied the matter
that, thousands of years ago, after what is called the Great Ice Age,
Norway gradually put off her mantle of ice and snow and became what
she is now; but the snow on the higher parts of the land has never
yet had time to melt right away, because fresh snow