er blocks up the end of this
hollow with a thick dam of ice, and before long a huge lake is formed.

What used to happen every two or three years was that the pressure of
the water in this dammed-up lake became so tremendous that the glacier
at last could resist it no longer. Away went the side and lower part
of the glacier, and with one mighty crash the water escaped. Down
into the lower lake, and over the waterfall, the wall of solid water,
several feet in height, descended into the valley. There it carried
destruction far and wide, sweeping away crops, cattle, farm buildings,
bridges, and everything that came in its way. The loss of life also
was often considerable, for there was no warning other than the roar
of the water as it burst into the valley.

A few years ago, however, some Norwegian engineers devised a means of
averting these terrible floods by enabling the upper lake to empty
itself gradually. They constructed under the glacier an iron-lined
tunnel, connecting the upper lake with the lower, and in this way the
water escaped at once. So the people of Simodal can now sleep in peace.

CHAPTER XIII

DRIVING IN NORWAY

Like Switzerland, Norway has splendid roads. No difficulty in
road-making seems to be too great for the Norwegian engineers to
overcome. One frequently sees miles of road cut out of the solid
rock of some mountain-side, and skirting the edge of a fjord or
long lake. Again, a road may wind its way through a narrow gorge,
with precipices a thousand feet high on either hand, and down in the
depths a wild torrent, crossed every here and there by massive stone
bridges; or, over the open mountains a road will zigzag upwards to
a pass in long loops, like the famous "Snake Road" near Roeldal.

And the surface of all these roads is hard and kept in good repair--at
any rate, in the summer months. In the winter they are, of course,
thick in snow, which, when beaten down by the sleigh traffic, forms
a new surface, which takes the wear and tear off the actual roadway
for several months.

But we are now writing of the summer, after the snow has all melted,
the snow-ploughs put on one side, and the roads recovered from the
havoc wrought by the streams of melting snow. Then the sleighs have
been hidden away in the innermost recesses of barns and outhouses,
and the driving season begins.

Driving is one of the greatest enjoyments of Norwegian travel, though
too much of it is perhaps wearisome.