The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE SCANDINAVIAN FIOKDS. 83a group resembling the Norwegian Skjargaard, but without mountains, and destituteof vegetation. On the Baltic side there are innumerable little islets, especiallyat the entrance of the gulfs and rivers north of Kalmar ;but they are mostly lowrocks in shallow water, forming a seaward continuation of the Swedish plains.To these plains belong also the two large islands of Oland and Gotland, stretchingsouth-west and north-east, parallel with each other and with the axis of themainland.Oland, composed, like the neighbouring coast, of older chalks, seems, in fact, tobe merely an advanced strip of the seaboard about 80 miles long, and separatedfrom Scania by Kalmar Sound, less than 2 miles wide at its narrowest point,scarcely 24 feet deep off Kalmar, but with a mean depth of 60 feet at bothentrances. Gotland, lying much farther off, is connected south -westwards withthe coast by the extensive Hoborg Bank, and by a sort of submarine peninsulalimited on either side by depths of over 1G0 feet. It is larger and higherthan Oland, with one hill 200 feet high. It is continued northward by asubmarine bank, on which rest the islets of Faro and Gotska Sandon.The Scandinavian Fiords.The submarine Norwegian orography corresponds with that of the mainland.Thus the Sogne-fiord, 4,080 feet deep at its entrance, occurs immediately south ofthe lofty Justedal snow-fields, at the western foot of the Giant Mountains. TheHardanger-fiord also, over 1,800 feet deep, is flanked by the Thorsnut, rising5,000 feet, to the south of Bergen. In many of the fiords the cascades have anunbroken fall of over 2,000 feet, seeming to fall from the skies when the brinks ofthe precipices are shrouded in mist. At times these aerial streams are buffetedor swayed by sudden gusts of wind, sj>rinkling the rocky cliffs with a silveryspray. Many disappear in mid-air, changed to diaphanous mist, again condensing,re-forming on projecting ledges, and once more evaporating before reaching thesurface. In winter and spring avalanches of snow and detritus are precipitatedfrom the higher gorges to the lower valleys.At first sight the Norwegian fiords present a very irregular appearance,inlets, peninsulas, islands, and islets seeming to be entangled in inextricable confusion.Yet a certain order soon becomes apparent, and we discover that thesefiords are far more uniform than the Scottish firths. Few of them expand tobroad estuaries, nearly all communicating with the sea through narrow channelsbetween lofty headlands. The opposite cliffs maintain a certain parallelism inthe midst of their regular windings, and before reaching the sea several ramifyinto two branches enclosing an island, the projections of whose steep sidescorrespond with the receding outlines of the mainland.Others, such as the Sogneand Hardanger fiords, branch off right and left, the side branches forming rightangles with the main channel, and themselves throwing off similar but narrowerbranches, also at right angles.The land is thus cut up into innumerable regular,or at least uniform blocks, some forming a portion of the mainland, others partly orentirely surrounded by water—a strange labyrinth of plateaux, peninsulas, and