The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

EIYEKS. 99streams as the llhone or the Rhine, the relief of the country preventing thedevelopment of great river basins. On the western side the Norwegian streamssoon meet the fiords after leaving the glaciers or snow-fields. On the east sidethe Swedish rivers, being directed straight to the Baltic by the tilt of the land, areunable to group themselves into one large water system. Those flowing to theGulf of Bothnia occupy nearly parallel valleys, all sloping south-eastwards in theline of the former glaciers. In South Sweden the streams radiate in all directionsto the surrounding inlets, none of them, except the Gota, collecting the waterscoming both from the plains and the highlands.The largest Scandinavian river is the Norwegian Glommen, discharging intothe Gulf of Christiania, which also receives the Dramm, whose alluvia have alreadyfilled a large portion of the great lake of Tyri-fiord. Nearly as large is the Gota,Fig. 50. Lakes in South Nobway.Scale 1 : 470,000.thanks to the volume of water received by Lake Wener from the Klar-elf and itsother influents. But there was a time when the great Lake Fcemund, nowdraining southwards to the Kattegat through the Klar, drained through theDal-elf south-east to the Gulf of Bothnia. The Fcemunsgrav, the old bed of theriver, is still visible 4 or 5 feet above the present level of the lake. But ifformerly deprived of the waters of Lake Fcemund, the Gota received from anotherquarter all those of the Glommen, so that its volume was more than doubled. Atthe foot of the hill on which stands the town of Kongsvinger, north-east ofChristiania, the Glommen now turns suddenly westwards ; but formerly itcontinued its south-eastward course parallel with the Klar-elf, to Lakes Aklangand TTener. During the heavy fioodings a portion of the Glommen waters stillescapes by the old bed, and long narrow lakes preserving the meandering form of