The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

NOBWEGIAN TOWNS. 123situated on the Glommen, and covering a vast space with its scattered quarters,isolated hcuses, timber-yards, and workshops. Sarp&borg also, though a merecountry town, takes up as much space as a capital, stretching some miles west ofthe factories and saw-mills set in motion by the Sarp rapids. "Wood is likewise thestaple trade of the pleasant town of Moss, standing on an isthmus between twoinlets and two harbours, and thus enjoying two outlets, the one towardsChristiania, the other seawards. Here was signed, in 1814, the treaty of unionbetween the two kingdoms of Norway and Sweden.Christiania, or Kristiania, capital of Norway, and the second largest city in Scandinavia,occupies the extremity of a fiord separating the two secondar}' peninsulasof South Norway and Gotaland, which form the great southern bifurcation of theScandinavian peninsula.The fiord may be easily defended, its shores contracting atHvidsteen and Drobak to a narrow passage, now commanded by the guns ofOskarsborg. At its upper end it forms a vast basin of crescent shape, whereharbours may be constructed under the shelter of every projecting headland.Christiania possesses two such harbours—Piperviksbugten on the west, andBjorviken on the east, the latter the most frequented. But the bay is blocked byice on an average for four months in the year. It was formerly known as theViken, or "Gulf"/w excellence, and was much resorted to by the vikings. Itsimportance is now mainly due to the fertility of the lands surrounding it. Thedistrict of Akershus, about the capital, possesses of itself alone more than half thearable land of the kingdom, and the hills facing the fiord formerly grew the finesttimber in the country, and still contain the largest mineral deposits.Lake Mjdsen, the largest in Norway, forms a sort of northern continuation ofthe fiord, with which it was at one time connected.Here also are discharged theGlommen, Dramm, and other rivers, whose lower courses are connected by highwayswith the capital, which has thus become the converging point of all the commercialroutes descending from the surrounding valleys. Christiania, moreover,enjoys easy access across the Oplande plateau and the Gudbrandsdal to the Atlanticseaboard, and especially the Trondhjem and Molde fiords.Most of the importantevents connected with the protracted struggles between the two nations have takenplace along this historic highway, between Christiania and Trondhjem, nowtraversed by a line of railway.The capitals of both kingdoms, lying nearly underthe same parallel, are connected by a natural road passing along the northernshores of the great lakes, Christiania thus forming the apex of a triangle, of whichTrondhjem and Stockholm occupy the two other angles. Seawards, also, theposition is most favourable, shipping having directand easy access from the fiordthrough the Skager Rak to Hamburg and London, through the Kattegat toCopenhagen and the Baltic.About the middle of the eleventh century was founded the town of Oslo, orOpslo, now forming the east suburb of the capital, and two hundred and fifty yearslater on the fortress of Akershus was raised, which still commands the junction ofthe Aker and Lo Rivers. After the fire of 1624 the place was entirely rebuilt andnamed from Christian IV. of Denmark, and since the second conflagration of 1858