The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

NORWEGIAN TOWNS.12ccenturies been the common rendezvous of all the Opplander, or "Hen of theUplands," and here St. Olaf was elected King of Norway in 10-30. Ha mar, onthe ea?t side of the lake, was the religious capital. It contains the ruins of animposing cathedral, but was destroyed by the Swedes in 1569, when the inhabitantsfled to Opslo, thus contributing tothe prosperity of the town destined later on tobecome the capital of the state.All the coast towns south and west of Christiania are engaged in the exporttrade—Drammen, for instance, shipping planks and minerals ; Stavanger, curedFiff.6].—HlTTEKBAL CHtKCH.SfiSygSiX-gr^fish. At the end of 1876 the commercial navy of the ports on the Skager Rakand Stavanger-fiord, in the Christiania and Christianssand districts, comprised5,500 vessels of 1,270,000 tons, with over 46,000 hands. Thus this "Phoenicia ofthe Xorth " possesses a larger mercantile fleet than vast states like France, Spain,or Russia, with tens of millions of inhabitants.Drammen is one of the chief centres of this commercial activity.Standing at