l i
east country), the Dovre (the part running from W to E between
the northern and the southern districts), and the Kjglen (between
Norway and Sweden, farther north): Topographical or structural
limits are not, however, to be found between these sections.
It is thus, on the whole, a very regularly formed mountain
system upon which Norway is constructed, namely, the long arch
along the Atlantic, following the axis of the country, and the two
smaller pieces of the continental area which comes within the
border in the north and the south. If we stand on a somewhat
isolated height in the south-eastern Woodland, the two structural
features are very prominent. We look out over a succession of forest-
clad hillsides, ridge after ridge of tolerably uniform height, an
undulating sea of dark forest, with here and there light spots of
cultivated ground in the troughs. Far out towards the west and
north may be-seen in the distance a fringe of higher mountains,
bare, blue mountains with white patches of snow in the hollows.
I t is indeed some of the above-named summits (Lifjeld-Solen) that
mark the edge of the Highland.
If we come up to this edge, on to a height in the Highland,
its character as a plateau is distinctly apparent. We look out
over wide, grey-brown heaths with ling and willow, bog and lake,
and out towards the horizon rises mountain behind mountain at
uniform heights. The whole constitutes an immense mountain
plateau, where the more deeply' cut valleys are lost to the eye,
and where only in a few places, single peaks or groups of peaks
rise above the general level. If we cross over to the west side,
we can see how the plateau arches evenly, first slowly, then more
rapidly, towards the sea far away on the. horizon.
The even summits indicate clearly th a t1 it. was originally a
plain of denudation that has afterwards been forced up into an
arch. The summits that tower above this, often prove to consist
of harder kinds of rock — like the gabbros of Jotunheimen,
Lofoten and Lyhgen, the conglomerates of Fjordenepgi and may
therefore be supposed to have better withstood the destructive forces
which have levelled the remainder to a plain. Actual connected
mountain-chains rising above lowlands at both sides do not exist.
But in the original, very simple, uniform mountain block,
the chisel of erosion has worked in very various lines, and shaped
the topographical details. As soon as ever the earth’s crust had
arched up along the great height axis, the rivers must have begun