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structed, and protective measures of various kinds executed, and
booms bave been laid partly to regulate the flow, partly to collect
the timber and sort it according to the several marks. By means
of shoots blasted out of the rock or constructed of wood-work, an
attempt has been made to get past waterfalls, where the timber
would otherwise be liable to be destroyed or injured, in an easy
and cheap manner. Timber shoots, dry or aquiferous, are also
employed in order to carry the timber down mountain slopes and
across rugged ground and wherever transport by means of horses
would not be practicable, or at least would be too expensive.
Historical records, as well as investigations of the soil, especially
of the bogs, give ns the certainty that Norway in former
times had much more forest than it has now. I t is on the
mountains and the coast especially that the forests have disappeared.
As far north as the 62nd degree of latitude, pine roots
and - actual remnants of forest are found in bogs which may be
situated more than 330 feet above the highest limit of the
pine at thè present time. To mention an instance, the records
show that in the neighbourhood of the present mountain town
of Boros, so dense and luxuriant a pine forest was growing about
three hundred years ago that it was necessary to blaze a path
with an axe across regions which no later than the end of the
eighteenth century had to be considered as devoid of forest. In
other places, for instance in the table-land of the Dovrefjeld, the
pine has been partly supplanted by the birch. But even the birch
forest has to a certain extent had to yield and withdraw from
the highest mountain slopes. Our knowledge of forest matters
during earlier times is, however, rather defective. The exportation
of timber and forest products was hardly of any importance before
the Hansards, in the fourteenth century, commenced to appropriate
the commerce of the country, and it Only assumed a more
considerable extent through the commerce in the sixteenth century
with thè Dutch, and in the seventeenth century also with the
Scotch and English. I t is probable, that the coast forests in the
west and south of the country were cut out about this time, and
this was particularly the .case with the splendid oak forests, so
that from about the middle of the seventeenth century it became
necessary to commence cutting in the nearest inland parts. At
the same time the mining industry was making rapid progress,
and for the last three hundred years has consumed exceedingly