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where running water has produced the river-beds. In the deep
west-country valleys especially, it is noticeable how often the
trough-shaped bottom of the branch valley opens out far up the
slope of the side wall of the main valley, so that the rivers must
fall in rapids over the wall. Even if two glacier streams of
more equal strength flowed together, it would be an exception if
they had excavated to exactly the same depth; and the strong
united stream again cut quickly down to a deeper level, which it
would then continue to maintain more or less unaltered for some
distance. In Norway there are therefore continual ledges in the
longitudinal section of the valleys, alternating with rapids and
waterfalls. All these are things that are unknown in countries
where the rivers have had to make their own regular lines of
fall, but are always characteristic of glacier-scored land. As regards
practical life, it has this drawback, namely, that the rivers are
seldom navigable, and then only for the distances between the falls.
On the west, there is not much room for valleys on the
narrow peninsulas between the fjords, nor is the distance from
the head of the fjord to the watershed at the height-axis of the
country very great. The rivers in the west country and in
Nordland are therefore short, although the volume of water is
comparatively large on account of the heavy rainfall. The depth of
the fall down to the head of the fjord is very great, and it is
therefore here that the waterfalls are most numerous and highest
(Valur Fos 1150 feet, Vettis Fos 853 feet, Vøring Fos and many
others over 400 feet). When there is no glen right through the
axis of altitude, the valleys generally end as blind valleys in a
cirque with precipitous, caldron-like walls.
In the east we have longer, fairly regular, parallel valleys
with the same sort of transverse section, open and flat up in the
mountains, cut deep down through the plateau to the forest country,
but again less marked there. Where the rivers of the branch
valleys fall into the deeply-cut main valley, near the edge of the
mountainous district, or over the plateau itself, there are also high
waterfalls (Rjukan 344 feet). Smaller waterfalls are also general
a little way above the river-mouths. The reaches in the river
channels are here long, and some of the fluvial basins large
(Glommen 16,000 sq. miles, Drammen’s River 6600 sq. miles, Skien’s
River 4250 sq. miles), but the volume of water is comparatively small,
on account of the smaller rainfall; and the slope is too great, and
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