The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-17

torrent the river Rauma. laundering
along beside you, itself in places a series
of tremendous cascades, solid walls of
stone rising precipitously at either side
from 5000 to 1000 feet! wherever break
in the gorge occurs, either some weird
horn of stone piercing the skyline above,
or endless mountain chains showing caps
of glittering white and this not for lit
tie distance but for nearly fifty miles -
is also so different from any other scene
in any other land so bewildering in its very
superabundance of grandeur, and almost
so appalling either in sight or memory
that the successive scenes are impossible
of fitting description by writer or painter,
and almost inconprehensible TO one who
looks in awe upon them.
Another scene possessing similar feat
ures and yet with some added elements
of majestic grandeur is found in the
N9rodal, where that shorter but still
more intensely gloomy gorge opens out,
above Gudvangen, upon the somber,
mountain-walled Nerofjord. The Nero-
dial is but eight miles in length; but its
walls are so close; its two famous water
falls. the SUalheim fos and the Sivle fos.
are such mighty and lofty exhibitions Of
force and power. as though the upper ice
fields were all pouring over the cliffs their
combined pulverized masses; the river--l
mad river always roars through the Won
drous Norwegian dals--is so foaming and
thunderous; while the mighty mountains
rise to such awful heights there above
your head, the kingly Jordalsnut with its
oval crown towering precipitously above
all that the whole scene is one of sur
passing solemnity and unparalleled saw
age grandeur, II is said that there is but
one other scene in all the old world
equalinC this NRcodal and that is the
Pass of the Taurus. in Asia Minor.
Norway is above ali else, lana of
mighty waterfalls, None is 50 wide or
discharges such vast volume of water as
Niagara, but there are perhaps 500 or
1000 that the most hurried traveller can
not fail OF seeing, which are several times
higher; scores are ten times as high and
the waters of several have a perpendic-
uiar descent of twenty times the fall of
those of our American thunder OF
water" have no doubt that there are
still in uneXplor ed districts of this won
drous northland far more majestic water
falls from glaciermelting nights than
have yet met the tourists wondering or
impassive gaze; for the whole face of
Norway is simply an ice mountain rent
and torn into almost measureless assures
and gorges between which creep arms of
the sea, and into which everlastiugly de-
scend torrents, and waterfalls from the
melting ice-plateauS and mountains above.
The Lougen and Glommen rivers, the
largest two in Norway, discharge their
united waters in the Sarpen-fos, a more
noble waterfall than that of Schafhau-
sen on the Rhine. In the upper Tele-
marker district is the Riukan-fos, liter
ally the reeking or steamIng waterfall,
which drops straight from its source over
800 feet into gulf or wall-surrounded
cauldron, so clOgged with heece-like
folds of vapor that its bottom cannot be
seen. In sailing along the fiords you can
count hundreds Of falls from l, 800 to 1900
feet high SO high that the water is often
pounded by the resistance of the air into
spray, from spray into mist, and this into
such ghostly wreaths of vapor that they
disappear into nothingness before the
ford or valley level is gained. have my
self clambered along the edges of the
ROmsdal cliffs with my post boy guide,
Peter Larsen, and discovered scores of
falls, entirely unknown to the guide
books, or travellers OF the valley road be-
low, which fall into churn-like cavities
from 800 10 1000 feet in depth. reap
pearing at the Rauma river-edge in out
shooting cascades, or perhaps pounding
through cavernous tunnels Of their own
making to show 10 the beholdor upon the
highway like mass Of white coral set
hundreds of feet up against the side Of
the black and onyx-ike precipitous valley
walls.
The most impressive waterfalls Of Nor