Chapter XII
Waterfalls, Snowfields, and Glaciers
A really fine waterfall is a most fascinating thing. Long before you reach it you hear the roar of the water, and see the spray ascending like steam from a boiling caldron. Then when you stand before it, you gaze in wonder on the never-ending rush of water, hurtling in one great mass from top to bottom of the lofty cliff, or leaping in mighty bounds from ledge to ledge.
Nowhere in Europe can one see such a variety of waterfalls as in Norway, for every district has its fos, and in some districts the cascades are innumerable. In the Romsdal, for instance, an English traveller once counted within a mile no fewer than seventy-three waterfalls, “none of which were less than 1,000 feet high, while some plunged down 2,000 feet.” But the majority of these would only consist of a single thread of water, not of that great, broad sheet which is the feature of the more famous falls.
Which of Norway’s many waterfalls is the finest is a matter of opinion. Some people give the palm to the Rjukanfos (Telemarken), some to the Skjæggedalsfos[1] (or Ringedalsfos), some to the Vöringfos, while others maintain that the Vettifos, the Tvindefos, and the Tyssedalsfos are without rivals. The fact is that each of these (and other falls which could be named) has its own particular charm, and the last one visited always seems to be the best. A great deal also depends on the time of year, and on the amount of snow which has fallen on the mountains during the preceding winter. For, it must be remembered, it is the rapid melting of the snow in the spring that gives to most of the Norwegian waterfalls such a volume of water in the early months of the year.
But the summer rainfall on the high fjelds is always heavy, and even after all the snow of the year has melted, an immense amount of water has to drain away to the lowlands, and so to the sea. At first it collects in the tarns which fill the hollows of the mountain plateaux, but these, overflowing, soon send their surplus water by certain channels away over the cliffs.
The greater waterfalls, however, are those which indirectly carry off the water from the snowfields, the mountains capped with perpetual snow; for, except during the frost-bound months of winter, these falls are always full.
The snowfields are of themselves of immense interest, but so intimately are they connected with the glaciers that we shall speak of the two together. A snowfield may exist without a glacier, but a glacier cannot exist without a snowfield—that is to say, the glacier is made by the snowfield.
How snowfields came into existence nobody knows for certain, but it is generally supposed by learned people who have studied the matter that, thousands of years ago, after what is called the Great Ice Age, Norway gradually put off her mantle of ice and snow and became what she is now; but the snow on the higher parts of the land has never yet had time to melt right away, because fresh snow is always falling and adding to the pile. And it is the weight of all this fresh snow on the top of the accumulation of centuries which produces the glaciers.