the rolling logs into the whirling currents and are tossed against
sharp rocks; and the marvel is not that the death-rate among floaters
is so high, but that any of them survive the perilous occupation.

The value of the exports of forest products and timber industries
reaches about eighteen million dollars a year, and the combined forest
industries furnish employment to a large number of laborers. The state
forests occupy about 3,500 square miles, more than half being located
in the northern provinces of Tromsö and Finmark. The state also has
nurseries at Vossevangen and Hamar, and three forestry schools, by
means of which widespread interest in tree-planting has been aroused.
Destructive forest fires and the slaughter of the trees by the
remarkable development of the wood-pulp industries have emphasized in
recent times the need of larger forest reserves and closer government
supervision. Under the most favorable conditions, the pine requires
from seventy-five to one hundred years to yield timber twenty-five
feet in length and ten inches in diameter at the top. Spruce will
reach the same size in seventy-five to eighty years. In the higher
altitudes of the central part of the country the pine requires one
hundred and fifty years, and rarely exceeds one hundred feet in
height, and it decreases toward the coast and northwards.

The fisheries of Norway are among the most important in the world,
yielding the nation more than seven million dollars a year, and
furnishing employment to eighty thousand men. The sea-fisheries play
the chief part in this branch of industry. The long coast line and
the great ocean depth near the coast combine to give the fisheries of
Norway unusual advantages. The abundance of fish is also due to the
presence of masses of glutinous matter, apparently living protoplasm,
which furnishes nutriment for millions of animalcules which again