Show P s y ion H 1 1 if ti R CD- CD f g lt t it li b Inflated Moby Dicks In Tow l blew I U Prepared by tho the National Geographic 1 Society Washington D. D C C. did Norway make a n counter counter coun coun- F e WHY ter claim with Denmark over oyer overa a segment of the east coast of Greenland a land once In Inhabited In In- habited b by Eskimos but now barren ti and ice chol choked ed most of the y year year ear Perhaps the Norwegians seek seck to extend extend extend ex ex- tend their fisheries for a Q large part of I Norway's s population lives on the generosity generosity gen gen- of ot King Neptune Only a little more than 3 per cent of ot Norway Is under cultivation The he country lacks the chief prerequisite of modern the industrialism the juxtaposition i tion of Iron and coal The NorwegIans Norwegians 1 gians glans striving to the utmost cannot eke out a living Ing from the soil They i import much food Nor can the they depend depend depend de de- pend as does docs England upon the exchange exi ex ex- exo ex- ex i o oJ I change of ot the products of ot their factories factories fac fue- tories for the products of ot other peoples people's peoples people's peoples people's peo peo- 20 ples farms Even tveD the skies shies frown crown oven ouen upon rs Norway The west coast for a good goodha ha part of the year Is shrouded by a pall Il of mist fog and drizzle with days of rain out of the year The annual od rainfall at Bergen is more than six os feet The country Is s traversed by a great dorsal plateau standing stark and high above sea level leyel In these h rocky sterile soils useful plant life lite i- i will not take root A great wall of lioi mountains known as the Keel heel defines af the Swedish frontier I Southernmost Norway Is In the same latitude as northern Labrador with 41 northernmost Norway 1 lying far within with with- I in the Arctic circle Norway Is hardly hardly hardly hard hard- ly more than a fringe or shelf washed b by the Arctic and the North Atlantic oceans and deeply Indented by saltwater salt saltwater water Inland canals known as fjords For the most part agriculture Is limited limited limits limit limit- s ed to nooks and corners Little farms cling to the base of ot mountains like lah shipwrecked sailors to a life raft Sixty Sixty Sixty Six Six- ty per cent of ot Norway's farms are less than five acres 98 OS per cent are less lessa a than 25 acres ili Norway seems to be one of ot natures nature's iii climatic mistakes Too much daylight In summer too little in winter too o much worthless water here bere too much sterile mountain there But nut what the country may lack In quality Is more mor than offset by the quality of ot the people who Inhabit It Norwegians are happier happier happier hap hap- pier than the common run of mortals g L They are essentially open air countr country people knowing knowIn nothing of the misery S' S by and abject poverty of ot elt city slums and d tenements They have learned to live ii ne n J U wealth of Inner resources on which to draw The They go down to the sea In ships and see the earth and the fullness full full- ti ness thereof Before them lies the panorama of mountains glaciers cloud uld r racks floating through the lofty defiles demes de de- files mes of their fjords They know the world too from the ther r Inside of books They are a bookish people prizing education Illiterates f are about as plentiful In Norway as horned toads on Boston common When it comes conies to exchange of ot Intelligence Intelligence Intelli intent to gence genre Norway has more telephones than Spain or Poland with populations populations t dons from seven eYen to ten times Umes as great gret spa Its Face and Character Each country like each human being beet beIng be be- et ing on this has hns a face and character char char- chart t aster acter of ot Its own Chile another f elongated mountainous coast country to fronting the western sea in a considerable consid consid- erable area of ot Its homeland Is parched t and rainless while Willie Norway Is drenched ht with moisture Greece and Italy suffer suffer suf sut- fer from too much sun while Norway hasn't enough to go around Greece de Albania Portugal Esthonia and Norway Norway Norg Nor Nor- g way are the only European countries e hi which grow no sugar beets too beets too much 0 sun In the Mediterranean countries h too little In Norway Contrast the tt loiterers basking In the winters winter's sunshine sunshine sunshine sun sun- shine on the steps of ot the Piazza dl di diSpagna Spagna Rome nome with the Norwegians lt clad In furs and oilskins adventuring over cold gray fog-covered fog waters i t- t Italy and Norway from early antiquity bred a n race of ot sea rovers adventurers nd tit discoverers Norway and Greece looking seaward sea sea- c ward the present appearance of ot once i compact lands that have been shot to tot t pieces by titanic subterranean explosions slops Their deeply Indented coasts 3 are fringed and tasseled with island L groups The sea Is sown thick with fragments like Ille celestial star dust In ve the Milky Way The Islands of or Greece lJ furnish goats currants and material of o. o for tor poetic rhapsodizing ofa The Norwegian a coast coust is an southern Alaskan coast Skip t pers navigate big ships through Nora Norwegian Norwegian Nor Nor- a fjords Just Juat as they do through e the deep-cut deep Alaskan inner canals The fjords whether tho the result of glacial glacial gla gla- cial erosion or faulting of the earths earth's crust are of beauty and of ot considerable human utility t Saved by Gulf Stream The warm Atlantic drift from the Gulf stream supplies Norway with both climate and fish But nut for this beneficence of ot nature Norway would be a bleak and Inhospitable waste and most of or the Norwegians would be compelled compelled compelled com com- to emigrate or starve Fish following family tradition crowd Into the shoal waters of the North sea to feed and breed They've been doing It for thousands of ot years and the they'll probably keep on just so long as this tills poor earths earth's pale history runs They return like the swallows In the spring Roughly speaking Norway has three strings to its fishing bow cod whale and herring but the herring Is king Herring because of their abundance give rise to the greatest of ot the worlds world's fisheries They are as gregarious as the starlings which cluster b by night in the tops of ot trees on Pennsylvania avenue Washington They run in immense immense im im- mense schools with some of ot their lifecycle Ufo life cycle still shrouded In obscurity although although although al al- though It is probably as well known as that of an any other Important fish Norwegian herring fisheries were famous famous fa fn- fa- fa before William the Conqueror The TIle Norwegian fish catch runs to about one and three-quarter three billion pounds of which approximately one billion bUllon pounds are contributed by the herring tribe The live herring is something of ot a traveler but the dead herring goes boes farther What one may call a n raw pickled sour cream belt Includes a better netter part of eastern Germany Poland the three Baltic states Finland and Russia The Norwegian cod unlike the herrIng herring herring her her- ring travels southward vard rather than eastward Cured codfish enjoys the entree to all classes of society In southern Europe particularly in the Catholic countries where meatless days are prescribed Some years ago when Norway was trying out prohibition a serious effort was made to exclude the Importation of ot the more heady SpanIsh Spanish Spanish Span Span- ish and Portuguese wines The IberIans Iberians Iberians Iber Iber- ians naturally resented the affront to their delicious wines and threatened reprisals upon the Norwegian codfish The codfish anti-codfish campaign was too much for the Norwegians They capitulated capitulated capitulated capi capi- by throwing open their doors to Mediterranean wines Development of Fisheries L' L 47 ft L- L 1 v. v U U I t UC from small beginnings when little wooden boats put out a mile or two from the shore scrabbling for a meager catch of ot herring Now great steel power boats make malce catches of barrels of ot fish In a day Once estimated estimated estimated esti esti- mated by the pound the catch is now estimated b by the torn ton Norway has come largely to control the worlds world's whaling Industry once a great American business with Yankee ships sailing from New England ports About the turn of ot the century It looked as If It the whaling business the world over was doomed to early extinction Defenseless monsters the poor whales do not get an even break Nature ironically dooms them by causing them to signal their own destruction If It whales were equipped to remain beneath beneath beneath be be- neath the surface even as long as the modern submarine they would be more moro than a n match for the energetic Norwegians Norwegians gians glans with their big steel ships and range long-range harpoon guns Norway's annual production of ot whale oil rose from pounds In 1000 1900 to pounds In 1027 The he Norwegian annual herring catch would load a solid train of ot steel gondola gondola gondola gon gon- dola cars reaching from New York to Philadelphia or if It converted to Norwegian Norwegian Nor Nor- cars a solid train miles long It would require at nt least double double double dou dou- ble these train lengths to handle the annual catch of ot whales The Norwegians are the northernmost northern northern- northernmost northernmost northern northern- most and the southernmost workers of ot the world Their heir operations cover a wider range than the tho flight of the tile Arctic tern Annually Norwegians Norre- Norre gians glans work In Antarctic seas close up to the great Ice barrier Just as many work In the Arctic seas on the outskirts outskirts outskirts out out- skirts of the polar cap Norway's climatic eccentricities bear an intimate relation to Norwegian ag ag- ag- ag In Norway farming within the Arctic circle Is by no means a n desperate des enterprise As the snows raUre retire retire re ra- re- re tire Ure vegetation Is quickened by long da days s 's of ot sunlight Even dairy farming formIng prospers within the Arctic circle despite de de- despite spite the accepted notion that only reindeer thrive in these latitudes |