ce or a rut, everybody knows who is to blame for it, and it can not
be laid to the county commissioner, as is the case in America. On the
outside of each road is a line of large blocks of stone set upright,
which serves as a barrier to prevent wagons from going off into the
ditch. There are 6,500 miles of main highway, and 11,000 miles of
cross-road, or a total of 17,500 miles of roads in Norway, and the
total expenditure upon them by national and local authorities will
average a million and a half dollars every year.

The first cost of a road is usually about $3,000 a mile. They first
dig an excavation about three feet deep, as if they were going to make
a canal. On the bottom are thrown heavy blocks of stone through which
the water can filter, and occasionally there is a little drain to
carry it off. Upon this is a layer of smaller stones, and then still
smaller, until the surfacing is reached, which is macadam of pounded
slate, mixed with gravel and stone.

During the winter the farmers have to keep their several sections free
from snow, but to do this it is necessary for them to co-operate, for
it would be impossible for one family to handle the heavy plows
that are necessary. Six, eight, and ten horses are often hitched to
them--all the horses in the neighborhood--and it is often the work of
weeks instead of days to get the roads opened up for travel, but when
it is once done, it is as clear and smooth for sleighs as a city
boulevard.

Norway has only one mile of railway for every one hundred square miles
of land; but the mountainous character of the country, the heavy
snowfall during the long winters, and the thin, scattered population
make railway construction almost prohibitive. Nevertheless, the new
kingdom has made a commendable beginning, and the state has plans for
enormous extensions during the next twenty-five years. There are
now nine railway lines in the country, with a total mileage of one
thousand five hundred and eighty-four, but half of which is
broad gauge. The state railways have been constructed partly by
subscriptions taken in the districts interested in the construction of
new lines, and partly at the expense of the national government.

The leading railway lines radiate from Christiania to Stockholm,
Goteborg, Trondhjem, Gudbransdal, Telemarken, and the Valders. The
longest line--three hundred and fifty miles--is from Christiania to
Trondhjem through Hamar. There is also a relatively long l