me of the year.

There are also two canals in Norway that are used for passenger
traffic--the Fredrikshald canal, connecting the Femsjoeen and Skullerud
lakes, and the Skien-Nordsjoe-Bandak canal, connecting the Nordsjoe lake
with the Hitterdal and Bandak lakes. Between the Hitterdal and the
Nordsjoe lake there is a rise of fifty feet, which is overcome by two
locks at Skien and four at Loveid; and between the Nordsjoe and the
Bandak lakes there is a rise of one hundred and eighty-seven feet,
which is overcome by fourteen locks, five of which are around a
waterfall, the Vrangfos, where the average rise for each lock is about
thirteen feet. The postal, telegraph, and telephone systems, all under
government control, are both cheaper and more efficient than in the
United States, where the two latter are private monopolies. With the
exception of Switzerland, Norway is more abundantly supplied with
postoffices, in proportion to her size, than any other country in the
international postal union. The length of her telegraph lines, in
relation to the population of the country is greater than in any other
country. There is no place in the world where telephones are so cheap
or so numerous as in Stockholm. There are more telephones in Stockholm
than in Berlin or London, and it is contended that there are more than
in Paris, but that is doubtful. The total number of instruments in use
is nearly 50,000 to a population of 300,000. You can find a telephone
in every shop and in almost every house, and in the parks and on the
street corners on lamp posts are little booths similar to those
used for police boxes in the cities of the United States. They work
automatically. You drop a little coin worth three cents into the slot,
and then ring the bell. For several years every room in the principal
hotels has had its own telephone, on the same system that has recently
been introduced into the United States, and upon some of the steamers
sailing from Stockholm there is a telephone in every stateroom. The
long distance 'phones and all the lines outside of two or three of
the principal cities belong to the government and are operated by the
Postoffice Department. The rents vary from $10 to $28 a year.

The telegraph system is owned by the government, which charges a
uniform rate of fifteen cents for ten words to any part of the
country.

CHAPTER XV

THE PEOPLE: THEIR MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

Because of its geographic isolation, the S