rld. They
established settlements in Iceland and Greenland; they also planted a
colony in North America 500 years before the voyage of Columbus.
Herring, salmon, and cod are the principal catch of the fisheries, and
about four-fifths of the product is cured and exported to the Catholic
European states and to South America.

South of Kristiania farming is the principal industry. Much of the land
is suitable for wheat-growing, but the productive area is so small that
a considerable amount of bread-stuffs must be imported from the United
States. On account of the high latitude the winters are too long and
severe for any but the hardiest grains. Dairy products are commercially
the most important output of the farms, and they find a ready market in
the popular centres of Europe--London, Hamburg, Paris, and Berlin.

The lumber, furniture, matches, fish, ores, and dairy products sold
abroad do not pay for the bread-stuffs, coal, petroleum, clothing, and
machinery. In part, this is made up by the carrying trade of Norwegian
vessels; the rest of the deficit is more than met by the money which the
throngs of tourists spend during the summer months.

The United States buys from these countries fish and ores to the amount
of about three million dollars a year; it sells them cotton, petroleum,
bread-stuffs, and machinery to the amount of about twelve million
dollars.

_Stockholm_, the capital of Sweden, is the chief financial and
distributing centre of the Scandinavian trade. Its railway system
reaches about every area of production. Although having a good harbor of
its own, it must depend on _Trondhjem_ (Drontheim) for winter traffic,
because the Baltic ports are closed by ice three or four months of the
year. _Kristiania_, the capital of Norway, is the export market of the
fish and lumber products.

_Goteborg_, owing to recently completed railway and canal connections,
is becoming an important port of trade. It is convenient to other
European ports, and it is rarely closed by ice. _Bergen_, _Trondhjem_,
and _Hammerfest_ derive a heavy income from their fisheries and likewise
from the tourists who visit the coast during midsummer. The last-named
port, although farther north than any town in the world, has an open
harbor during the winter.

=Denmark.=--Denmark is essentially an agricultural state, and almost every
square mile of available land is under cultivation. Even the sand-dunes
have been reclaimed and converted into pa