In the north European mountain region the mass of heights which form the
Scandinavian peninsula are by far the most important. These present no
definite range, but are rather a collection of broad plateaus topped
with moor or snow-field, cut into by long steep-walled “fiords” on the
Atlantic side, and resembling the Alps in the pine woods of their
slopes, in their lakes and extensive glaciers, though they are nowhere
of very great altitude.
The main _field_, which is applied to most of the Scandinavian mountain
groups, suggests their plateau form; the _Hardanger Field_, _Ymes
Field_, and _Dovre Field_, with the _Jostedals Brae_ (or
ice-brae--glacier), are the most prominent of the southern heights of
Norway; in the north the broken heights which run along the Atlantic and
Arctic borders of the peninsula have the general name of the _Kiölen_.
The heather-covered hills of Scotland--the Grampians and west coast
mountains--as well as those of Cumberland and Wales farther south in
Great Britain, belong to the same system as that of the Scandinavian
heights.