1 J8 Esmark on the Geological History of' the Earth. 



could have been formed only by masses of ice, which must 

 have filled up the whole valley, and, by their spreading atid 

 pressure, have hollowed out its bottom. In all probability the 

 water of the melted ice, at a late period, burst through the 

 dike, and for a while had its issue through the opening, and 

 its present outlet either did not then exist, or was filled up 

 with ice and gravel. On the plain below we find not a trace of 

 the gravel carried down from the dike, a thing of course not to 

 be expected, when we think of a torrent 200 feet in breadth 

 rushing out with violence. Not only the dike itself, but the 

 whole horizontal surface, exhibits proofs that there has been a 

 glacier here, for the plain exactly resembles those which I found 

 adjoining to the glaciers presently existing between Londfiord 

 and Lomb, in Guldbrandsdal, where I had likewise occasion to 

 travel last summer. The resemblance is so striking, that every 

 one who has an opportunity of making the comparison, must 

 form the same opinion. As a proof of this I may mention, that 

 Mr O. Tank, a skilful young mineralogist, who visited with 

 me the dike of which I have given the description, and after- 

 wards accompanied me to the glaciers, I have just mentioned, 

 on seeing the latter, without having heard a hint on the subject 

 from me, he immediately exclaimed that the dike we had seen 

 at Stavanger must be a glacier dike,* 



As I think that what I have stated will be sufficient to prove 

 that the Norwegian mountains have been covered with ice down 

 to the level of the sea, and therefore that the sea itself must have 

 been frozen, we may from this find the reason why the Norwegian 

 mountains in general are so steep, I may say perpendicular, on 

 the sides which hang over the valleys, not only in the valleys 

 which are high above the level of the sea, but in those from the 

 bottom of which the waters run into the Norwegian Fiords 

 (Firths). -[• Ice, or glaciers, by their immense expanding powers, 

 must, beyond doubt, have produced this change in their original 

 form, from this circumstance, that they were continually sliding 



• The principal glacier in the valley of Boredhus descends from 3000 

 feet above the sea to 1400, with a moraine or dike, of earth and stones, in 

 front, from 6 to 800 feet broad — Edit. 



+ Our English geographers use Frith from fretuniy instead of the correct 

 word Firth, from the Danish Fwrd. — Edit. 



