258 Mr Bohr's Accoimt of a Visit to the Glacier of 



gen this year were very good, while nothing but the moraine 

 stood between the glacier and the ripe corn. 



On Melvirsdal borders Stordal, over which the shealings of 

 the inhabitants of Justedal lie spread. (These are the moun- 

 tain huts to which the natives of the valleys in Norway repair 

 in summer, when the high pastures are accessible to their cattle.) 

 These mountain downs and plains, beneficent nature has en- 

 riched with many luxuriant trees and plants. In the beginning 

 of July, the snow had vanished from the pastures. A beauti- 

 tiful summer here follows a long winter : The length of the day, 

 the stillness of the night, the heat reflected from the sides of 

 the mountains, concur to awaken almost instantaneously the 

 powers of nature. The Author of Nature saw it necessary, 

 that, in regions where the sunmier is sadly contracted, plants 

 should spring up, bloom, and ripen, in the shortest possible time. 

 On the 11th of July the peasants had begun to draw up to 

 their friendly shealings. First came a drove of cattle, then a 

 horse with panniers, followed by a peasant, with his little child 

 on his back ; then the mother and her household. All were jest- 

 ing and singing, every thing was activity and gladness. Some- 

 times, indeed, masses of snow threatened to tumble down upon 

 them from the rocky summits, and fragments of the rocks them- 

 selves which had fallen, contributed the more to awaken appre- 

 hension ; butjhe sight of the cheerful valley banished every dis- 

 agreeable impression, while the glacier seemed necessary as a 

 contrast to the beauty of the scene. Step by step, the glacier of 

 Biora Steg (the Bear's Path) presented itself to our view, like 

 an immense theatre, between ice-covered mountains, the sides of 

 which, like the scenes of a theatre, embellished with the most 

 picturesque groupes, inclosed this majestic mass of ice. Several 

 objects in front of it shew beyond doubt that this, like the 

 other glaciers in Justedal, had extended farther down, and was 

 of greater depth in former days. The river of Justedal, which 

 formerly went under this glacier, runs now between the ice and 

 the moraine, which it had formerly carried down with it, and which 

 marks its ancient limits. At one place was a sort of road, laid 

 with stones, over which the peasants, about eighty years ago, 

 used to pass to their shealings. About this time the glacier 

 broke through with such force, that those who were going to 



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