Justedal^ and to the Mantle of Lodal. S6l 



advanced^ the heat became greater than in any of the valleys 

 below, and very oppressive, from both the direct rays of the 

 sun and those reflected from the surface of the ice, and from the 

 sides of the mountains covered with ice and snow. At ten 

 o'clock in the forenoon, the thermometer covered by its frame 

 stood at 29^ R. {l^Y Fahr.), at the height of 5 feet above the 

 surface of the ice, and about 3000 above the level of the sea. 

 A little farther up it sunk to the freezing point, at the depth 

 of 5 feet down, in one of the clefts of the ice : in so short a time 

 can you experience the temperature of every season. 



But in spite of the African heat which prevailed in the gla- 

 cier of Lodal, the labourers in the neighbouring fields of Mel- 

 vcrsdal required their winter clothing, which they generally 

 wear in the warmest summer day, as the melting ice absorbs the 

 heat, and often sends down upon them blasts of cold wind. 

 Soon after the sun had begun to shine on the glacier and its 

 neighbouring mountains, heat, Nature*'s great instrument of dis- 

 solution, began to shew its ipighty power. The water from the 

 melting ice flowed in more copious streams, and cut for itself 

 deeper runs. Masses of ice sunk down into the clefts with a 

 noise like the loudest thunder, which rolled along the winding 

 valleys in innumerable echoes. The surface of the ice burst 

 with a violent crack, when the heat expanded the air inclosed in 

 cavities of the glacier. Huge masses of ice and snow, loosened 

 on the steep sides of the mountains, were crushed to pieces 

 on the rocks below, tumbhng down with prodigious and long 

 reflected noise. Fourteen or fifteen such proud avalanches fell 

 while the sun was in his power. The ice reduced to powder 

 by the force of the fall, mounted like dust raised by a whirl- 

 wind, while the heavier parts rushed down on the glacier like a 

 mighty waterfall. Sometimes, also, vast fragments of rock fell 

 upon the glacier's sides. Many small streams, too, like stripes 

 of silver playing in the colours of the rainbow, gushed from the 

 sides of the neighbouring mountains. 



A little above the moraine of the glacier, where the road 

 bends round towards Nordfiord, LodaPs Mantle begins to stretch 

 out its white giant head. It takes this name from the valley 

 over which it stands, and from its perennial covering of ice and 



JANUAIir MARCH 1827- S 



