A. The natural (/Oiulitioiis of the Fiords. 



relates, that in a tVat;uieiit of an ancient 

 : in tlie year 872 „one of the two Nor- 

 IvAii. went with a large army from Ire- 



•) to aid lii.s father wiio was at war with 



One of our historian 

 Irish annal it is tolil. tin 

 wegian kiniis in Dulilin. 

 land to Lochlann (Norwa 

 the king of Lochlann."') 



It must be said that the ancient Irish had found a particu- 

 larly suitable name for the land, which is also in modern tourist 

 language made famous as „the land of fiords'' . The Norwegian 

 series of fiords presents many interesting problems to the naturalist 

 too, and a thorough examination of them will undoubtedly serve to 

 thi-ow light on many questions. 



If one sets to work to make a tlioiduiih seieiititie investigation 

 of a tiord, the facts obtained may be divided into three principal 

 groups; those concerning the shape and situation of the fiord (top- 

 ography), or concerning the medium with which the fiord basin 

 is filled (hydrography) or concerning the plants and animals con- 

 tained in it (biology). The object in view, in case of such an 

 examination, should be to gain the greatest possible insight mto the 

 biological phenomena, but in order to attain this end, one will be 

 compelled to study most carefully the topographical and hydro- 

 gi-aphical conditions of the fiord. As a part of the topography of 

 the fiords one must. I think, consider such things as their geo- 



graphical position, proi)ortionate size, subdivisions, relative depths, 

 the occurrence of barriers, rocks under water, holms and islands. 

 In addition to these things, the nature of the bottom and the sur- 

 rounding hills, the geological history of the fiord (e. g. the rise and 

 fall in the shore line) etc., must be taken into consideration as be- 

 longing to the topography of a fiord. To the hijdroyrapluj of the 

 fiords may be reckoned all the facts and qualities concerning the 

 medium which fills their basins, such as salinity, temperature, gas- 

 eity, transparency, the motions of the water (currents, waves, tides), 

 formation of ice, inflow of rivers or streams etc. Finally, atmos- 

 pherical conditions must also be taken into consideration as play- 

 ing an important part in the physical state of a fiord (c. g. tem- 

 perature, downfall, prevailing winds, atmospheric pressure etc.). 



The biology of the fiords will include vegetable and animal life 

 in their waters, at the bottom and in the bottom mud. The plan 

 here suggested for the examination of a tiord must, I thiidc, he taken 

 to be tolerably complete, and I will look upon it as a guide in 

 my future work. I must, however, at once confess that the in- 

 vestigations I have hitherto made in noiihern Norway do not make 

 it possible to fill in very much of the frame work I have set up 

 in the foregoing lines. I will, nevertheless, build up the skeleton 

 in the hope that it may be sohdly covered later on. 



a. Topographical Notes. 



The Geographical survey of the Norwegian coast has given us 

 maps, in which very much of what I call the topography of the 

 fiords is made clear. But the complete mapping out of the northern 

 fiords is not yet finished. A good deal of information about the 

 fiords will also be found in Prof. A. Hellands-) topographical works, 

 and a description of the ground through which the fiords have dug 

 their way, will be found in „Det nordlige Norges geologi" (The 

 Geology of Northern Norway) by Dr. H. Reusch. The problem 

 of the fluctuations in the shoreline ai-e treated in detail by Dr. 

 Andreas Hansen.^) In a hydrographical paper concerning the 

 western fiords,*) I have touched upon the etfect which changes in 

 the level of the sea have upon these inner parts of the fiords which 

 are connected with the principal fiord by comparatively shallow 

 curi-ents. 



As rega'-ds these currents, it seems i)retty generally to be the 



') Loch = lake, fiord. 

 '•^) Lofoten og Vesteraalen, Tromsø amt. 

 *) Norges geoL undersøgelses aarbog f. 1896 — 99. 

 *) Studier over naturforholdene i vestlandske tjordu 

 Mus. aarb. 1903, no. 8. 



Hvdriigrafi. lierg. 



case that they have forced their way through moraines, which in 

 many instances cause the comparative confinement. Helland') 

 mentions examples of this, in Kvænangen, both the „Stor'"- and 

 „Lille strømmen" having forced themselves through old morain' -. 

 It is most probable, that the majority of the so-called „stroinnn ■■ 

 (currents) in the fiords, run over such moraines. 



With respect to the situation of a fiord, it is not only its geo- 

 graphical latitude which is of importance for its vegetable and 

 animal life, a very weighty factor is also its relative position to 

 the prevaiUng current in the surrounding ocean. I^et us make an 

 experiment. We cut a section along the 22nd degree of longitude 

 (E of Greenwich) towards the boundary line of Finland and con- 

 tinue to cut along the boundary to Jacob's river on the south side 

 of the Varanger Fiord. Then we turn this section around the point 

 where the longitudinal line and the shore line of the continent 

 intersect, so that the fiords of Finmark will lie in a direction which 

 is approximately E— W. These fiords will then undoubtedly undergo 

 a chauire in their biologv. and notwithstanding that they wei-e 



