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J. W. SPENCER ON 



Fig. C. — Buarbraîen depositing morainic material upon a tongne of its ice, giving 

 the false ai^pearance of a glacial plough. 



Nowhere is there apparently more ploughing action, and yet little or none to be 

 seen, than at Buarbrœ, which is advancing rapidly against a high lateral moraine. There 

 is a large ridge (fig. 6.) of stone upon a thin snout of the glacier, just as if the ice were 

 pushing under the boulders or earth. The glacier has a steep convex margin, from twenty 

 to forty feet high, with many blocks and boulders upon it. These become detached, and 

 rolling down iipon the lower tongues of ice, build up a ridge and leave a deep trough 

 between it and the side of the glacier, and delay the melting of the layer of ice beneath, 

 which is too thin to do any ploughing up of the moraine. 



Fig. 7. — End of Suphellebrpeen advancing over a moraine. 



An excellent illustration of a glacier advancing, without any ploughing action, over 

 a moraine, and at the same time levelling it into a sort of ground moraine, was seen at 

 Suphellebraeen (fig. *7). Here the glacier was moving itp the slight eleA'ation of a moraine 

 produced by the early summer retreat of the glacier, although again advancing in July. 

 The lower surfaces of the ice-tongue were furrowed by the loose stones of the soft inco- 

 herent water-soaked moraine, into which one's foot would sink when stepping upon it. 

 The moraine was being levelled by the constant dripping of the water from the whole 

 uuder-surface of the advancing glacier. 



This glacier of Suphelle is the most remarkable of its kind, being a gigantic glacier 

 rémanié. From the Jostedalsfond, which, near the head of the A^alley of FjtBrlaiid Ijord, 

 is 3,000 by 4,000 feet high, the clear, bluish ice falls over a precipice of dark rocks for 

 about 1,000 feet, and at about 1,500 or 2,000 feet above the sea begins to re-form 

 into a glat'ier extending down into and nearly across the valley of Fj:erlaud for a dis- 

 tance of somewhat less than a mile, to a level of only 1*75 feet above the sea. The glacier 

 is much crevassed, and covered and filled with debris. In fact, it was the most dirt- 

 laden glacier seen — not excepting the Aar glacier in the Alps. This material is wholly 

 derived from the side of the mountain, and is brought down by frosts, and more largely 



