210 A sporting Tour in Norway. [Sess. 



at Odde. As it was Sunday, I was interested in watching boats 

 filled with men and women rowing to and from the church. 

 The variegated attire of the girls, generally with blue or white 

 skirts and bodices of bright red, had a pleasing and pictur- 

 esque appearance. I observed that women were adepts at 

 rowing as well as men. At Odde, the principal place of 

 interest is the Folgefond glacier — an enormous expanse of 

 snow, covering an area of forty miles by ten, and rising from 

 3000 to 5000 feet in height. The remarkable thing about 

 this glacier is its growth. In 1870 it advanced 260 feet, 

 and in 1871 it grew twelve feet in a week, forcing itself 

 down the glen. On intimating our desire to visit this glacier, 

 we were informed that the snow was of a blue colour. This 

 interested me much, as in all my experience I had never seen 

 blue snow. On approaching the ice mountain, however, I soon 

 discovered the cause of this strange phenomenon. Wliat is 

 called eternal snow is simply ice, which, as is well known, is 

 of a blue colour. With some difficulty I scrambled close to 

 it, and with my knife cut out a piece, which I can testify to 

 being hard ice. From the fact of its very frequently getting 

 fresh coats, it has in the distance a white appearance, but on 

 close inspection it, as already indicated, is like blue snow. 

 This is explained by the severity of the intense frost, which 

 transforms the snow into hard granite-like ice, as one coating 

 continues to descend upon another for six months in un- 

 interrupted succession. A river of considerable size rises no 

 one knows where, but emerges from beneath the glacier, and 

 rumbles down its rocky bed till it flows into Sandven lake. 



Norway, as is well known, has long been regarded as the 

 angler's paradise. Having had the precaution to take with 

 me a fishing-rod, I was anxious to have a few hours' angling. 

 As a beautiful river flows down the glen, through Lake Sand- 

 ven, and empties itself into the fjord at Odde, a number of 

 U.S started full of anticipation of filling our baskets. The 

 result was that one trout, half a pound in weight, was the 

 entire catch, the luck not being mine. No one who saw the 

 clear limpid stream and the white chalky bottom, with a 

 blazing sun overhead, would require an explanation for the 

 utter lack of success. There was in this case a real valid 

 excuse, only too potent to be questioned. Had our visit been 



