PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB II9 



Of equal importance and interest with the raised 

 beaches is the evidence of the action of ice in the past 

 and at the present day. Generally it may be stated that 

 there is most unequivocal proof that in former ages the 

 whole country, with the probable exception of the top- 

 most points of the mountains, was covered by an 

 enormous mass of ice. The sides of all the deep valleys, 

 for, perhaps, from 2000 to 3000 feet up, are smoothed 

 and polished as if they had been carefully worked by 

 masons, and where the rocks are of a character to retain 

 them, the striae are as clear as if they were made 

 but yesterday. The direction of the flow was naturally 

 seawards. The pressure of the ice must have been some- 

 thing inconceivable. In the valley above Odde, for miles 

 the side of the mountain is almost vertical, and the face 

 of the rock not merely rounded and scratched, but 

 literally cut away as straight as a wall to a height of 

 probably 1500 feet in places. In the Mundal \'alley, 

 between Mundal and Bojum, the same thing may be seen. 

 The Nserodal and Romsdal again exhibit the same 

 phenomena on perhaps a still more gigantic scale. The 

 Romsdalshorn is about 6000 feet in height, and for 

 certainly upwards of two-thirds of its height there is 

 palpable evidence of ice rounding, whilst Jordalsnut, a 

 conspicuous mountain upwards of 3000 feet in height, in 

 the Naerodal, is ice rounded to the very summit. 



The rocks along the actual coast line and the small 

 islands which fringe the coast almost from one end of the 

 country to the other, have their tops and sides similarly 

 rounded and polished. This may, however, be due partly 

 to the action of water, but it is probable that ice action 

 accounts for a good deal of it. 



I have already referred to the circumstance that the 

 highest mountain tops do not appear to have been 

 covered by ice. This is very noticeable in the Romsdal. 



