NOTES ON A SUMMER TOUR IN NORWAY. 75 
plateaux in southern Norway is the Dovrefeld, but as this only 
has an average elevation of about 3,000 feet, it is not covered 
with snow throughout the year. 
Another is the Folgefond, at the head of the Hardanger Fford, 
having an area of 1o8 square miles, whilst the Jostedalsfond, 
2° further north, has an area of 580 square miles. Both these 
fragments of the original table-land are well above the snow line, 
as is also the great snow-field of the Svartisen, lying just within 
the Arctic Circle. 
These snow-fields, besides being the parents of the great 
glaciers, also give rise during the spring and summer to the 
numerous waterfalls which form such a conspicuous feature in 
Norwegian scenery, and to the mountain torrents which course 
down the sides of the plateaux and seam them with dark glens 
and ravines. 
Fig. 2 represents a section along a line running almost east and 
west across a portion of the Scandinavian peninsula, in latitude 
61° 30” N. It exhibits the general contour of the surface from 
the North Sea to a point where the plains of Sweden commence. 
You will notice how flat-topped the summits are-on the western 
side, and how a line may be drawn which practically joins 
them—the line in the figure. This line approximately repre- 
sents the original limit of the great plain of marine denudation, 
out of which the mountain masses have been carved. The vast 
hollows which lie below the line are indications of the enormous 
amount of rock which has been swept away by rain, river, 
and ice. 
Of the rocks themselves which constitute this table-land, I have 
but little time to speak to-night. Suffice it to say that the 
foundation stones of the country are rocks of Archzan age, 
resembling in every particular the Archean gneiss of our own 
North-Western Highlands. Upon the gneiss repose beds of 
Cambrian and Silurian age, which constitute the higher portions of 
the table-land, and occupy the more elevated portions of the 
country. All these rocks, from their bent, compressed, and 
complicated appearance, give evidence of great mountain-making 
