80 NOTES ON A SUMMER TOUR IN NORWAY. 
features as they would be seen during a voyage from South to 
North :— 
Our first view of the Norwegian coast was at Skudesnaes, 
where the steamer first enters that wonderful maze of islands, the 
Skjaergaard, which exists, with but few breaks, almost to the North 
Cape, and forms a very welcome shelter against the boisterous 
storms of the North Sea. All these islands in Southern Norway 
show, just as do the lower heights of the mainland, most unmis- 
takable signs of having been under the great ice plain. As the 
eye becomes gradually able to interpret these indications of ice 
action, they can be traced higher and higher on the steep 
mountain sides, but less clearly the higher we go. 
We now come to the Hardangerfjord, which, with its several 
branches, penetrates inland for a distance of 75 miles. It is one 
of the most beautiful of all the Norwegian fjords, and is enclosed 
by rocky and precipitous mountains from 3,000 to 5,000 feet in 
height. At the end of one of the principal ramifications, the 
Sorfjord, stands the beautiful little village of Odde. The village 
itself is built upon a raised terrace, which consists of the alluvial - 
deposits brought down by the present stream at a time when the 
land was at a lower level than it is at present, and when the fjord 
consequently extended much further up the valley. This terrace 
is one of the numerous indications of a comparatively recent rise 
of the land, a rise probably well within the historic period. At 
the present time we have reason to believe that the relative levels 
of land and sea in this part of Norway are not altering materially, 
but a few degrees further north it has been well established that 
an elevation of the land is taking place at the rate of as much as 
five feet in a century, or more than half an inch in a single 
year. 
To the west of Odde lies, between two arms of the fjord, an 
isolated portion of that great plateau of Norway to which I have 
referred, the Folgefond. This, rising as it does above the snow 
line, is covered all the year round with a thick and spotless 
mantle of snow, which feeds the glaciers that flow down through 
several gorges, and from its partial melting in the summer gives 
