IklDllOK NANSKN. M.-N. Kl. 



(3) Hills, or mountains, or mountainous masses, surmount here and there 

 the plane of tlie strandfiat as more or less isolated 'stacks' or *mf;nadnfjcks', 

 often with very steep sides. 



No observant tra\ellar can avoid being struck by this peculiar for- 

 mation so dominant in many regions, and Norwegian geographers long ago, 

 c. g. H. Mohn [1877], called attention to it. But Hans Reusch was 

 the first geographer in literature [1894] who described it as a uniform 

 and important morphological feature in the topography of the Norwegian 

 coast and propounded a general theory of its genetic origin. He gave it 

 the name "strandfiat" ( /. c. shore plane). 



The English term "coastal plain" J rlo not consider appropriate for 

 this formation, because, as a rule, it is not a plain, and in my opinion 

 never has been. It is, and always was, composed of numerous low islands 

 and peninsulas, separated by scjunds and fjords of varying, often con- 

 siderable depth. Moreover, any plain in the coastal region, also formed 

 more or less of loose material formerly deposited in off-shore water, is 

 often called coastal plain. 



"Coast platform" might be a better term, but I consider it to be pre- 

 ferable to keep the Norwegian "strandfiat" as a name for this formation, 

 so characteristic of the Norwegian and other northern coasts, but which 

 does not occur in its typical form outside regions which have formerly 

 been glaciated or exposed to severe climates. 



After Reusch's important paper of 1894, much attention has been paid 

 to the strandfiat in scientific literature, and a lively discussion has been 

 going on about its nature, origin, and age. A brief account of the literature 

 concerning this subject has been given recently by Hans W:son Ahlmann 

 [19 19, pp. 93—98]- 



Prof . W. C. B r g g e r, wdio in 1893 accompanied us as far as 

 Tromso on our way out with the Fram-Expedition, was struck by the 

 peculiar, flat formation of the many low islands along the coast of Nord- 

 land. He gave a lecture on the subject in the Geological Club of Christiania 

 on December 14th, 1893, and expressed the view that this level formation 

 is a plane of marine denudation. 



During the Fram-Expedition the writer also found that an extensive 

 and strikingly flat, low foreland is a very dominant feature of the topo- 

 graphy along the north coast of Sibiria, especially the west, north, and east 

 coast of the Taimyr Peninsula. In a later report [Nansen 1904, pp. 20, 

 39, 42, 71, 75, 90, 102 ff.] the strandfiats of northern lands were described 

 and discussed at some length. 



Since that time I have occasionally studied the strandfiat in various 

 regions. During cruises with my yacht "Veslemoy" in the summers of 

 1904 and 1909 along the south and w-est coast of Norway as far as the 

 region of Ålesund, observations of the strandfiat were made, although the 

 main object of the cruises was océanographie research. 



