lO riilDTJOF NANSKN. M.-N. Kl. 



the grouiul. As a rule its effect has been the other way, as will be 

 mentioned later. 



In his anxiety not to admit too much to the effect of marine denu- 

 dation, A. assumes that only "the imiermost part" of the strandfiat 

 ("shelf") on Værøi (and Rost) has been thus formed, while "the extensive 

 outer part, \\liich now lies beneath the surface i^{ the water" is a pc-rfectlv 

 different formation, due to subaerial denudation, and belonging "to the 

 initial topography as a foreland, equivalent to that round the islands of 

 Vesterålen and Lofoten" [1919, p. 238]. 



How is this to be understood? Is the outer part of the strandfiat 

 a preglacial formation while the inner part is late glacial, and is it to be 

 supposed that the levels of these two platforms, formed in so entirely 

 different manners, and during periods so remote from one another, should 

 coincide to such a degree, that the one platform forms a direct continu- 

 ation of the other? This does certainly not sound very probable. Or is it 

 after all so that this initial foreland has also been "smoothed" b}- marine 

 denudation? If so the effect of this smoothing process may have been 

 quite considerable, unless we assume that the level of the shore-line during 

 the long preglacial time happened to be nearly the same as, or slightly lower 

 than, that of the late-glacial shore-line. 



In order to avoid misimderstanding it may at once be pointed out 

 that I do not attribute so much planing effect to the wave erosion as A. 

 does in the case of A^æroi and Røst, and probably Træna. Though im- 

 portant the erosion of the waves may have been during the enormously 

 long time they have had to work in, still I hold that during the glacial 

 periods, and during the cold time preceding them, the shore erosion by 

 frost has been much more effective for the planing of the strandfiat along 

 the Norwegian coast, while the chief importance of the wave action has 

 been its transport of débris from the shores. 



The topography of the low and flat Radøi, north of Bergen, which 

 Ahlmann describes in much detail, is in his opinion a convincing evidence 

 proving that the strandfiat is a base-levelled plain formed by subaërial 

 denudation, without the aid of marine erosion. He describes, however, 

 two distinct levels of this strandfiat which is in conformity with what 

 has been observed in other regions of the Norwegian coast, and these 

 levels are in some places very conspicuous as will be described later. 



Quite apart from the improbability that planes, as horizontallv level 

 as these, can be formed by subaërial denudation alone, it is hard to see 

 how two such distinctly different levels, in some regions appearing as 

 nearly horizontal benches cut in solid rock, have been formed by base- 

 levelling. If we imagine that the shore-line has remained fairly stationary 

 during very long periods (in preglacial time?), first at the upper level, 

 and later at the lower, and obviously younger level, it might be expected 

 that the subaërial denudation, while base-levelling the land towards the 



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