I92I. No. II. THE STRAXDFLAT AXD ISOSTASV. I3 



We might have expected to find this "distal base-levelled plain" most 

 perfect in those milder regions, where its surface has not been attacked 

 by glacial erosion. A. has made no attempt to help us out of this serious 

 difficulty. 



It might be objected that along the east coast of India there is a very 

 broad (up to j^ kilometres broad), extremely flat and low plain, backed 

 bv steep mountain walls. But unfortunately, this is just a region with 

 A-erv little rain-fall, and where therefore the subaërial denudation has been 

 so insignificant that this magnificent plain of marine abrasion could be 

 developed so perfectly, and remain relatively undisturbed, and backed by 

 oversteepened hills, because it was only sligthly attacked by subaërial 

 denudation. 



A.'s views as regards the formation of his "distal base-levelled plain" 

 has been well expressed in his description of the region of Smolen, where 

 he says [1919, p. iÇ/j: "On the mainland opposite Smolen there occurs 

 a broad denudation surface with about the same height above sea-level as 

 that on the island, and abruptly attached to a steep fell-side about 500 m. 

 high. In certain places this surface seems to continue in islands and 

 terraces at the side of fjords, which towards the east pass into a mature 

 valley-generation." From this he draws the conclusion that the broad 

 denudation surface of Smolen and the mainland has been formed by base- 

 levelling in the same manner as the floor of his base-levelled valley 

 generation, which he describes so well. His view is obviouslv that the 

 broad valley floors have joined together in front of the h'gh land and have 

 "formed a peripheric base-levelled plain" [1919, p. 221]. 



To me it would have seemed more logical to argue that, the low is- 

 lands and ledges along the sides of the fjords have obviously been levelled 

 by the same process as the flat and very even surface of the strandfiat 

 of the coast outside, and that this process has been marine denudation 

 of some kind, because the islands and ledges in the fjords have, in most 

 cases, little resemblance to what might have been expected to be remnants 

 of the floors of base-levelled valleys, that have been exposed to the erosion 

 of several glacial periods. Besides in several places the floor-level of A.'s 

 preglacial valleys differs distinctly from the level of the strandfiat in the 

 same locality, e. g. in Sogne Fjord, as will be mentioned later. 



Another difficulty is also connected with A.'s views as regards his 

 base-levelled valleys. For the same reasons which the present writer has 

 pointed out [1904, pp. 44 f., 54 ff., 151 ff. etc.] A. also assumes that the 

 preglacial fluvial valleys of the land has been continued across the floor 

 of the now submerged continental shelf, e. g. outside the coast of Romsdal, 

 Trondhjem Fjord, and Helgeland, at a time when the land stood about 

 250 to 300 metres higher than now. A. is obviously of the opinion that 

 tliese valleys too were base-levelled; but if so how is this fact reconcilable 

 Avith his theory of the valleys and strandfiat as having been base-levelled 



