FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. Kl. 



\\cst corner of Spilsbc-r^'-cn, in the rc^Mon of X'jrlli TajÆ on Xf^rth-east 

 Land and llic Scxcii Islands, al tlic soutli-w est corner of i'arents Island, &c. 



It might I)c objccled that Franz Joseph LanrJ, the Faroes as well as 

 Shetland are not built up of very resistant rocks, but are none the less 

 dissected inio a great number of islands. Ihe fact is, however, that they 

 arc not surrounded b}- a typical 'skjærgård', with numerous low islands, 

 skerries, sunken rocks, and shoals, like those along the coast of Norway 

 and Greenland. 



The above mentioned coasts, consisting of relatively weak rocks, 

 c. g. on Bear Island, Iceland, and the Faroes, have as a rule high pre- 

 cipitous shore cliffs, showing that the coasts have been exposed to a 

 vigorous shore erosion. 



By our above discussion we are led to the conclusion that the absence 

 of a strandfiat near present sea-level along the outer coast of Finmarken 

 in northern Norway is chiefly due to a too vigorous erosion on a shore 

 of relatively weak rocks, while the insignificant development of the 

 strandfiat along the south and south-east coast of Norway, has partly an 

 opposite reason, a too ineffective shore erosion in regions where the 

 climatic conditions as a rule were too mild. 



Summary. 



Summarizing the results of the above discussion we may describe 

 the cycle of the formation of the Norwegian strandfiat as follows: 



During i)reglacial, probably postmiocene (or possibly still longer) 

 time the coasts of Norway, as well as its land-surface on the whole, were 

 much denuded by subaërial weathering and fluvial erosion. The land- 

 surface and the coasts were to some extent dissected by fluvial valleys 

 which may even have descended below present sea-level, on to the now sub- 

 merged continental shelf the plain of which they have probably traversed 

 [cf. Nansen, 1904, pp. 54 ff., 58, 151 f., Ahlmann, 1919, pp. 209 f.]. When 

 these submerged valleys were formerl is difficult to decide. 



During a great part of this very long preglacial time the marine de- 

 nudation was not by far so effective as during the quaternary glacial and 

 interglacial periods, because probably milder climates did not favour the 

 shore eros'on by frost, at least not along the greater part of the Norwegian 

 coast, and the marine denudation was therefore chiefly limited to wave 

 erosion. 



When the time of the first (|uaternary ice age approached, the climate 

 became colder, and more favourable conditions for shore erosion by frost 

 as well as for a more active subaërial denudation (greatly increased bv 

 frost) extended southwards along the coast of Norway. A more active 

 development of a narrow low foreland along this coast may have begun. 



