81 
ARTICLE V. 
An Investigation of the Furrows which traverse the Scandinavian 
Mountains in certain directions, together with the probable 
cause of their origin. By N. G. Sersrrom *, 
[from the Kong]. Vetenskaps- Academiens Handlingar, vol.57, Stockholm 1 838. ] 
MANY Swedish miners, among whom, as the first, may be 
named Tilas, Bergman, Cronstedt, and v. Swab, have remarked 
that there are found mountain-slopes which are furrowed; without 
having made any other comment than that it is a phenomenon 
occasionally to be met with. My attention has also been drawn 
to the same circumstance, and I have found that these furrows are 
common to the surface of our mountains, and may be remarked 
in all places where the rock is exposed and well-cleaned. 
As my time was occasionally employed in instructing the 
students of the mining-school in levelling and surveying in the 
neighbourhood of the Fahlun mines, a favourable opportunity 
presented itself for making observations on these furrows; and 
for this reason, that the mountain-slopes are there, in many 
places, uncovered, and the smoke from the calcining furnaces 
surrounding the mines prevents all vegetation of mosses. It 
here ap;eared very evident that the furrows had all the same 
principal direction, going with little variation from the north 
towards the south. When I compared this direction with the 
knowledge we have, -that porphyry from Elfdalen, situated to 
the northward of Fahlun, is to be met with in larger or smaller 
rounded pieces around Fahlun, and that among our miners it is 
acommon saying, that the rock from which these loose stones 
(evidently part of some compact cliff) originated, must be 
sought to the northward of the place where these loose stones lie 
—and with this further confirmation, that blocks of granite and 
limestone are met with in Pomerania and Mark-Brandenburg, 
which bear the marks of having been brought originally from 
the Scandinavian granite-mountains, and from the beds of 
limestone in West Gothland, which appear at some geological 
epoch to have been rent asunder and conveyed away, leaving 
behind those parts which are confined by the weight of the 
overlying mass of basalt,-—it appeared to me that we may there- 
fore draw this conclusion, that all these circumstances stand 
* Translated by S. H. oe Esq., of Alten in Finmark,; and communi- 
cated by F. Walker, Esq., F.G.S 
VOL. III. PART IX. G 
