132 On the Glaciers and Climate of Iceland. 



groovings met with in two or three directions crossing one 

 another at acute angles, so that a reticulated appearance is 

 thus produced. 



It would be superfluous here to enter into a farther de- 

 scription of this phenomonon which is so well known, and 

 which has already been so much discussed. In Iceland and 

 in Norway it bears one and the same character ; and, all 

 circumstances being taken into consideration, its mode of 

 origin appears to have been the same in both countries. We 

 cannot pai'ticipate in the views of those who, from the uni- 

 versal extension of the streaked rocks, infer the general pre- 

 valence of ice over wide regions ; though, on the other hand, 

 we will not deny that through the motion of such masses of 

 ice as force forward, between themselves and the bounding 

 rock, rolled stones or blocks which have fallen down from 

 moraines, certain smoothed surfaces do arise which are often 

 confounded with those already described. 



A more particular examination of the Icelandic and Scan- 

 dinavian glacial markings, with especial regard to the con- 

 figuration, in respect to hills and valleys, of the surface of 

 the regions in which they are found, has satisfactorily proved 

 that they have originated in a way entirely different from 

 that of which we have just been speaking ; and that, there- 

 fore, the idea of the universal prevalence of ice throughout 

 the whole North is to be entirely thrown aside. 



The numerous Fiords which in both countries give an 

 extremely irregular form to the coasts, are ordinarily frozen 

 in the course of the winter. Their icy covering is then, 

 especially in the vicinity of steep and rocky banks, not un- 

 frequently covered over -wWh many blocks and stones which 

 fall down from above, and which, becoming cemented to- 

 gether with the ice, form a stiff and firmly-consolidated mass. 

 When, in the following spring, the driving of the ice comes 

 on, these floating masses of ice and stones combined, are put 

 into such violent commotion by the beating of the waves, 

 that they produce on the firm mountain masses of the ad- 

 joining banks an attrition, of which those smoothed surfaces 

 are the immediate consequence. 



In this manner a perfectly satisfactory explanation is 



