78 Robert Chambers, Esq., on Changes of the 
on local circumstances, as currents and perhaps prevailing 
winds, that any such impressions are to be made upon a 
coast, while the relative level is in the course of being 
changed. 
The farthest north point to which I traced the remarkable 
couple of terraces is Mour Sund, fully ten hours’ sail north 
of Tromsée. The mountains then begin to be rough with 
debris, so as perhaps to have presented an unsuitable sur- 
face for such markings. M. Keilhau appears to have found 
the lower of the two still farther along to the north-east, 
namely, in Langfiord, one of the branches of the Altenfiord. 
The terrace which he observed in that place is set down by 
him at 523 feet above the sea. The gentleman who told 
me of the terraces in Balsfiord, assured me of there being 
similar objects in Lyngenfiord, a great inlet which receives 
several considerable streams. A careful examination of these 
recesses would probably afford a rich harvest of results, and 
help materially to solve the problems connected with this 
subject. 
We now approach a portion of the coast, presenting a 
group of terraces which has already attained some celebrity. 
The district in question may be said to extend from the Al- 
tenfiord, with its branch Kaafiord, into the strait called Varg 
Sund, which is formed by the mainland on the one side, and 
the Island of Seiland on the other; being afterwards pro- 
longed into the two sounds surrounding the Island of Qualée. 
Altogether it is a range of estuaries and straits extending 
about fifty miles in a direction generally north and south, and 
mostly comprised in the 70th degree of latitude. This 
portion of the Norwegian coast was examined in 1839, by M. 
Bravais of the French Scientific Expedition of the North ; 
and the facts pointed out by him were briefly these :— 
At the mouth of the river Alten, there is a terrace of sand, 
223 feet above the sea, and this extends up the river, always 
on the same level, till, at a village five or six Jeagues in the 
interior, it is only about 91 feet above the general level of 
the district. At the mouth of the smaller stream, commonly 
called the Kaafiord Elv, a few miles from the mouth of the 
Alten, there is a similar sandy terrace at the same elevation 
